No comments about The Thousandth Man: A Biography of James McGregor Stewart (Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History).

3 comments about A Memoir.

1. I am glad that one of Dev's Sons came forward to write about thier father.The book was excellent, but some things needed more explaining, for example, the criticism that Dorothy Macardle leveled at article 41 in the Irish constiution, what was the true meaning of article 41;I think I know, but I would like to have heard it from Terry. And he also needed to explian what article 41 stated. I am also glad to see that Tim Pat Coogan got some of his facts wrong, this makes his work on deValera suspect. The book is a must read for all who admire Eamon deValera. I am also glad to read more about Sinead deValera, she truely was a remarkable Woman.



2. As the youngest son of the President of Ireland, Terry de Valera experienced first hand the politics and struggles his famous father managed on a daily basis. In this amazing book, the author shares intimate details of Ireland throughout the 20th century. Events leading up to the Easter Rising of
   1916, the Civil War of the 1920s, and World War II are thoroughly documented as de Valera weaves a rich and fascinating tapestry of the times. For this information alone the book is priceless, and yet the author gives readers so
   much more than simply a lesson in politics.
   
   Born in 1922, the youngest of seven de Valera children, Terry grew up in a very different Ireland than exists today. Charming, chatty anecdotes reveal fascinating tidbits of everyday life in the twenties and thirties when the
   atmosphere and standards of Irish society were far removed from what they are today. Formality of dress and social interaction, rudimentary treatments for medical conditions, experiencing death and funerals, and listening to news on the wireless radio are but a few reminiscences adding interest to this book. The author also shares tender memories of childhood
   in an unspoiled and undeveloped countryside, as well as his years at Blackrock College. His recollections of rugby games, struggles with Latin, and trips to the confessional enlighten and entertain. But the meat of de Valera's memoir concerns the life and times of his father.
   
   The author clearly states one purpose of his memoir is to correct long held beliefs about his father. For example, Eamon de Valera has been portrayed rather unsympathetically as a man without humor or humanity. Information from those who knew him best proves the one time President of Ireland and the League of Nations to be a man of great strength with passionately held
   loyalties and beliefs, a man quick to apologize and forgive.
   
   Through the notes of Terry's mother, Sinead de Valera contributes powerful commentaries about the life she shared with Eamon. She tells of his many imprisonments due to hard stands against British controls of Irish freedoms. Of particular interest were details of their friendship with Michael Collins and why Collins signed the treaty in de Valera's absence. Her notes address in detail the Gaelic League, Sinn Fein, and secret plans the Allies devised
   to pressure Ireland into joining them in World War II. I found Mrs. de Valera's contributions to this book to be invaluable.
   
   It's impossible to cover in review the information found in Terry de Valera's memoir. In essence, the author looks back with grace on a long life lived with humor and honesty, providing pieces to a picture of his famous father who was President of an Ireland long gone.



3. Terry de Valera, the youngest son of Éamon and Sinéad de Valera, was born a few short weeks before the start of the Irish Civil War in June 1922. This book details his recollections of an interesting life as solicitor, and the people he encountered, but concentrates principally on his memories of his parents. Terry de Valera witnessed some of his father's most important actions in his political life, and was in a perfect position to give details that historians will find most interesting.
   
   For example, it has often been said that de Valera refused an offer by Winston Churchill to reunite Ireland in return for the use of Éire's ports during the Second World War; Terry de Valera throws serious doubt on this contention. He also gives insights into his father's views on important Irish and world issues, which is important as Éamon de Valera wasn't given to airing his opinions openly, although it seems that he did when in private.
   
   One of the main reasons for writing the book, according to the author, was the memoir by Sinéad de Valera that Terry persuaded her to write, and which is included almost in its entirety. Sinéad was a children's writer, but was also a language activist and amateur actress before her marriage. In addition, her experiences of the revolutionary period give a good idea of her great courage, and her opinions are also often edifying (for example, her insight on why Michael Collins signed the Treaty).
   Terry sets out to correct some erroneous ideas put out in recent times as part of the campaign to undermine Éamon de Valera's reputation. (Many English academics of recent times have painted a misleading and often completely false picture of de Valera and his achievements. For example, I have seen allegations that he admired Mussolini - Terry de Valera shows this is false - that he encouraged the Italian invasion of Abysinnia - also the opposite of the truth - and that he was a terrorist.) In doing so, he gives insights into his parents' personalities, and demonstrates the integrity for which de Valera was internationally known, and which many today try to obscure.
   
   From what he says, he had a happy upbringing, far from the terror that certain biographers have recently suggested that de Valera inspired in his children. (According to these wise men, when de Valera's children praised him, they were in denial.) He also goes into detail about his father's geneaology, into which he did a good deal of research, and lays to rest the old chestnut that his (Éamon's) parents weren't married. This is done convincingly, and I would like to see what de Valera's erstwhile, hostile biographer Tim Pat Coogan has to say to that. (Though I'm not hopeful he'll admit he was wrong.) A very interesting result of his research is that de Valera was related to the famous Spanish writer - and diplomat - Juan Valera.
   
   One may, of course, argue that this is a one-sided account, but the author's obvious strong loyalty and affection for his father is balanced by his meticulousness in details; his statements are convincingly argued.
   
   I read this at a local library, and then went out to buy it. I warmly recommend it to anyone who is interested in recent Irish history or some of its most remarkable figures.

3 comments about Selected Letters of John Jay and Sarah Livingston Jay: Correspondence by or to the First Chief Justice of the United States and His Wife.

1. When contemplating "history" it's easy to forget that to the participants it was nothing of the kind, but simply their daily lives. The charm and delight of this splendid book is the intimate view of the lives its historic figures were living while they made history-at once instructive and highly entertaining. It's also a great continuing love story, all seen through the letters between John and Sarah Jay, plus a mix of letters to and from family members and other figures of historic moment like Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Franklin and Adams (John, Samuel, John Quincy and Abigail). It's tied together with just the right amount of editorial comment, never intrusive, always helpful and succinct, giving us background and amplification just when we need it, including illuminating details about the Jay and Livingston families and the times they lived in-all presented in a most readable format, illustrated with engravings and a wonderful color portrait on the cover of John and Sarah.
   
   Their lives were entwined with the very matter of our country. They married as the Revolution was brewing, in mid-1774, and were almost immediately separated, occasioning the first letter we see from John to "Sally," as he called her, when he was chosen as one of four delegates from New York to the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia. John would go on, of course, to co-author the "Federalist Papers" with Hamilton and Madison, become the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, governor of New York, our country's envoy to Spain, raising funds to support the war, a negotiator with Franklin and John Adams in Paris to end the war, then, at Washington's urgent request, negotiator of what would be the controversial "Jay Treaty," averting renewed war with Britain. Sarah came from a distinguished colonial family, her mother a van Brugh, New York patroons, her father, William Livingston, the first elected governor of New Jersey, her brother Brockholst named a Supreme Court justice by Jefferson.
   
   John Jay's active public life took him away from his Sally often, and they corresponded diligently, the thread through it all the couple's deep abiding love. Her letters to him open, "My dear Mr. Jay" (his to her, "My dear Sally") but that was just the formal fashion of the time. In the body of those letters-along with fascinating details of daily life and family-we find "good night, my love," "my dearest of best friends," and "Oh my dr. Mr. Jay how I long to see you."
   
   The details of family life are amazingly involving. Sarah reports on her care of family finances, the progress in building a saw-mill, everyone's health, family gossip (when John's brother remarries with what the family considers indecorous haste after his wife's death, they refuse to visit him or his bride)-and makes us care about these matters. John describes his duties and gives us many passing insights into what is now "history" as well as what life was like then (he fears he will not be able to get home from riding the judicial circuit, as planned, because rains have rendered the roads impassable). We see that in many areas of family life, nothing changes over the centuries. Grandparents dote. When Sarah accompanied John to Europe, their son, Peter, stayed with her father. William writes, "...as you desire me to tell you what I think of him, I will give you my Opinion with the greatest impartiality. He really is and without flattery one of the handsomest boys in the whole country..."
   
   In Selected Letters we also get marvelous travel writing, with rich descriptions of places like Martinique and Cadiz. Sarah tells her father how she saw sugar being made. Her brother Brockholst describes Carnival in Nantes (the free and easy Romish ways, and exposed flesh, shocked his prim Protestant Puritanism). In one chatty letter Sarah warns her sister not to heed travelers who laud the beauty of European women: "...believe me it requires a greater degree of beauty to be only passable in America, than to outshine all the Grandees of-I won't say where." She ends that letter with the casual P.S. "Please present my most respectful Compts to General & Mrs. Washington."
   
   There is a great frisson throughout the book when we encounter the many eye-witness views, like that, of the people and events of our country's founding (Sarah's next letter to her sister explores the gossip about Benedict Arnold's treason and notes the widesperead pity for his wife). Sarah dines with Lafayette ("the Marchioness is a most amiable woman"), sees Marie Antoinette at plays and lays aside her own "republican principles" enough to observe that her looks and engaging manner make Sarah "declare her born to be a queen." William writes to his handsome grandson, now off at school "We have good news about a peace, and that king George is forced to lett us alone, and how foolish will the Tory-boys look then, Master Peter?" John writes to offer Washington lodging in New York until presidential accommodations are finished; Washington invites the Jays to the theater. From Paris, Jefferson sends John "samples of the best wines of this country," including "Champagne non mousseux (i.e. still)," which the French reserve for themselves, sending the bubbly to "foreign countries." John assures Washington that the president is the most popular figure in England, excepting only the king-who to John's amazement is still very popular, though "owing to his private rather than his official character."
   
   There are modern resonances, too, throughout the book. John is intrigued by growing commerce with China. Sarah describes how supporters of George Clinton stole a gubernatorial election by invalidating, on a specious technicality, the votes of two counties that would have won it for John. The about-to-be "Federalist Papers" writer gives Washington his views on "What is to be done" about the weakness of the Confederation preceding the Constitution, stressing the importance of separation of powers with its checks and balances: "Let Congress legislate. Let others execute. Let others judge." When John is governor, Hamilton tries unsuccessfully to enlist him in a scheme to steal votes from Jefferson in order to keep "an Athiest in Religion and a Fanatic in politics from the presidency.
   
   Finally, there is a view, seldom discussed, of Northern slavery. In Martinique, on his way to Spain, John "bought a very fine negroe Boy of 15," and he took another with him when he went to negotiate the Jay Treaty. On the other hand, during the stolen election, the Clinton forces attacked John for his strong advocacy of abolition. When young Plato-whom Sarah sends to school, though despairing of his learning much-so misbehaves that Sarah wants him out of the house, he is neither beaten nor "sold down the river" but apprenticed to a merchant. And when Abbe comes down with "a violent Cold," Sarah "prevail'd upon her to remain in bed," even though Sarah, herself, has "not slept for several nights," tending her children through an attack of smallpox. This is slavery-but with a difference.
   
   Its recital epitomizes the intriguing, fly-on-the-wall, honest, moving and engrossing insights that this marvelous book gives us.



2. How fortunate we are that the correspondence between John Jay and his wife, Sarah Livingston Jay survive and are accessible. The selected correspondence between the two offers a glimpse into their personalities, their roles, their values as well as their hopes and expectations. Through the correspondence one can envision the daily lives of select individuals during this exciting and tumultuous period in our history. In addition one sees a seldom mentioned Sarah, as a devoted wife, mother and friend. A gentile woman who is powerful, independent and capable in managing her household as well as the family farm. The essays on slavery, the mail and medicine and health following the correspondence are concise, informative and as extra bonus. Great read+++++



3. This is a great little book: a selection of letters to or from John and Sarah Jay, carefully transcribed and thoughtfully introduced. Many of these letters have never been published before, and through them we get a much stronger sense of the Jay family than we have had before. Sarah, in particular, emerges page by page as a smart, savvy, capable woman, handling the family finances and politics in her husband's frequent absences. The only problem with this book is the steep price, probably too high to reach the wide audience it deserves.

No comments about Edmund Burke of Beaconsfield.

No comments about Thurgood Marshall (Gateway Civil Rights).

No comments about Closing Arguments: A Memoir.

No comments about The Life of John Marshall, Vol. 4: The Building of the Nation 1815-1835.

No comments about The Union On Trial: The Political Journals Of Judge William Barclay Napton, 1829-1883.

No comments about The Life Of Judge Jeffreys (1898).

1 comments about The Judge: The Life and Opinions of Alabama's Frank M. Johnson, Jr..

1. Sikora's biography of Federal Judge Frank Johnson, who's court rulings helped desegregate Alabama, is by far the best told story of the judge. Sikora is an impeccable researcher and a poignant storyteller. Through extensive interviews with Johnson, Sikora was able to include lengthy quotes by the Judge, which make up at least 1/4 of the book. Sikora has captured Frank Johnson as both a judge and a man. This is a must-read for anyone interested in civil rights history.