4 comments about McClellan's War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union.

1. Sailing around the world, U.S. Grant sighed that George McClellan was one of the chief enigmas of the war. A century and a half later, most Civil War buffs would agree. McClellan's biographers either considered him a hero or, in the case of say Stephen Sears, a delusioned man who flirted with mental illness. Taking a page from the likes of Daniel Walker Howe, Ethan Rafuse argues that the key to understanding Little Mac is viewing him as an old line Whig of the Clay and Webster tradition who believed in self control, gentility, education and discipline. Rafuse goes into McClellan's prewar career and education and other influences (most importantly, Rafuse stresses how McClellan's jewel of a wife shaped his religious sentiments) and how they shaped his Civil War tenure. Readers may still view McClellan as a failed commander once they read Rafuse but at least they understand where he was coming from. As opposed to being plagued by psychological problems as Sears would have us believe, Rafuse shows that McClellan was man of his times who failed, in many ways, to grow with them. While Rafuse fails to provide a traditional narrative of military history, he provides an excellent political history of McClellan in 1861 and 1862. One wishes that Rafuse had taken his account to the 1864 election and McClellan's rather underappreciated political career after the war. Still, no other book truly offers such an interesting and insightful portrait of McClellan. If you want to understand the Union effort in the Civil War, you have to understand George McClellan's roller coaster ride in the high command. No other book does that as well as Rafuse's splendid "McClellan's War."



2. What a delightful rendering of General George B. McLellan from Ethan Rafuse. I don't know if this treatment will restore Little Mac from the severe wounds history has inflicted on him but it does help us understand why he behaved the way he did. Politicians always slather thick layers of patriotic ardor over the stark brutality of modern war in order to get the hostilities underway; the attendant death & destruction is never full anticipated & always pitifully underestimated. The radical Republicans wanted to unleash the dogs of war right at the Secesh throat not realising the South had hounds of their own. McLellan with his gentile family background & his Whig- Democratic political leanings & his West Point education got in the way. He was mauled nearly to death.
   
   This is an account of the life & generalship of McLellan from his triumphant processional into Washington & anointing up until his dismissal from command after Antietam (& the Emancipation Proclamation) in November, 1862. Rafuse focuses on the moderate political opposition to the radicals who ran Congress after the Whig party had been splintered into oblivion & the Southern Democrats had left the Republicans in a lopsided majority after Lincoln's election. This moderation is McLellan's raison d'etre.
   
   McLellan thought reasonable, unemotional (not radical) professionals should run the war. A decisive set-piece battle & then some mopping up would bring the South back to the Union with their traditions & way of life, including their peculiar institution, intact. Treat the Southerners in a conciliatory sort of way & they would reject the fire-eating slaveholders who brought on the war & return to the fold. How wrong he was. Six hundred thousand dead later & the Union was victorious & slavery was abolished. Victorious Grant became President & McLellan who had presidential aspirations of his own paled into obscurity, the anachronism he was. Little consolation that his scientific way of war with its fortifications & artillery abundance might have strangled the Confederacy in its cradle far quicker than Scott's Anaconda plan eventually did. His hamstrung Peninsula Campaign failed & the radicals took control. Conciliation was dead.
   
   Rafuse's account is a fine one indeed. The prose is a bit turgid to start but get McLellan on the Peninsula & the tale starts to flow. Maps are the windows into military history. The ones included are great. I never understood what McLellan's Urbanna plan was all about until I saw one of the maps & read again of Joseph E. Johnston's pull back from Manassas. All of the maps are pertinent, well done & , behold, contain all the place names mentioned in the text, a rare treat indeed.
   
   Abraham Lincoln comes across as the bewildered military neophyte he was at this stage of the war. McLellan has more spine with little emphasis on the sniveling he did about his estimation of the great multitude of the horde opposing him. He does get credit for his great organizational skills, training ability, & charisma. The Army of the Potomac was the instrument he created but never learned how to wield. Clausewitz was correct: the object of war is not to nick your opponent but to whack him so hard he won't get up again.



3. George Brinton McClellan's legacy since the Civil War has been largely criticized by historians and the general public. Hundreds of books generated notions that the Union high command prior to U.S. Grant's arrival was full of generals who could not win battles or take the initiative in destroying Robert E. Lee's army. McClellan served as the primary victim of these rants because he held the longest tenure as commander of the Army of Potomac. Even though McClellan had earned the respect of his men, he certainly did not get that same respect from Washington or from future historians. Thankfully, that has changed.
   
   Rafuse's book showcases a lot of the author's abilities as a historian and as a writer. Though military book in nature, Rafuse's insight into McClellan's political influence largely explains the behavior attributed on the battlefield. Perhaps no Civil War biographer has detailed his subject's political connections as Rafuse has shown. In the Civil War field, Rafuse is considered as one of the up and coming military historians of this generation. This only makes sense as Rafuse's advisor was the distinguished historian Herman Hattaway, whose book "How the North Was Won" is still considered a standard in this profession. Certainly, Rafuse has a bright career as a scholar, teacher, and writer.
   
   Finally, this biography explains the political influence that troubled the Union generals throughout the War. Recently, scholars have argued that Lincoln and his cabinet caused much of the disappointment in the war's first two years because of their inability to let the generals lead on their own. Certainly, it can be questioned that if McClellan was given the same freedoms as Robert E. Lee in the South, the "young Napoleon" may have ended this war a lot sooner.



4. Finding a general in American history with as bad a reputation as George B. McClellan is not an easy task. Few Civil War books have anything good to say about him, fewer still defend his actions in the field. His victory at Antietam is often listed as a draw or even a Confederate victory. This "victory" is because McClellan should have destroyed the Army of Northern Virginia and their survival is a "victory" for them. His problems with military intelligence and the chronic over estimation of numbers is a "character defect" that he used to keep from fighting the army he created and loved to much to use. When pressed, even his harshest critics, will admit that McClellan created the Army of the Potomac and that it was the premier Union army during the war. Finally, they will acknowledge that McClellan always obeyed orders from Washington, even when he disagreed with them and felt they hurt his army.
   This book covers McClellan's background and actions up to being removed from command for the last time in 1861. While not taking a position, each incident is completely covered and footnoted. This allows the reader to both check the author and to draw well founded conclusions from the text. For this reason, "McClellan's War" should become an important milestone in the evolving debate about his service. The amount of information packed into this book is staggering. While the book is so well written that, it reads like a good novel. The combination produces a very enjoyable and dynamic learning experience.
   Everything is here. All the questions about relations with Congress, Lincoln and Scott, are examined and both sides presented. Coverage of the question about reinforcements during the Peninsula Campaign is complete with attention to the critical sequence of events. McClellan's feelings about and support of Pope are fair and well documented as are his difficulties with Stanton. The Antietam Campaign is a major item in the book and very well covered. What McClellan did and did not do, how it influenced R.E. Lee's plans, and the subsequent events is very well done. The condition of McClellan's army, the problems he faced and the effect they have on the battle of Antietam is a revelation.
   The author takes the time to explain the theory of Conciliation and the political exchanges between its' supporters and the Abolitionist. The lucid discussion of the development of both these ideas and the background of the people that supported them is an important contribution to ACW this book makes. After reading this, I gained a much better understanding of the early war and how the policies developed as the war progressed.
   Over all stands Lincoln, literally towering over McClellan. The book details the pressure Lincoln is under and the changes in his attitude towards, the South, McClellan and the war in the first 18 months of the war. In addition, we come to understand how the two men, wanting the same victory, were unable to bridge the widening gulf between them. McClellan, with his background and beliefs, was unable to understand or respond to Lincoln's problems. Lincoln, forced to respond to pressure and discarding the policy of Conciliation, could not give McClellan the time and resources he needed. The strength of the book is we understand both sides and have sympathy for both men.
   In the emerging debate on McClellan, Ethan S. refuse has written his name along side Joseph L. Harsh as authors of "must read" books on the subject.

5 comments about Nixon's Shadow: The History of the Image.

1. I was intrigued about this book when I heard it praised in a lecture by Walter Macdougall, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian. He published his lecture and what he said was, "What image will posterity nurture of Nixon? The best analysis is David Greenberg's Nixon's Shadow, published last year. Greenberg describes five Richard Nixons that beguile and perplex the American people."
   
   But after reading it, I agree. Greenberg is younger than other historians who have written about Nixon and so he is, arguably, more objective. This book gives each point of view its due - those who hate Nixon, those who think he's an elder statesman, those who think he is a nutcase. It is as much a book about American political and social life and all of its strife and controversy in the years 1946-1974 (and after) as it is about Nixon himself. It doesn't just praise or bash Nixon - it explains WHY people praised or bashed Nixon.
   
   Greenberg has really invented a new genre of history here. You might call it Rashomon Plus. He shows you Nixon from different perspective but then goes on to unpack these different images of Nixon and explain why they have all taken root in our political mindset.
   
   A couple of the other posts apparently don't like Greenberg because he is liberal. That may be true, but this is not a liberal attack on Nixon, in fact he is more critical in many places of Nixon's critics than he is of Nixon. The "liberals" who came up with Tricky Dick are faulted for sneering at the middle class. And the radical left that attacked Nixon on Vietnam are faulted for being in the grip of conspiracy theories at times. The book gives Nixon's supporters more than their due. (In fact Walter Macdougall is a Conservative.) This is a highly orginal work of history.



2. David Greenberg's 'Nixon's Shadow' is an interesting and easy read but hardly complete. He is quick to label those who applaud aspects of the Nixon presidency `loyalists' and dismisses most of their interpretations as being partisan, naïve, or worse, comparing them to holocaust deniers. Furthermore, the author himself is in denial of FDR's, Truman's, Eisenhower's, Kennedy's, and LBJ's abuses of power. All of which made up the institution known as the imperial presidency that supposedly came crashing down after Watergate. Now, with that being said, Greenberg would probably contend that I believe Nixon is a victim and am a staunch Nixon loyalist...both of which are untrue. You cannot place such a diverse group of people into a labeled compartment.
   Finally, Greenberg's admiration for Bob Woodward, which he tries to conceal, jumps out at the reader throughout the entire work. Since he worked for Woodward on another book, it is apparent that the controversial reporter, whose book 'The Final Days' has been discredited by most historians, influenced Greenberg's judgement. In fact, Greenberg thanks Woodward for his advice and assistance on Nixon's Shadow. The best historical works on Nixon will not be written until baby boomers who have a stake in the outcome, such as Bob Woodward, have passed on.



3. Greenberg is a good chronicler of events and few occasions in Nixon's life, however incidental, is missed here. The book is long on details relating to the professional side of Nixon, but I was disappointed that there was a lack of personal anecdote within the covers of the book. Of course RN was an inscrutable, moody, paranoid and ultimately unknowable man, but I would have liked more material on Pat Nixon, as well as Tricia and Julie. Greenberg quotes copiously of Nixon's own self-serving memoirs but doesn't include much primary source material on Nixon as a human being.

   The strong points are the chapters on Watergate and the gradual demise and destruction of RN as President. The ancillary characters of Watergate all get their just due: Halderman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean are described in sometimes sympathetic but occasionally, brutal detail. Reeves shows masterfully that Nixon dissembled and lied to the bitter end, not to the American people, but most disturbingly, to himself. It's well-written and full of detail, just don't expect much on Nixon the man. Otherwise, an enthusiastic thumbs up.




4. Greenberg's work is the first I have read that expores the relationship between image and history in an interesting and inviting manner. I think one of the reasons that Nixon invites so much controversy was that he was a complex and contradictory man. He just does not seem to fit. Watergate destroyed him, but you have conservatives railing against him and liberals saying he did good work and vice versa. Greenberg attempts an overview of all these competing images and it is surprising how often the image being projected says more about the writer than Nixon himself. A very interesting book that deserve patient study.



5. Here we go again.... It's become a "right of passage"
   in the leftist community: if you want to be invited
   to the best wine and sleeze... I mean cheese parties,
   write a book smearing Nixon. Richard Nixon was
   a complex human being, with both good and bad
   sides to him, just like you and me. He had an
   indelable impact on the development of the nation,
   in both positive and negative ways. He is far too
   much damned for his flaws, and far too little praised
   for his successes. This book is just another stale
   hatchet job, written by a hack who will be forgotten
   as quickly as yesterday's toast; just another necrophiliac
   having his way with a dead man. It's easier to
   regurgitate leftist party hate speech than to actually
   research the man's life and be honest about it.
   Don't waste your money on this drek; it isn't
   even good for toilet paper.

5 comments about Chechnya Diary: A War Correspondent's Story of Surviving the War in Chechnya.

1. This is the true story about the struggle the people of Chechnya are going through - a region I know little about. It is written through the eyes of a war correspondent - an occupation I know little about. Goltz brings some understanding to the layman with a direct, no-nonsense writing style that will capture your attention and send your senses reeling through sorrow, joy, dispair, hope and more. A must read for anyone who wants to gain some knowledge of the on-going struggle of Chechnya without wading through a dull textbook.



2. I'll state straight away that I count myself a an old and loyal friend of Thomas Goltz, and I'm a journalist too, so my five stars should perhaps seen in that context. But I believe they are well deserved, not least for the personal bravery the author displayed in getting the story. For me, this book's particular value is that for once it strips away the shield that we reporters feel necessary to arm ourselves with to protect ourselves from emotional involvement with the subjects of our reportage. This is the first time I read the account of someone who has faced up to naked realities of this situation. The result is a rare and compelling tale of the relationship between the interviewer and the interviewed, and set against a backdrop that shows how both sides behave and above all feel when trapped in forces outside their control.



3. This book is a sign Goltz has matured since writing "Requiem" and "AZ Diary", and has found his niche. This is to say, maybe he's realized he isn't much for political synthesis or history. He has obviously done a lot of good and original thinking about journalistic ethics in wartime and the "Hawthorne effect"--these are the reasons you want to read this book.
   
   There are a lot of books, historical and journalistic, in several languages, on Chechnya and this is the least exciting and informative of the ten or so of those I've read.
   
   "Allah's Mountains", "Chechnya--Tombstone of Russian Power" and "Chechnya--A Short, Victorious War" are more interesting and written by less self-obsessed authors.



4. Chechnya Diary isn't your typical book about war. For one thing, it reads more like an adventure or a novel than straight history. It's also much more philosophical than I would have expected. The book begins with the quote, "The observer affects the observed," and boy is that statement ever borne out as the story unfolds.

   Author Thomas Goltz sneaks into the country to cover the war, and ends up in a small town called Samashki, where he depends on the hospitality of a man named Hussein. Ostensibly there to record the fighting, Goltz soon becomes intimately involved, raising many tough questions about journalistic ethics and the effects of media war coverage.

   The book really picks up steam in the second half, as Goltz returns to Chechnya to discover the damage his participation has caused, and tries to rectify it.

   It's a thought-provoking book that provides background on the Chechnyan war but also goes far beyond that to dwell on how our shallow media culture affects our understanding of world events (and beyond that, how media coverage actually determines the course of those events as they play out). Goltz is a likable narrator who doesn't shy away from implicating himself when it comes to the sticky moral questions. He brings to life real Chechnyans in such vivid fashion that you'll remember them every time you hear about Chechnya in the news.

   I had tears in my eyes as I finished the book. Highly recommended.




5. Until I read 'Chechnya Diary' I was willing to accept what seemed to be conventional wisdom about the conflict in Chechnya--i.e., just another incidence of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Mr. Goltz provides another view: i.e., an effort (at least initally) to restore to a displaced people the homeland of which they were deprived by the Stalinst regime. I also found it refreshing to read something by a journalist who is willing to acknowledge that his presence may have an impact on the turn of events. All in all, I think this is a most enlightening book and, like Mr. Goltz's 'Azerbaijan Diary', a terrific adventure story.

3 comments about Coretta: The Story of Coretta Scott King.

1. Coretta Scott King was truly a great woman, and this book chronicles some of her finest, shining moments. The author, who knew Scott King personally, does a wonderful job of paying homage to a woman so many across the world looked to in hard times for inspiration. A++



2. The book was fine, but I found a few inaccuracies on pages near the end of the piece. If the author was a family friend of Coretta Scott King and participated in the movement, she should have the decency to get her facts straight.
   
   For example, on one of the pages, she mentioned that Medgar Evers was killed in 1965 and Malcolm X was killed in 1963. That's an incorrect statement. Evers was killed in 1963 and Malcolm was killed in 1965. Whoever was doing the editing, should have double-checked those facts.
   
   In another instance, the author mentioned Ms. King's birthday on April 27, 1927. However, but at the time when Dr. King was killed the author mentioned that Coretta King was 39. That definitely was not true. Coretta King was 40 at the time when her husband was killed on April 4 a few weeks prior to her birthday on April 27.
   
   I would have given the book five stars, but because of these inaccuracies, I give it 3 stars.



3. Coretta Scott King was a strong&Powerful Black Woman. She was part of the Civil Rights movement with Her Husband Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She always lead by example. she was full of Life&always wanted to make the World a Better place. this Book captures her full essence as a Human Being&also as a Person who Helped Bring about change. this is a Must read for all People of all backgrounds. Coretta Scott King is a National Figure who is very important.

5 comments about From Selma to Sorrow: The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo.

1. Only one of the many people who gave their lives for racial justice in the 1960s was a white woman. Several reasons for this become clear in Mary Stanton's moving portrait of the life of Viola Liuzzo.
   
   In an age when conformity was considered a virtue, especially for white women, Viola Liuzzo was not a conformist. A spirited woman who married the first time as a teenager, Liuzzo was at the time of her death attending Wayne State and the mother of five children. Her best friend was African American, when that was considered peculiar. Her husband was a Teamster, but he could not control her. When none of the other students who agreed to accompany Liuzzo to Alabama at Martin Luther King's invitation showed up, she went alone. The March from Selma to Montgomery was hours finished when she and a young black male passenger in her car were shot. He survived, just barely. She did not.
   
   For all Liuzzo's unconventionality, nothing prepared her friends and family for the drubbing her reputation was given by the government. Overnight, she went from a brave, unselfish freedom fighter to a slut who abandoned her children, possibly used drugs and was married to the mob. The information leaked to the press was the invention of the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover had his own reputation to protect, and that of an informant inside the Ku Klux Klan, who contributed to Liuzzo's death.
   
   Stanton, who has since written several portraits of whites caught up in the Movement , shows that it was these slurs on Liuzzo's reputation, rather than her death, that inflicted the deepest wounds on her family. She was killed twice-once by a bullet and again by the ugliest kind of slander.
   
   While Congress debates whether or not the Voting Rights Act should be renewed, this book reminds us that our government of, by and for the people has often colluded with the worst among us to keep down the weakest. It's worth remembering.



2. Like the author I was stunned in 1965 when I heard of the Liuzzo murder and the trial of Collie Leroy Wilkins. The prologue in Stanton's book was engaging and beautifully written. However, after the prologue the book is not as compelling. Ms. Stanton clearly suggests that Rowe was the murderer, but leaves some large questions unanswered. Where is Leroy Moton? If Moton testified that Wilkins was the murderer why dismiss Moton's testimony because of lie detector tests administered to Wilkins? I wonder if Rowe committed the crime myself, but I don't see evidence in the book to support the author's perspective. Even if Rowe did commit the murder, that does not exonerate Wilkins or Murphy. Also, the book seemed unevenly documented. In some cases there were footnotes from newspapers that were either unnecessary or provided insufficient support. In other cases claims were made without any documentation.

   What is good about this book is Ms. Stanton's passion. What it lacks is structure and support for some of the claims contained therein. Still, I am glad I read the book and glad she wrote it.




3. The only thing I remember in 1965 about my childhood in Montgomery, Alabama was that I was six-years-old and there was the terrible murder of a white woman by the Ku Klux Klan. I didn't know her name. All I knew was she was killed for having a black man ride in her car with her. That is all I have known for years. Thanks to Mary Stanton's excellent biography, I now know her name and her story. One night after reading several chapters I could not get to sleep. My thoughts were of Vi and Highway 80 out of Selma. Remembering can be a painful thing but through the sensitivity of Stanton's writing and her personal admiration for Viola Liuzza, I came to love and admire this courageous woman. Sorry that we never met. I appreciate Stanton sharing her struggle to research the story and write it. That was fascinating and very rewarding to be at Stanton's side page after page hoping her contacts and leads would pan out.



4. This book took priority over my agenda, a page turner of the first order. Getting the real story of Viola Liuzzo was on the back burner of my own mind so long I didn't remember it was there until Stanton's book caught my attention at the library. The book is in layers, with the story of getting the story as telling of the 1990s as the unfolding of what was actually happening in Selma and America in the 1960s. The role of women and political correctness 1960s style all over the U.S.A. as well as in Selma rings true. The story of the civil rights movement in the context of the South is absolutely girpping.



5. Like Mary Stanton, I was also curious about Mrs Luizzo, and she stayed in the back of my mind. I am sorry for the loss her family and many other families suffered simply because they wanted to change something that was completely wrong and unjust. I also feel shame on a government who would go so far to make those who were right and decent appear so degrading and immoral and to even allow murder to protect the "status quo" This book is must reading for anyone who really wants to take the blinders off about what really happened during that horrible time. I have recently been given the opportunity to visit parts of Alabama and while the area I visited is very decent, mentally I can still visualize the Alabama of 1965 and understand why it is necessary to leave the Viola Luizzo marker defaced; as the author has stated the struggle isn't over. Thank you Mary Stanton

5 comments about Loaded: A Misadventure on the Marijuana Trail.

1. Robert Sabbag has written a funny / exciting story. The author does a great job of putting you back into the early days of the drug trade. It is one of the better books I have read recently. This guy did a lot but his world wasn't quite as ruthless as the top level Pablo Escobar types.



2. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but that doesn't mean everyone has to like other people's opinions everytime. Robert Sabbag is Hot Property and by far one of the best journalist type writer working these days. His account of the "Mari-Jane" Trade is nothing short of spectacular. As much as certain segments of the population might want to criticize all things involving drugs, it is still quite obvious that these stories are highly (and I stress "highly") connected with american culture and also the world. This book is fun to read and captures a period of time where the individuals of this great country attempted and many more times than not, succeeded, in transporting large quantities of "Weed" via sea or air and then selling most of it at a large profit. The curse, of course, is that harder drugs were widely accepted later and consumed by societies around the world and of course, what at first began as a free enterprise later got ugly and I am not getting into it. For the earlier years of the smuggling "craze" Smokescreen does a fine job and Robert Sabbag either by first hand or second hand knowledge captures an entire period with a specially acute sense of humor. For that I give it a 5 star rating, anything less would be "uncivilized".



3. This was by far the best book I have ever read. Every time I picked it up I read at least three chapters. I felt like I was really there and that I had actually met the characters. The author gives great detail but in a way that does not at all bore you. This is an excellent book and I highly recommend it!!!



4. Looks like Robert Sabbag couldn't let his sucess with Snowblind be. This book just sucks. I know Allen Long and his story is true, the smuggling, the four years as someones maid in prison but Robert Sabbag just got sloppy with this one. He tried to take a mediocre story and make it into something interesting; didn't work.



5. The author Robert Sabbag has this scene nailed down. I thought I had read, or maybe even lived it all. No sir. This book "jacks it up" to new levels of adreneline pumping. These characters had balls. Big ones. And it is really fun to read about people like that.
   
   The opening, where a DC-3 is barely making it to the Columbian border at sunrise after a few days of flight is second to none. One of the best and tightest openings to any book I have ever read. Where is the movie???
   
   Thank you, Mr. Sabbag

5 comments about To Hell and Back.

1. "To Hell and Back" is an amazing account of Audie Murphy's real-life military service during WWII. As far as the writing style it definitely lacks flare and, at some points, you feel as though you need to put it down for a while just to take a break the from the abuse of English grammar. However, this man's heroics and peril he endured during the course of his service is so compelling that it far overshadows any literative misgivings. To think that the man (almost boy actually) came back and was able to be even somewhat normal is nothing short of a miracle. It's not only worth the money but should also be required reading by every high school history student in this country. This is what it means to be free and what price we sometimes may have to pay in oreder to stay that way.



2. This is on of the best books ever written about war. I'm a NCO in the Army and I believe that this book should be a preferred read on any soldiers list. I've served in Iraq on the front lines and the emotions that Audie Murphy writes about in this book are still identical in today's war.



3. I found "To Hell and Back" to be well worth the time and investment. While it could have contained more detailed information about the battles it did a great job of tell the human side of Murphy's campaigns.



4. In my opinion this is one of the best war movies of all time.You really feel like you are there in the heart of the battle.and the burning tank scene is the best of all.A must see.
   
   jim smith



5. Good movie, see what the real Audie Murphy is like as well, visit his web site.

5 comments about Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats.

1. Perhaps the most important thing to note for anyone who is considering whether to read or buy this book is that it is not a biography. Although the book's structure is based on the chronology of Kerouac's life, the content is more concerned with analysis than it is with a straightforward, objective account. Miles's concern is primarily to present Kerouac and his works in a more complete and sober context than the average person is likely to have gleaned from the most available cultural sources (Kerouac's own books and his image in various media); and in so doing to correct the common perception of Kerouac as pure genius hero. If the reader is looking for a traditional biography, the best one available is probably Paul Maher's 2004 "Kerouac: A Definitive Biography".
   
   As analysis, Miles's book is perceptive and worthwhile. It is incredibly refreshing to see honest criticism of Kerouac and his ideas from a source like Barry Miles, who almost certainly drew his conclusions from a reasonably informed standpoint. Miles appears quite intent on not allowing bias, either negative of positive, to interfere with his assesment of Kerouac. He is well-researched and consistently perceptive, and his discussion of his subject is blunt, well-considered and engaging. Similarly, Miles's criticism of Kerouac's writing, though less complete than his examination of the man himself, is realistic and thoughtful. He assesses each book with a balanced eye toward its literary virtues and vices, as well as its content, and his criticism is insightful and well worth reading.
   
   Although Miles's analysis of Kerouac's life often comes off as exceptionally uncharitable, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is inaccurate. Certainly, though, Miles is overly selective in his presentation, and often he withholds or doesn't take seriously elements of Kerouac's life which might do some little bit to salvage a more positive view of the man. In this, he goes too far, not allowing the reader to consider for himself whether Miles's interpretation is entirely correct. If this were a court case, Miles would be a prosecutor.
   
   Nevertheless, it would be incorrect to call this book a hatchet job, as it is unlikely that "King of the Beats" is the reader's introduction to Kerouac. Rather than seeking to impugn Kerouac and destroy his reputation, Miles comes off more as dispassionately giving a severe word of caution to the reader not to get caught up in the myth of Kerouac as a compassionate and inspired genius, a holy fool, or a mystic. Ultimately, he presents a realistic perspective on a man whose legacy has often been in danger of ascending spotless to heaven. Miles's assessment of Kerouac often seems overwhelmingly negative, but this seems to come less from spite than from having a hard case to make, what with the ludicrously positive received opinion. In the end, Miles accurately presents Kerouac: naive, adolescent, passionate, confused, talented, and deeply, tragically troubled. This book is well worth reading for anyone who is making a serious study of Kerouac's life and works.



2. With Kerouac an industry these days, it is hard to imagine anything new being offered, particularly from a biographer who never (on the strength of this text) even met him.

   Well stick with it. As a review on the back on my copy puts it "this is an excellent portrait of a ghastly man."

   Barry Miles does not understate Kerouac's influence. He takes him seriously as a writer and stylist, despite the patchiness of his output. His importance, says Miles, lay in his popularising the break with American post-war conformity (On the Road) and his prophesizing a Zen-infused "world full of rucksack wanderers" (The Dharma Bums), which underpinned the more thoughtful end of hippiedom.

   No doubt such things would have happened without Kerouac, or any of the beats, but this odd mother-lovin' alcoholic redneck from the small-town north-east undoubtedly flavoured the 60s and 70s and inspired countless thousands of wanderers and artists.

   Barry Miles's contribution is to sort through the myth, delivering a freshness to a now largely stale story of genius, self-obsession, and fatal loathing. The accounts of the cold-water flats of 1940s New York are especially vivid, where the beat ethos - much rougher than its hippie godchild - was formed.

   With so much sentimentalising of the Kerouac story, this is one for readers who've been moved by the man but want more than the literary postcard.




3. I thought this book was a very readable overview of Jack Kerouac's life. It helped me gain some kind of overview which I had found elusive reading Gerald Nicosia's more detailed book. However what marred the book for me was Miles's intrusive and over-bearing judgements. Surely it's better to present the facts and let them speak for themselves? In chapter 8 (just over half way through the book) he launches into a tirade ....'How can a man deny his own child?... Where was Kerouac when he should have been reading his daughter bedtime stories, sharing with her his love for words?...' and so on. Unfortunately once he's in this mode he doesn't let up. I appreciate the sentiment and it's difficult not to judge Kerouac harshly over this - but I felt Miles should have made more of an effort to understand his subject. I almost felt I leant more about Barry Miles than Kerouac in this section of the book and it's commendable that Miles feels so strongly about family loyalties but is that really the issue here?



4. Miles does an incredible job of putting together the jaded intricate life of an insanely selfish man. Kerouac was an incredible writer, yes, because he scrounged off everyone around him to better his skill. Funny when our heros turn into humans and we begin to feel our own inspiration from it.



5. This biography is part of an unceasing flow of writings about Kerouac and about the Beat movement which he helped to inspire. Miles's book is valuable because it explains why people continue to read Kerouac and the beats and also focuses on the limitations of the movement, I think, through discussion of Kerouac as a person.

   Kerouac was first and foremost a writer. Miles' book emphasizes this. It discusses virtually each of Kerouac's major works, and minor works as well, in the context of his life -- when, precisely, they were written, what they are about, and where each book fits, in Miles's usually well-considered opinion, in Kedrouac's work as a whole. Such writing is more the purview of literary criticism than biography but Miles does it well and it is needed in a consideration of Kerouac's life and work. He focuses on the spritual side of the beats, their quarrel with conformity, materialism, and repressed sexuality, and their emphasis on feeling and the expression of feeling. Miles properly places Kerouac in the romantic tradition of literature and within American Romanticism in particular as a follower, most immediately, of Thomas Wolfe.

   Miles does not spare Kerouac the man, in a discussion that should discourage any tendendy to hero-worship or mystification. Kerouac was selfish and inconsiderate of others, adolescent at the core, unduly attached to his mother, on the far fringes of the American right (although he probably deserves to be praised for not adopting the hippie, ultra-left, anti United States attitude of his followers and colleagues), and lead a destructive life, to his own talents and to the lives of people who loved him and had a right to depend upon him, such as his daughter.

   As a writer, Kerouac emerges in the book as a person of talent with a vision of American life that is valuable (though hardly unique, I think). He wrote well but too much and too carelessly and too much under the influence of drugs. He also, as Miles suggests was overly dogmatic and rigid in his use of spontaneous prose.

   The beats were a unique literary movement and Kerouac was an integral part of it. His books, I think will continue to be read and valued not for the most part as literary masterpieces, but as expressing the mood of a generation. There is much in them that is worthwhile. Miles' portrait of Kerouac and his work is judicious. It also encourages the reader to explore Kerouac's writings for his or herself, which is the goal of any good biography or a writer.

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