5 comments about My Life as an Indian.

1. This is a eye opening I can't put it down book! Seeing how the Blackfeet lived, their culture, social structure, horse raids, war, etc., through the author's eyes is fascinating. As he joins their society, marries into the tribe and lives as the tribe did you will find it informative and insightful. As the old ways pass away you feel his sadness and the end will break your heart. A beautiful, lively, fun book that takes you into another time and place as you ride with Schultz and the tribe. A must have!



2. This is an excellent first hand account of the major transformation of Plains Indian culture that occured during the nearly complete extermination of the buffalo which was so central to their life. It starts with the buffalo in plenty and ends with reservation life. This is a bittersweet book. Schultz marries into a band of the Piegan branch of the Blackfoot confederacy. But although he lives among them, and loves them and their lifestyle, he never completes his assimilation. This is evident when he writes with almost distant amusement of some of their religious beliefs. Adding to this is the problem that while he loves the life of the buffalo days and deeply laments their end, his occupation as a trader in buffalo robes is hastening the end of the very thing he loves. His description of the post-buffalo, early reservation life is the most distressing, complete with corrupt reservation Agents, and sometimes rascist newcomers.
   His stories are not all downers though. His writing is a very detailed, intimate, and at times amusing description of his life and those around him. I've loaned my book to a number of people and they all have liked it. If you read this and like it too, you'll be glad to know he wrote a whole series of books of his life in early Montana, and of the lives of prominent people he knew. I've read many, but not all of them, and I prize every one.



3. This is a terrific story of a young white man's time with the Piegan Blackfeet. James Willard Schultz came west for adventure and joined an Indian trading post 45 miles north of Fort Benton, Montana.

   He not only traded furs, gold, liquor, and dressmakers goods to the Indians, but became fluent in the language of the Blackfeet, sharing in their hunts and wars and even taking a young Indian wife.

   It's a somewhat self-conscious story from a masculine vantagepoint during a time when warrior bravado was in vogue and the buffalo were still thriving. This book portrays a segment of Native American life and culture just before the buffalo were diminished and the people were forced to reservations.

   Given that _Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian History of the American West_ by Dee Brown contains only 2 or 3 pages in reference to the Blackfeet, a book such as _My Life As an Indian_ is a superb addition to one's bookshelf. Recommended.




4. I just came online to see if it was in print. I have had a copy of this book from the 1935 paperback that my Grandfather gave me when I was a boy. Not that I was a boy in 1935, it was actually in the early 70s. . .I was captivated by the stories JW Schultz lived! Helping his friend steal his wife from under the nose of the ever watchful father. It still grips me even today. Alas, my old copy is just that, old. That is how I came to write these words. Ordering a fresh paperback.

   I cannot recommend this book more highly!




5. I absolutely loved this book, I couldn't put it down! I have been to the Blackfeet Reservation and Glacier Park many times, and while reading this book I could just imagine how it was back then. It gave me a new perspective on Indian life. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a good story about the old west and the Indians.

1 comments about Beloved Island: Franklin & Eleanor and the Legacy of Campobello.

1. Beloved Island: Franklin & Eleanor And The Legacy Of Campobello by Jonas Klein is a touching, memorable, biographical portrayal of two genuinely great figures of 20th Century American history. Here presented are the daily lives of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and how their summer home on Campobello Island influenced them, and rounds out an impressive and painstaking recreation of their personal experiences with anecdotes, personal letters, and the memories of aides, family, and friends. A welcome and much appreciated contribution to the growing library of literature dedicated to the life, thought, and achievements of this politically and socially influential (and often controversial) couple, Beloved Island is an informative and insightful study of the often-hidden inner side of these two remarkable American leaders.

2 comments about Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier (Modern First Ladies).

1. Unlike more gosspiy biographies, political scientist Barbara Perry approaches the life of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy as a scholar. She writes about the early influences in her life, her role as first lady and the passions and causes that she undertook in her official life. Perry touches on such issues as JFK's infidelity and deftlly handles the criticism leveled at Mrs. Kennedy for, among other things, her spending on her wardrobe and her "francophile" attachments. So while the book doesn't get bogged down in the tawdry details of their personal lives, neither does it ignore them. It's a well-written, well-documented account of a White House that was so different than any other in modern times -- much due, in part, to the youth and flair of Jacqueline Kennedy. For those who want an objective account, this is an excellent read.



2. As one of the most charismatic and intriguing women in modern American history, Jacqueline Kennedy has been the subject of numerous books, articles, and even made-for-television movies. Those attempts, however, focused almost exclusively on Mrs. Kennedy's aura of celebrity---until now. Enter Dr. Barbara Perry, the Carter Glass Professor of Government at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. In "Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier," Perry does an outstanding job of telling a familiar story from a scholar's perspective. She provides a highly readable, yet serious examination of Jacqueline Kennedy in the White House.
   
   In researching the glamorous and sometimes enigmatic First Lady, Dr. Perry states that her mission "was to write the first scholarly treatment of her [Kennedy's] work as first lady and filter out the extremes of previous books that range from hagiographic tributes to mean-spirited or sensationalized accounts." That mission was a particularly daunting one in that Jacqueline Kennedy's personal papers and oral history, located in the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, remain closed. Not to be dissuaded, Dr. Perry apparently did exhaustive research into virtually every available primary source. The result is a fascinating, insightful look at a first lady who emerges as a surprisingly assertive, independent, and even bold actor on the White House stage. Jackie, of course, is best known as the driving force in the restoration of the White House, but she was equally influential in the creation of the White House Historical Society, the preservation of Lafayette Square, and support of the arts. Her personl correspondence on these projects is quite revealing, suggesting that she had a clear vision of how the White House, the presidency, and the first family should be presented to the public---and how she attempted to preserve and present her own identity. Professor Perry is especially effective in exploring this area, having previously authored a compelling analysis of the symbolism and imagery of the U.S. Supreme Court and how the court presents itself to the public (see "The Priestly Tribe: The Supreme Court's Image in the American Mind").
   
   Barbara Perry's work is a much-appreciated scholarly addition to the body of literature on Jacqueline Kennedy. Until the Kennedy papers are opened to the public (in about 40 years), it will stand unchallenged as the definitive account for viewing and understanding an American icon inside the White House.

1 comments about Frederick Jackson Turner: Strange Roads Going Down.

1. Frederick Jackson Turner was a giant as an interpreter of the history of the United States, and this biography is an important analysis of his life and career written by a senior scholar in the history of the American West. He is the author of the "Frontier Thesis," a seminal theme through much of the twentieth century in explaining the exceptionalism of the United States. Turner's 1893 "Frontier Thesis" paper is perhaps the most influential essay ever read at the American Historical Association's annual conference. Turner took as his cue an observation in the 1890 U.S. census that the American frontier had, for the first time, closed. He noted, "Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development." He insisted that the frontier made Americans American, gave the nation its democratic character, and ensured the virtues of self-reliance, community, and the promise of justice. He noted that cheap or even free land provided a "safety valve" that protected the nation against uprisings of the poverty-stricken and malcontented. The frontier also produced a people with "coarseness and strength...acuteness and inquisitiveness, that practical and inventive turn of mind . . . [full of] restless and nervous energy...that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom." It gave the people of the United States, in essence, virtually every positive quality they have ever possessed.
   
   The "Frontier Thesis" has enjoyed both eloquent critics and defenders over the years and Allan Bogue's biography of Turner placed the famous theory front and center in his life. But Bogue also focuses on other aspects of Turner's career, his education at John Hopkins University, his slow building of the history department at the University of Wisconsin, and his move to Harvard University. Central to Bogue's study is the fundamental question that many have pondered about Turner, his brilliance in essays of broad scope and provocative nature such is his 1893 paper coupled with this failure to produce a healthy body of books on various aspects of American history. He found writing one of the most difficult tasks of his life and really only wrote one book-length work, "Rise of the New West, 1819-1829," published in 1906 as a part of the "American Nation" series edited by Albert Bushnell Hart. In later years Hart believed one of his greatest successes was extracting--and that may be the best characterization of the tortured effort to complete the manuscript--this book out of Turner. Hart quipped that he wanted it included on his tombstone as an epitaph.
   
   While Turner is largely remembered for his "Frontier Thesis," he also developed an important set of ideas about the role of geographical sections in the development of the United States. Most of his later historical work revolved around sectionalism, a set of ideas still important in the study of American history.
   
   Finally, Bogue's biography of Frederick Jackson Turner puts flesh and emotions on an historian whose name may be well known but whose life has been quite obscure. We see an individual who had close relations with students, colleagues, and family. He loved to fish, hike, and travel. He had loves and hates, grudges and loyalties. Bogue's assessment at the conclusion of this book, stated in relation to his "Frontier Thesis," also is appropriate for all of his life's work: "In retrospect, we detect flaws as well as grandeur in that contribution, but it was Turner's achievement, and in justification of it he might have answered in the words of one of his favorite poets, `Anybody might have found it, but--His Whisper came to Me!'" (p. 464). This is an excellent biography of an enigmatic American thinker who altered the landscape of American identity.

2 comments about Southern Railroad Man: Conductor, N.J. Bell's Recollections of the Civil War Era (Railroads in America).

1. This is a fascinating and touching first-hand account of the struggles of an honest hard-working railroad man through the upheavals of the War and its aftermath. Despite his difficulties in an era without strong unions, he touchingly pays tribute to the capitalists who took the risks to build the railroads and give him work.



2. Excellently written and arranged. I actually am a former student of Dr. Ward, and love the way he writes, capturing the reader with an excellent account on the subject.

1 comments about The Heart of a Soldier: Intimate Wartime Letters from General George E. Pickett C.S.A. to His Wife.

1. If you are a civil war buff like I am, this is a MUST HAVE book! Very interesting perspectives. I am very glad to find a book on this particular man of the civil war. I would also like to take this opportunity to make a suggestion to any of you interested in civil war artwork, etc. There is a new portrait artist by the name of Gary Nichols, who was introduced last year by Minnesota entertainer Natalia Melony. He seems to have done several civil war generals, one of which is Pickett. Two of his works, including his portrait of Pickett, won art awards in the Midwest. I saw his portraits of Pickett and Jeb Stuart, and they were so incredibly life-like, at first glance I thought they were old photographs of the men themselves. Too bad this book doesn't have Mr. Nichols portrait of Pickett on the cover. If you are a civil war buff, you can not go wrong - DEFINITELY purchase this book, for it will be a great "intimate" piece to add to your collection of works from this period in our history. Clark Mathena

1 comments about Woman Walking Ahead: In Search of Catherine Weldon and Sitting Bull.

1. This beautiful work reminds me of one of my favorite books of all time, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Like Anne Fadiman, Eileen Pollack has an amazing sense of structure and of the important, risky, daring questions to ask. She confronts what others might shy away from, and she makes sense of it all for us. I loved learning about the brave and almost-forgotten Catherine Weldon.

   Some of the key questions raised for me by this book are: what does it mean to be an insider, or an outsider, in a particular group or in a country? Does the outsider have any possibility of understanding/aiding/participating in another culture? How do we help or harm each other? Which tragedies are preventable, and which inevitable, and why? Pollack seems to show the same courage and dedication as her subject -- Sitting Bull's great-great-granddaughter invited her to participate in ceremonies not usually open to outsiders. Her trust is well repaid by this remarkable book.

No comments about Road to the Sea: The Story of James B. Eads and the Mississippi River.

5 comments about Sara and Eleanor: The Story of Sara Delano Roosevelt and Her Daughter-in-Law, Eleanor Roosevelt.

1. If this book contains any accurate information, it is, sadly, smothered in an overpoweringly cheesy sauce of conjecture, misrepresentation and fabrication.
   
   This book has oppositional-defiant disorder; every positive (and painstakingly researched) piece of information we have about Eleanor Roosevelt (from a long list of books written by a stable of better researchers and writers than Ms. Pottker) is systematically twisted, distorted, inverted and stood on its head in order to make Eleanor Roosevelt look like the wicked witch of Val-Kill while/by making Sara Delano Roosevelt appear to be the Mother Theresa of mother-in-laws.
   
   (Okay. That was an exaggeration. But, not a gross exaggeration. There are many facts in the book which are verifiably true: Sara Delano Roosevelt was FDR's mother, Eleanor Roosevelt was a woman, the three of them shared meals on at least three separate occasions, Eleanor's children were, in fact, Sara's grandchildren...etc... But it seems to me that an awful lot of the book is, to put it charitably, less than trustworthy.)
   
   However, you might want to take a look at the book in a library or bookstore in order to see what the "notes" on sources section looks like. I have never seen a more stunning example of incompetence or contempt for one's readers than this haphazard list of sources.
   And that's all it is: a list. No way to figure out which quote or fact came from which source, just a list. If Columbia could revoke degrees, this list of sources would be a powerful reason for the university to consider de-doctorating Pottker, and returning her tuition as quickly and quietly as possible.
   
   I still can not believe St. Martin's published this fictional revision of history and dared to call it biography.
   
   One can't help wondering whether Ms. Pottker has a daughter-in-law of her own and a very, very dull axe. (the kind that gets lots of grinding)



2. I really wanted to like this book more, since I have several books about the Roosevelts (both the Hyde Park clan and the Oyster Bay contingent). I did enjoy the story of Sara's background and her interesting childhood, not to mention the history of the Delano family and the "color" of some of the events, like the royal visit. I also appreciated a text that did not demonize "Mama." Eleanor's half of the story, however, reveals nothing new--her sad childhood, her depression and insecurity because of it, her slow rise to independence--and suffers at the expense of the author's efforts to improve Sara Roosevelt's image. In addition to the historical errors mentioned in Sylvia Jukes Morris' featured "Washington Post" review, there is an extremely grievious one: Pottker talks about the events of March 1911, then follows with two paragraphs about the "next month," concerning an oceanic calamity: the sinking of the Titanic! Except the Titanic sank in April *1912*. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. Does no one edit these books any longer?



3. I started to read this book with hardly any opinion about the two main characters. I soon started to realize the author's bias towards Sara and against Eleanore! She uses subjective snide remarks about Eleanore to promote Sara. In her book Sara can do nothing wrong while everything Eleanore does is questionable and fraught with ulterior motives.



4. As a long-time student of the lives of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, I am always eager to expand my knowledge of these two important Americans. Thus, when I stumbled across this book, I immediately ordered it. However, it didn't take me long to discover that this read more like a book report based on Geoffrey Ward's excellent biographies of FDR than an original work. I respect the author for her turning the viewpoint around and taking a sympathetic look at Sara Delano Roosevelt, but her historical perspective lacks rigor and does not agree with any of the other major historians who have offered razor-sharp looks at the lives of the Roosevelts. Indeed, this book reads like a piece of fluff and the author's uncompromising adoration of Sara Roosevelt leads to unsupported conclusions and apologetics in Sara's relationship with her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Sara comes off in this book as simply too good to be true, a paragon of virtue, and an angel-made-flesh. There is little critical information related here, just a retelling of the same old story in a revisionist vein. This is not the book for serious students of history and anyone else seeking factual information on the subject.



5. Who among us wouldn't want to have been Sara Delano Roosevelt? Adored daughter and sibling, independently wealthy through her father's success in the Chinese opium trade, married to an older man whose forebears were as securely rooted in America as her own, she became the mother of one perfect child who grew up to be Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

   Self-doubt was not in the emotional vocabulary of either of FDR's parents, who raised him in the country splendor of their estate in Hyde Park, New York. Jan Pottker takes an intriguing look into the life of Sara Delano Roosevelt, and entwines it with her relationship with FDR's wife, his fifth cousin Eleanor Roosevelt. The book is a feast of anecdotes. Finding them and displaying them appears to be Pottker's greatest strength as a biographer. Everyone's heard the story of how the King and Queen of England came to Hyde Park in 1939 and enjoyed an informal hot-dog lunch. But who knew that 200,000 people lined the road from Poughkeepsie to Hyde Park to greet the royal couple? Or that when the formal dinner for the visiting royalty was delayed an hour, "the roast beef remained pink in the center"?

   Keeping life, well, rosy appears to have been the leitmotif of Sara's life, and the polar opposite of her daughter-in-law Eleanor's. Much has been written about Eleanor's deep insecurity, having been orphaned young and passed around among relatives, and Pottker covers no new territory here. However, it makes the reader squirm to see Eleanor's dutiful, doubtful personality wither somewhat in the face of Sara's utter self-confidence. Eleanor appears to have spent her thirty-six years of married life abjectly begging Sara's pardon, bickering with her, or silently, sullenly yielding to her mother-in-law's will, which was as formidable as her control over the extended family's pursestrings.

   In her effort to provide a rounded portrait of Sara, Pottker often provides contrasting anecdotes about her daughter-in-law that almost always cast Eleanor in a bad light. This is unfortunate, as neither woman needs to play the bad guy at this late date. Both Sara and Eleanor were remarkable women, but where the latter learned to find her greatest fulfillment outside the unnourishing bosom of her family, the former started life strengthened by the best that the Victorian era could provide a girl, and only later yielded graciously to satisfying the interest of the world in her role as the President's mother. The contrast between the two women is sufficient without Pottker's effort to cast Eleanor in a lesser light so as to illuminate Sara further.

   Yes, she did frequently tell her grandchildren, "You are my true children. Eleanor only bore you." But in light of their parents' increasingly separate lives and chaotic schedules, Sara and Hyde Park were the constant touchstones while her grandchildren were growing up.

   Had Sara not subsidized the family as she did, her son could not have run for president and guided the country through the Depression and World War II. We, as a nation, are richer for her generosity. However, the dependency that she encouraged in her son, which he never appears to have refused, seemed to have born bitter fruit in the unfulfilled potential in the subsequent generation: There were nineteen divorces among the five Roosevelt children, none of whom appears to have sustained a notably happy or successful adult life despite their financial and social advantages. Elliott and James in particular made something of a cottage industry of writing and being interviewed about their parents. They are quoted extensively--perhaps too extensively--throughout Pottker's book.

   Pottker interviewed Anna Roosevelt's two eldest children, the great-grandchildren whose memories provide a living link with the matriarch born in 1854. (Interestingly, Curtis Dall--once known to the nation as "Buzzie"--dropped his father's name to use Roosevelt as a surname.) She also provides the insights of Nina Roosevelt Gibson, Ph.D., the psychologist daughter of John, the youngest Roosevelt child, who is almost never quoted by Roosevelt biographers.

   This book is a welcome addition to our knowledge of the Roosevelts--and, as Sara would point out if she were here, of the Delanos as well, whose family background she privately considered to be superior.

   The largest, sturdiest oak at Hyde Park inexplicably toppled to the ground only minutes after Sara died there at the age of eighty-six. Though witnesses were startled, no one was surprised.

No comments about The Generals: Andrew Jackson, Sir Edward Pakenham, and the Road to the Battle of New Orleans.