1 comments about Journal of Rudolph Friederich Kurz: An Account of His Experiences among Fur Traders and American Indians on the Mississippi and the Upper Mississippi Rivers during the Years 1846 to 1852.

1. This book is best read in conjunction with Larpenteur's FORTY YEARS A FUR TRADER,and Denig's FIVE INDIAN TRIBES OF THE UPPER MISSOURI,& ASSINABOINE to fully appreciate the cultural specifics & interrelationships between white traders,Indians,& Metis peoples in mid 19th century Dakota & Montana territories.Unlike present day politically correct/"sensitive" accounts, Kurz was a Swiss artist who lived with & sketched the Indian tribes of the upper & lower Missouri River from 1846-1852 as he found them. Dispite overall sympathy for the plight of their rapidly changing cultures,he depicts various tribes in brutally accurate & often unflattering accounts. History with all its bumps & warts is a phenomena sadly lacking today particularly with regard to Native American/White relations on the frontier. It's a humanizing account-acknowledging the endemic savage violence Indians were capable of directing toward each other. The lethal depridations of Smallpox,Influenza, & Cholera, on native populations are also described with disturbing directness. I would recommend this & the other titles mentioned for any reader who is interested in historical accuracy with often upsetting bluntness.

2 comments about Alexander William Doniphan: Portrait of a Missouri Moderate (Missouri Biography Series).

1. Alexander Doniphan is one of those great characters from history who learned from his mistakes about the role of government. He is one who rebelled against the demogoguery of American politics to become a true independent having experienced first-hand the results of policies he had helped push through at one time. A warrior who came to know the horrors of war and so came to realize its utter futility and underlying causes of greed and self-aggrandizement. He, like Smedly Butler in the century that followed, came to see war as a racket for a few at the expense of the majority. Doniphan's integrity in the Mormon wars shines through in a world gone mad with hate. His life is so full of examples for us it is sad that he, once a household name, has become virtually unknown to us now. He truly was a great American hero and we would do well to honor his life and work. The book is wonderfully well written and complemented with black and white photos and drawings from the Doniphan's life. It is a must have for the serious student of mid-19th century American politics.



2. Alexander William Doniphan was one of the most significant and popular figures in Missouri from the 1830s through the 1870s. He excelled as an orator above all but was also an extremely successful attorney (he defended 188 clients on murder charges with most being found innocent and none receiving the death penalty), military leader, politician and businessman and an influential educator and farmer. Doniphan's most famous exploit, the conquest of New Mexico and Chihuahua and the creation of a law code to govern the first area, was chronicalled several times in the 19th century but this is the first full biography to be published about this important man. I have studied most of the available primary and secondary sources on Doniphan and find this biography to be both balanced and complete. Anyone who is interested in Mormon, Missouri or Western History should find this book worth reading.

3 comments about Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era.

1. "Lincoln Reconsidered" by David Donald ©1961
   
   History has always been an interest for me. This takes a bit of time and expands on it very nicely. It starts out with a nice introdution about Lincoln and his times, the people he knew and worked with, then goes onto the politics and war. It had some anecdotes that you never see anywhere else. It turns out that Linoln was not a rabid emancipationist, but a pratical president who did things as needed to be done. I wondered before why he only freed the slaves in the states in rebellion: it was because he did not want to alienate the slaveholders in Kentucky and Maryland. I am still mystified as to the reason for the war of northern aggression: slavery does not seem to be the all inclusive answer that mythology makes it out to be, and this book shows some altenative reasons, but does not take a stand, after it is only a collection of essays.



2. Donald starts off his book as an iconoclast, intent on reversing the apotheosis of Lincoln. Lincoln was not, he asserts, the god among us that many ardent admirers believe. He gives examples of this uncritical adulation and states that Lincoln has been claimed by Mormons, vegetarians, and other disparate groups anxious to claim a popular figure as their own.

   But, as it turns out, Donald's iconoclasm is a bit false. He reexamines Lincoln's more controversial points, and casts his verdict with the purveyors of the Lincoln legend. Did Lincoln imprison thousands of people without charges or trial? He did, but they deserved it. Did Lincoln destroy the Constitution by starting a war without the approval of Congress? Yes, but he had to abrogate the Constitution in order to save it.

   Donald starts out bravely but in the end, cops out in favor of sentimental Lincolnism. I thought it a bit disappointing.




3. Lincoln Reconsidered is a collection of provactive essays that probe the multiple depths of Abraham Lincoln--life and mythology. He paints Lincoln's portrait onto the background of the sectional conflict that led to the Civil War. Originally published about 1961, Donald's stories remain fresh and relevant. In fact the reader will encounter the thesis and outline for his recent prize-winning biography of Lincoln. I first encoutered LR in 1962 when I taught Advanced Placement American History and assigned portions of the book to my students. They loved it; you will. Donald is a superlative historian and stylist. Listen to these chapter headings: Getting Right With Lincoln, Reconsideration of Abolitionists, Herndon and Mrs. Lincoln, Folklore Lincoln, An Excess of Democracy. Readers of Donald's Lincoln will want to have this as a companion reference piece. It's rare for an historian's essays to experience such a rich and extended publishing history. Here's a quote from my faded copy of LR, a touch of wisdom for our parlous times: "...Lincoln knew that there were limits rational human activity, and that there was no virtue in irritably seeking to perform the impossible. As President, he could only do his best to handle problems as they arose and have a patient trusdt that popular support for his solutions would be forthcoming. But the ultimate decision was beyond his, or any man's, control. 'Now at the end of three years struggle,' he said, 'the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man, devised, or expected. God alone can claim it.'" Page after page runs like this, and virtually every theme connected to the Civil War gets enough discussion to stimulate and edify.

2 comments about Morton Feldman Says: Selected Interviews and Lectures 1964-1987 (New Series).

1. I've spent a fair amount of time with "Morton Feldman Says" and I've decided it's an excellent collection, but not necessarily worth it's price. While in Scarecrow saw fit to offer an interpretation of Feldman in his review, I'm content to leave that task to the reader. I will, however, offer a few comments on the book itself.
   
   The selection of interviews, lectures, and writings are fairly diverse. For those who enjoyed "Give My Regards to Eighth Street", there is plenty of new material here. Where "8th Street" is mostly Feldman's essays, notes, and fragments, "Feldman Says" feels more complete. The books fill different needs and thus work well together. "Feldman Says" also has a number of black-and-white photos from Feldman's life. One of the most interesting features of the book is a collection of reproductions of Feldman scores. For those who do not have access to Feldman's scores, this will be of great interest.
   
   The only thing that keeps me from giving this title five stars is that I feel it is significantly overpriced. Although Amazon currently offers it well below the $50 list price, I feel this is simply too much for a paperback of this type. Especially so when you consider the superb "Give My Regards to Eighth Street" is closer to $15. Both titles offer a great view into Feldman's world - his life, his ideas, his compositional technique - but aside from some photographs in "Feldman Says", I can't see a major difference.
   
   I don't mean to sound cheap. I just mean to warn you that for the price, you may expect more than you'll receive. Most of the time when a book crosses the $50 threshold, it's either a beautiful hardcover, some sort of limited edition, or large and comprehensive. This is none of the above. Ultimately though, this is a fine collection of interviews and writings. Add to that some interesting reproductions of Feldman's scores and a timeline, this is a great book for both Feldman fans and anyone interested in 20th century American art music.



2. The late Morton Feldman was an articulate speaker. Not that some days he was "off" where he came to repeat himself and get bogged down in one single work explications. His last Darmstadt lectures for example (with Ferneyhough and Rihm in attendance) is an example. He spoke about his historically long piece for Flute and Piano and percussion. He speaks in timbre, think of the flute he would say, "I don't think of the flute, as a flute" (to paraphrase).He thinks of his music as transitory, always to something else.
   
   Feldman honed his ideology hanging out with painters,the Abstract Expressionists at the Cedar Bar in New York. But he also was invited to studios (Guston, Kline, de Kooning) to view new works and think about what they mean not philosophic but the technical. He always found fascinating concepts to bring to his music and thinking about the process of writing music. Very late in life he re-discovered the inherent mysteries in minimal aesthetic, an aesthetic very different than what you may think you know of rhytmic patternings music. Incredibly Feldman didn't discover this odyssey for the minimal earlier, although in many respects you can argue that he always had a fascination for un-repetition of the same stasis.In retropsect you can see where his music has much more elements of longevity than the "Star" minimalists whose work today has is now a mere caricature of what it may have been,co-opted, homogenized down to its lowest forms.
   Feldman has written some of the most beautiful music claiming a place that the vigours of modernity need not lead to "alienation" schemes practiced so well by his brethren, the post-war European creators as well as closer friends, Cage and Brown.Feldman it seems always thought something else need to happen while modernity simply goes on toward its own demise. Well here you get to experience his thoughts into pathways into how he composes, although much of these materials are already available on the web if you know where to look.
   Feldman delves into memory of concepts from Henri Bergson. Memory is a realm quite a problematic when you consider the question how does one listen to a six hour piece of music as Feldman's "Second String Quartet", or the seminal(granite-like) now last piano works, "for Bunita Marcus,"and "Triadic Memories". He became interested in the process of rug making and how patterns become distributed over a defined space. Do we listen in a striaght line or in para-memory means, where are listening is similar to a Moebius strip where we continue to return to events, fragments, particles of timbre we had previously experienced. Feldman then suggests ways of thinking about important elements of maodernity as density, shape, space, texture and timbre. Ultimatly it was timbre itself that he most contributed, the love of timbre I think compells us as composer, the composer to continue to write. Meaning then becomes something you can ponder after creativity. This is something Feldman would advise the young composer, write and write and write,ponder and think later or during.
   
   This is a wonderful job of Villars attempting to fill the void left by the interviews with Walter Zimmermann now a collectors item to purvey.

3 comments about Charles Olson: The Allegory of a Poet's Life.

1. and by iconoclast its not possible to sugarcoat the very real personal destruction that olson wrought on everyone around him, though he was one of the most brilliant exponents of some of the very best strains of modernist poetry. as someone who has studied, admired, and been engaged with olson over the last two years, and his prophetic calls for "an earth of value", and "proprieception", among many other ideas that went way beyond the inventions and drug induced nihilism of the beats, clark's biography gave an insight in to the man's extremely complex relationship with everyone around him, and i mean everyone. yes olson was exploding off the page with ideas, but his attempts to live the ideas fell far short of his high flown naturalistic bent, and some of his behavior, both pre and post amphetamines, was frankly incredible; particularly his 5 years at black mountain, which although may have been doomed from the start, (an experimental college in mccarthyist america) it was still a testing ground for olson's "polis has eyes" that may have changed a lot in the postsecondary educ. system. a great insight in to a man that was brilliant, a visionary, and an inventor, but also a petty, misogynistic, brute of a man that sacrificed many people to the great altar of ideas. i've never read anything else by clark, but he seems to have a pretty thorough approach to biography that tells a story in a straightforward narrative with plenty of documentary evidence; also, having picked up the first edition in a used book store, the comments of robert duncan, haas, creely, and edward dorn on the back flap give credence the portrait that clark paints. highly recommended to anyone wanting to understand the man who "invented" postmodernism.



2. Found the book to lead me on great imaginings. Certainly not a pretty portrait of the artist, but within a tight 352 pages a sound introduction to his work and psychic torment which shaped it. The book led me into deeper investigations and further imaginings which is part of what a decent biography should do.



3. The author belies a hostility towards his subject early on in the book by referring to him as "Charlie" as though he was the cop on "Bad Boys" who had caught the guy in the video who had obviously done something which gave him the right to speak condescendingly to him. In Clark's own mind Olson has become an unworthy father who he has to beat down. Wierd ! Totally misses the point of Olson's art which is that each page is different and a unique attempt at truth. Shows too how the Thruway West (oh Gunslinger) has obliterated belief in an actual earth of value. Which Olson's actual text does manage to keep alive.

No comments about United States Marine Corps Generals of World War II: A Biographical Dictionary.

1 comments about The Legendary Mizners.

1. I think that before anyone moves to Florida, or does business in Florida, they ought to read this book. If you've spent any time there this book will be very funny. The Art Basel enthusiasm which has made Miami hot in recent years has a distant echo in Mizner's clients for whom he created charming amalgams of various Spanish styles.
   At least they got a big house out of it, whereas what those who purchased at Art Basel acquired is open to some question.
   This book clearly shows that a certain kind of classy hucksterism is endemic to the Florida experience of art, or architecture. But it does it by telling a very amusing and in the end, sad story. Appropriately enough Boca now has Mizner Park, which is naturally is not a park at all, but a shopping mall. The Boca Museum is in there too, and the many works-on-paper contained therein, as well as drinking-fountains with their own dedicatory plaques from benefactors, show that Mizner's spirit of genial elitism continues.

5 comments about The Dying President: Franklin D. Roosevelt 1944-1945.

1. The Dying President: Franklin D. Roosevelt 1944-1945 by Robert H. Ferrell isn't much of a book, and it doesn't cover much information not previously published.
   
   Most FDR fans know the basic facts about his life and death. In 1944, his daughter, Anna Roosevelt Boettiger, insisted that her father have a complete physical because of what could be seen as a visible and marked physical decline. Prior to that, the president's standing physician, Dr. Ross McIntire, was a Navy doctor whose specialty was Ear, Nose and Throat. A battery of doctors from Bethesda Naval Hospital discovered that FDR suffered from severe hypertension and congestive heart failure. In 1944, there was little the medical profession could do for these two maladies. Unbelievably, the president was kept in the dark about his health, and he never asked questions about his health, constant medical testing, or his treatments. These medical experts (who took over his treatment) were also not consulted about FDR's decision to run for a fourth term.
   
   There is not much new in The Dying President, except what comes from the diaries of FDR's distant cousin and confident, Margaret Daisy Suckley. But even these revelations don't add much to the story, other than the fact that FDR did know that Dr. Howard Bruenn was a cardiologist. Ferrell does offer the theories that FDR could have suffered from stomach cancer or melanoma. But he provides no additional research to prove or disprove these already published speculations.
   
   When discussing a book written by Dr. Ross McIntire about FDR, Ferrell describes it as "absurdly thin." The same can be said about The Dying President. The body of this book is only 152 pages, and 36 of these pages are photographs. Ferrell also claims that FDR was such an ill man, that his omissions and mistakes changed the course of history. History reveals otherwise. Even his own cabinet member, Frances Perkins, was quoted as saying "He has a great and terrible job to do, and he's got to do it, even if it kills him."
   
   I recommend you save your money and read The Hidden Campaign by Hugh Evans or FDR's Last Year by Jim Bishop for a better accounting of Roosevelt's last years.



2. Arthur Schlessinger theorized that every thirty years, the political pendulum swings between the left and right wings. No surprise then, that nearly 60 years after his death, there has been a slew of books slamming Franklin Delano Roosevelt's wartime leadership. No surprise, either, is that this book is published by University of Missouri press, since Robert Ferrell goes out of his way to all but directly state that Missourian Harry Truman saved the world from the sick and incompetent FDR.

   Ferrell's thesis is that FDR's poor health made him largely ineffective during his last year. His doctors had recommended four-hour work days. Ferrell fails to note that FDR largely ignored his doctors mandates, and continued to submit himself to a punishing schedule which included exhausting summit trips, numerous press conferences, and a re-election campaign. He arbuably worked harder that the physically healthier George W. Bush, and may have worked himself literally to death.

   Ferrell's credibilty is obliterated by the ridiculous statement that FDR was nearly as incapacitated as was Woodrow Wilson in 1920. Wilson was a near vegetable following his stroke. But anyone who has read the minutes of the Yalta conference--which I doubt Ferrell has--will realize that despite his physical condition, FDR remained mentally sharp.

   There is no denying that FDR was in poor physical shape during his last 15 months in office. He suffered from congestive heart failure and high blood pressure. Ferrell also presents the theory, neither denying nor endorsing it, that FDR may have had melanoma and/or stomach cancer, but there is no evidence for that. What were the root causes of FDR's decline? Common sense points to diet and excercise. FDR's diet during the white house years left much to be desired. For example, the President breakfasted every morning on scrambled eggs and bacon. Of course, in the 1940s far less was known about the dangers of cholesterol that today. Despite his paralysis, FDR tried to remains physically active and healthy by swimming daily. (His correspondence with Daisy Suckley indicates that he was mildly preoccupied with his weight, and he tended to "yo-yo" in weight during his first two terms in office.) As the war made greater demands on his time, he abandoned his excercise routine, which was accompanied by weight gain, loss of upper body muscle tone, and increasing blood pressure.

   There is no doubt, also, that FDR husbanded his strength during his last year. He concentrated his work on two overriding goals: 1) Allied victory in World War II, with the greatest possible speed, and the smallest possible loss of Allied soldiers (four of whom were his own sons). 2) The creation of the United Nations as a means of preventing a Third World War, which FDR knew humanity would not survive.

   Franklin Delano Roosevelt was successful on both counts.




3. Some have written that Ferrell's work is sloppy and depressing. I disagree. Ferrell does an excellent job of showing 21st Century readers just how different this country was 50 years ago. That the entire country could look at Roosevelt during his last run for office - and know that he was a dying man - and not know it at the same time, is amazing. This is the same country that couldn't deal directly with a President in a wheel chair. The country knew it, but didn't know it, all at the same time. How different was the relationship between the press and the White House!

   The purpose of this book is not simply to drive home the point that Roosevelt was a dying man when he ran for a fourth term. The point of this book is about collective denial. The fact that most of the country suffered from it, used it, and both benefitted from it in some ways, and paid for it in others. Collective denial isn't much different from individual denial. It is a powerful mechanism that existed not only in the relationship between FDR and the country, but between FDR and himself. It also is the mechanism that allowed the United States to fight WWII to "make the world safe for democracy," while at the same time the country was somehow unaware of its own racist, anti-democratic values. Ferrell's book should be read within the context of the times, so that it may shed light on ours.




4. I couldn't help but contrast this book with the Bishop book, 'FDR's Last Year'. This writer paints FDR as someone and something far different than I've read in many, many other books. He most certainly was ill, he had poor medical care, and possibly he deceived the nation about his true condition. However, he also provided the nation with reassuring leadership and contributed to our war effort literally until his death. This book is poorly organized, but worse, is mean-spirited. Definitely a 'pass'.



5. In the 1970's Jim Bishop wrote an excellent book titled "FDR's Last Year," which contained some inaccuracies and a lot of very relevant history, (despite sometimes making it sound like FDR could have died at any given moment), but this book by Robert Ferrell is a real mess. Bishop's book was good reading, and followed his subject along through a consistent chronological pattern over the course of a year, and while it did focus a lot on FDR's health, it also revealed all the work FDR accomplished up until his death. This new book is completely unnecessary and a pale comparison to Bishop's. The author's personal agenda must be to prove that FDR tricked the nation into re-electing him when he knew he was dying. An old theory, and there's never been any substantial proof, and certainly not in Ferrell's book. Who really needs several pages of FDR's recorded blood pressure readings on different dates (especially in a book this small)? Who wants to read a book that is so inconsistent in chronological sequencing that it is impossible to understand what the author is attempting to construct or prove? Is this book necessary at all when virtually all the information in it has been known for decades from other books and sources? The book is not well-written and the subject material is derivative. Avoid it and search out better material such as Bishop's book or other more accomplished biographies such as the recent book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, "No Ordinary Time."

No comments about Berks County Women in History. Profiles Volume 2.

5 comments about The Hunley: Submarines, Sacrifice, and Success in the Civil War.

1. It's hard to say. Especially since the term referred to the Hunley murdering its Confederate crews.

   An excellent book, in its coverage of the remnants of myth and truth about the the Confederacy's "underwater torpedo boats". I recently became aware of a Confederate submarine (not covered in the book), that is currently being conserved by the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans, and is due to be on permanent display in the museum in Baton Rouge, sometime in late 2002. It's origin is not known to this day, however, it predated the Pioneer I, the American Diver (Pioneer II), and the Hunley. It appears all four subs were designed in Louisiana, but the American Diver and Hunley were built in Mobile.

   The book tells the true story of the development and lineage of the Hunley. However, now that the Hunley is being conserved ( with a guesstimation of about 10 more years), many of the technical aspects are being found to be inaccurate, in the light of the daily discoveries during conservation.

   I recently viewed the Hunley movie prop ship, touring in South Carolina (see the Hunley website for details), that was built for the Turner movie "The Hunley". The rudder mechanism, and prop drive train has been found to be different, and all of the exterior rivets were ground smooth (as spec'd for the Pioneer I, which is covered in the book).

   The crews have been referred to as the Astronauts of the 1860's. The Hunley, and it's predecessors, are an incredible story in technology, and humanity. This book does tribute to its time in the history of this country.




2. This book is a must have for the Hunley addict. It is obvious Mark Ragan did his homework on this book. It contains a great deal of information on the contruction of the first successful submarine and the mishaps that plagued it. The photos and illustrations are great and many I have not seen before. You really get the feeling of the importance of this vessel and the dedication of the crew and the designers of the submarine. It is a shame this book has had very limited availability.It should be of great interest to anyone who has been following the recovery and preservation of this unique ship.



3. Have read everything I could lay my hands on about the Hunley and nothing could satisfy my craving for detail and plauseable speculation until this came along. Admitedly many of our unanswered questions will remain so. Others will yield to the scrutiny of scientists and historians in a Charleston Lab. Until then, we have this gem! Ragan is a relentless detective and goes peering into nook and cranny. Which of the two versions of the first sinking at the Johnson Island dock is the more credible? Its in here. What was a German artilleryman doing inside a sub and how did he get there? Its in here. Any leads on other previously unidentified sailors? Thats in here too! Dixon becomes more alive than ever and more than fulfills the almost mythic image of the Confederate hero. Chocked full of interesting and previously unpublished documents and photographs, this is THE authoritative account.



4. I am not a writer. Mark Reagan is a writer. Let me brief. This is a great book. I'm sorry it's out of print. After I first read it, I sent copies to my brother Ken who is a civil war enthusiast, and several more copies to friends who just like to read good books. Don't let the movie dissuade from readng it. As is so often said: the book was better than the movie. Hope you can find a copy.



5. Having researced the C.S.S.Hunley for over 20 years, I can truly say this is the most complete work published to date. The illustrations alone are worth the price of the book. Mark's narrative is very readable and his facts are well documented. If you are interested in knowing the true stroy, this is the book to buy.