5 comments about A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy.

1. One thing needs to be cleared up right away: Joe McCarthy "never uncovered a Communist."
   
   Because McCarthyism was so devastating to rightwing anticommunism, giving a sour taste among decent people for half a century, there has been a deliberate (and often successful) attempt to rewrite history. In this version, McCarthy may have been crude and abrasive but he accomplished good work for the cause of freedom.
   
   As David Oshinsky lays out in endless detail in "A Conspiracy So Immense," there was nothing good about McCarthyism and little good about McCarthy except perhaps his charm. This was lost on many but reported powerfully by some who were strong political enemies.
   
   Oshinsky asserts, I think correctly, that his is not an ax-grinding history, and he certainly finds fault often enough with McCarthy's enemies, both political, journalistic and academic. He gives McCarthy credit where he can, which is not often.
   
   He portrays McCarthy as a man outside society, a natural: "He was so primitive, so cynical, so devoid of commitment to any goal but personal success, that few opponents had the will or stomach to fight him on his own terms." Or perhaps few Americans were as indecent as Joe McCarthy.
   
   That quotation comes from the introduction. Later, much later Oshinsky decides that McCarthy's anticommunism was genuine and not just, as so many charged, a cynical manipulation of an issue to get power, attention and money.
   
   This judgment must be heavily qualified. It's doubtful McCarthy knew anything about communism, and he definitely knew nothing about Americanism. That he was convinced that communism was evil means little; plenty, maybe almost all, of his opponents got that, too.
   
   Catholicism is key to McCarthy. Oshinsky says he was a ritual, not a moralistic Catholic. As long as he attended Mass and made his Easter duty, he had fulfilled the requirements of faith. Even priests who supported him are quoted as saying that McCarthy paid no attention to doctrine.
   
   This is an extremely important point and one where Oshinsky, in my opinion, errs. It has long been asserted that McCarthy was led to anticommunism by the Catholic clergy, and a dinner meeting is even said to have been the occasion that he was informed how he could use the issue to shore up his sagging political base after almost four years of undistinguished residence in the Senate.
   
   Oshinsky is skeptical about this meeting, for which there is no reliable testimony. However, a host of circumstantial evidence supports the idea that the American Catholic church recruited McCarthy.
   
   First, as anybody who attended Mass in the early `50s (as I did) knows, the church was desperate to launch a counterattack in eastern Europe and for that it needed some standard bearer in the U.S. government. McCarthy was it.
   
   Second, McCarthy's preferred companions of an evening were floozies and grifters. He did not regularly, or even irregularly, socialize with priests. To imagine that a singular long meeting with two priests and a fanatical Catholic layman was devoted to chatting about Notre Dame football is beyond belief.
   
   Third, Catholics stuck to McCarthy long past the time that he was becoming a political liability in most other sectors of American life. (That his loudest and longest cheerleaders -- still cheering in 2008, in fact -- were the bigoted Catholic William F. Buckley Jr. and his brother-in-law Brent Bozell tells us much.)
   
   Oshinsky does a good job of recreating how crazy the McCarthy era was, even though he hardly mentions the concurrent Red scares that went along with it -- Robert Oppenheimer's security investigations get a single footnote, for example. I well remember how fearful people became when McCarthy's name came up.
   
   Oshinsky gives Dwight Eisenhower a lot of credit for bringing McCarthy down, second only to McCarthy's own flaws. But the fact that a president as popular as Ike had to do so sneakily, and that it took almost the first half of his first term to get it done, shows just how powerful the fear was.
   
   Oshinsky's admiration for Ike's skill in maneuvering McCarthy out of power is tempered by his disdain for Ike's refusal to confront him early and in the open.
   
   McCarthy lived at a burnout pace, and "A Conspiracy So Immense" overwhelms with detail. There were so many scandals. Nevertheless, the last 200 pages rush past as all the threads are spun together into a rope that finally hangs the evildoer.
   
   Only an opera librettist would have countenanced the coincidences that really happened around McCarthy. He had so many attacks going on simultaneously, and they all blew up on a single day, March 9, 1954. The Washington Post required no fewer than 12 stories, plus editorials and cartoons to keep up with Joe that day.
   
   He was elemental, a force of nature. But, Oshinsky says, he was never a threat to subvert the government. Unlike a Hitler (whom he resembled), he had no larger goal. He did not even have an antisubversive plan to throttle the commies with. He seemed to care only to expose them, presumably thus causing righteousness to prevail.
   
   This silly idea he probably came to instinctively, but it is also another hint that Catholic puppeteers were pulling his strings. It was firmly believed by the church that Russian communism was barely sustaining itself and even a slight push would knock it down. That is why the prospect of war in eastern Europe did not appall the Sheens and Spellmans (or, at a humbler level, my parish priest, Father Shea).
   
   Three incidents, out of hundreds, stand out in this life.
   
   One is McCarthy's bewilderment after the famous dressing down he got from Joe Welch on national television, when Welch stared him down and asked whether he had "at last no decency." After it was over, McCarthy is pictured asking in bewilderment, "What did I do? What did I do?"
   
   Even worse, but less famous because there is no film of it, was his treatment of a poor (and by the time McCarthy was through with her, jobless) black woman named Annie Lee Moss. Oshinsky reports that the steely Sen. John McClellan "seemed almost in tears" as he watched McCarthy's humiliation of this innocent woman. It made me cry.
   
   The last image is of McCarthy, out of power, weeping on the sidewalk after being thrown out of a Republican dinner. McCarthy, Oshinsky believes, wanted to be liked, but would rather have been hated than ignored. During the last three years of his short life, he was ignored and, with any other subject, the picture of him sobbing in loneliness might raise a sympathetic tremor.
   
   Not this man. His was no Greek tragedy. McCarthy's story was black and then blacker.
   
   In the end, Oshinsky says, McCarthy's strength and weakness was his "outrageous independence." If so many people had not been injured so badly, it would almost be funny: A man claiming to be fighting for all he was worth (nothing, as it turned out) to save society who was never part of that society himself.
   
   



2. I think the evidence is pretty clear at this point that McCarthy was right on target with his accusations. Its amazing to me that liberals still cling to this "McCarthyism" myth. It just didn't exist. There was no repression of ordinary Americans in the 50s. Didn't happen. Sure, some people in government lost their jobs. But they were communists who then got other jobs selling insureance or whatever. Its not like they were sent to the gulag or anything.



3. Oshinsky gives the most complete review of McCarthy's life of any historian. He tries to appraise McCarthy's controveries and does not take part in the vicious name calling of a Ricahrd Rovere. However he comes from a liberal perspective and to get a fair appraisal from a conservative historian - read Hermann's McCarthy.
   
   Since Venona has been released Oshinshy should have rewritten this book and not reissued the book he wrote in 1982.The events of 9/11 can give us an analogy.
   
   Imagine if a professor advised the state department that the Taliban was the best hope for Afghanistan and that bin Ladin was just an agrarian reformer. Imagine if military secrets as the H bomb was given to Iran and that key government officials belonged to Islamist groups. Imagine if a senator would look at the aspects of that ? Would he be called intolerate of other religions ?
   
   Owen lattimore urged that Mao was an Agrarian reformer. Mao killed millions. Larrimore made millions of bucks on his 'brilliant" observations. Oshinsky shouldn't defend this man. Klaus Fuchs, Rosenbergs, Hall etc gave the bomb to Russia. Hiss helped shape our foreign policy and even gave Russia three votes in the General Assembly.
   
   So balance is really needed. McCarthy was a patriotic man who used bad means to an end. But his enemies sometimes used worse methods as Oshinsky demonstrates in the Joseph Rauh case and Eisenhower's minions forging letters.
   
   McCarthy was brought down by Roy Cohn wanting favorable treatment for a possible lover- David Schine but curiously Oshinsky does not update the book with Cohn's sexuality and this would be an important insight.
   
   In short this was a brilliant book for 1982 but the newer revelations as Venona , Cohn etc demands an update for this book



4. A book of politics, and the craving for power that drives some people to do almost anything to get that power. The broad outlines of the story are well known. Joe McCarthy grandstanding in front of the microphones accusing all kinds of people of being communists. Never presenting any evidence he was able to ruin the lives of many Americans just to gain his own satisfaction.
   
   Now reviled, these times really need to be viewed in the light of the times, and again now that we have learned more about those times. His accusations appear to have been unfounded. But this was the time of the Rosenberg executions. This was the time of the House UnAmerican Activities Commission (HUAC).
   
   As we have learned since with the release of the Venona documents, the Rosenbergs were guilty (well there's some question about Ethel). The activities of HUAC harmed a lot of people, especially in Hollywood, but did it really make us safer? It also appears that there were a lot of communists in our Government. But there is no indication that McCarthy really knew that.
   
   This is an accurate story of McCarthy's rapid rise, and his rapid fall.



5. Oshinsky lays out the McCarthy record in straight-forward, unbiased terms.
   
   Joe McCarthy was a deeply disturbed individual, who, having stumbled into a Senate Seat, went asking his friends for a good campaign "hook" to get reelected. They suggested communism.
   
   Over the next five years, McCarthy accused, literally, thousands of Americans of being Soviet agents. Not once did he produce evidence that any of those accused were, in fact, working on behalf of communism. He accused the leadership of the U.S. Army of communism because it insisted on drafting G. David Schine, "friend" of McCarthy's associate Roy Cohn. Anyone who publicly criticized what McCarthy was doing was accused as well. Anyone who so much as supported progressive causes was labled as unpatriotic. In 2005, does that sound familiar?
   
   It was inevitable that the Republican noise machine would eventually try to rehabilitate the record of one of the most disgraceful persons in American history. For the real facts on this living nightmare of a man, read this book.

1 comments about American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post.

1. Superb biography which open the window (and the door) into Marjorie Merriweather Post's fascinating life - - and shows that "money cannot buy everything" ....

5 comments about The Pirates Laffite: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf.

1. The Pirates Laffite: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf is another great book about Lafitte!! I love this book!! A must read for all pirate and Galveston history buffs! Lafitte was no pirate, he was however, a smuggler and a privateer... and he was a gentleman. Great reading!



2. Here's the bottom line on this book: If you're looking for a colorful folk tale of these characters, with all the atmospheric (and largely fictional) accoutrements, you're going to think that it's an "unreadable, tedious, overly detailed" bore.
   
   If you want a well-researched narrative, one in which the author leaves no stone unturned in his search for authenticity, you'll like this book with all its warts.
   
   This is a history book. It reads like a history book, with its emphasis on details, which brings our attention to facts that seek the more mundane truth of the matter. The life of the Laffites is so distorted by folklore that Dr. Davis has taken a hard line on archival detail and ambiguity.
   
   He won't give you the answers to the questions he can't solve, and he won't give you the romantic picture of the setting he can't control.
   
   This is a book for people more interested in history than pre-conceived imagery. Dr. Davis is a prolific author, and we know he has a tendency to crank out the words. That makes him subject to a few grammatical blunders from time to time, as he immerses himself in the subject matter. I will never criticize an historian for getting into his subject at the MINOR expense of a few mis-chosen conjunctions and misplaced commas.
   
   For portraits of early American New Orleans and colonial Galveston, this book is a valuable contribution to the literature. I should mention that its annotation is extensive, as is its bibliography.



3. Pirates offers an interesting perspective of the period and the Gulf of Mexico. Most history is written about the winners. The Laffites are not winners, they are simply pirates operating under the ruse of being privateers. Davis portrays them as quintessentially fluid in their ability to change allegiances on a whim, or rather an utter lack of allegiance to anything other than their next deal. The smuggling of captured goods up into the bayou country is fascinating as is the acceptance of the brothers, their ilk and their trade by the citizenry of New Orleans (and the lower Mississippi River) for the inexpensive goods (and slaves)they provided.
   
   Anyone interested in the early history of the US, anyone who liked David Niven's War of 1812, the intrigues of Aaron Burr and Col. James Williamson, Andrew Jackson's efforts in the west of the early 1800s, or the numerous plots to wrest Texas from the Spanish during this period, will find this a must read. (Ditto for all who live or are interested in southern Louisiana.)



4. This is a shockingly poorly done book. Unreadably tedious, drowning in meanningless detail, of a high school level of scholarship. Offensive misspellings in French ("La Diligent", "San Domingue" and other horrors), especially bothersome since this is about French characters. One would think that the author would have troubled to check how words are spelled in French, a language of which he is clearly ignorant.



5. Several years ago as a guest at Jean Lafitte National Park in New Orleans, the park ranger informed our group, "Unfortunately, little is known about the Laffites." Thanks to Mr. Davis, that statement is no longer accurate.
   
   Jean and Pierre Laffite's lives have always been intertwined with New Orleans, Andy Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans but there is much more to their amazing story than any of us ever realized. Their influence spanned not only New Orleans but the entire Gulf of Mexico from Cuba and Mexico to Jamaica, Panama, the Windward Islands, the Bahamas and Cartagena, Columbia. More amazingly, their influence was directly felt by Spain, Mexico, Washington, New York, the Carolinas, Florida and Texas. Yes, they were so early in Texas history that they are credited with founding Galveston after they were forced from Barataria Bay.
   
   As opposed to the mythical bit players most of us are aware of, Jean and Pierre dominated piracy and intrigue throughout the Gulf of Mexico for over 20 years. Labeled as corsairs and buccaneers for their methods, these brothers ran a privateering cooperative that provided contraband goods to a hungry market and made life hell for the Spanish merchants of the Gulf. Piracy was a growth business and these boys were very serious entrepreneurs. Later, as piracy as an approved economic endeavor waned, they became critical members of a New Orleans syndicate that included lawyers, bankers, merchants and corrupt US officials.
   
   This is their story, exceedingly well researched and superbly written, an unvarnished tale of national intrigue and foreign spying that defined and redefined not only piracy throughout the Gulf of Mexico, but the wars and population movements of the time.

2 comments about One Man Great Enough: Abraham Lincoln's Road to Civil War.

1. A basic history of Abraham Lincoln's political journey from Illinois to Washington, D.C. Nothing in this book will be a surprise to dedicated readers on the Civil War era.
   
   The author writes in a folksy style, sourcing quotes from local press accounts of the time, memoirs, and early Lincoln biographies. Mr. Waugh uses the Little Giant, Senator Douglas, and his long-time and somewhat unusual relationship to the up-and-coming Lincoln as a common thread throughout his book.
   
   Not broad or deep scholarship, but worth reading for one in need of an introduction to, or reminder of, the greatness embodied in the one who finally ended slavery within our land.



2. There are a raft of Lincoln books published seemingly every year. Each author has a slightly different take on the Great Emancipator, seeing him in a slightly different light. Most think him as great as the name implies, nad I tend to agree. So does the author of this current book, who takes a look at Lincoln's political philosophy, especially as it relates to the issue of slavery. Author Waugh spends only a little time dealing with incidents in Lincoln's life: his marriage, the death of his son, and so forth are all dealt with very cursorily. His father's death is only mentioned in passing, when the author is recounting something that happened a decade later. The majority of the space in this book follows Lincoln's transformation from a Whig who had only vague opposition to the institution of slavery into an abolitionist of sorts who had very definite views about pretty much every aspect of the issue.
   
   I've never read a book by John C. Waugh before. On one or two occasions, people have recommended books by him to me, and I think I have a copy of one of his books floating around here somewhere, but I never did get to it. This book crossed my path, and the time was right so I read it. I have to say I think I'm going to have to find that other book, because this volume is very well-written and interesting. I really enjoyed it.

4 comments about The Life of Francis Marion.

1. Sean Busick has done us all a wonderful service by bringing back to print William Gilmore Simms's Life of Marion. It's a classic work of historical narrative suitable for most readers. Not only does Simms provide a interesting account of the life of one of early America's most courageous figures, he captures the complicated and often turbulent world of Revolutionary South Carolina.



2. Few "giants" of the American Revolution have deserved more attention and praise than Francis Marion. Unfortunately, Marion, the brilliant general and statesman, has not received the attention he rightfully deserves. Simms classic biography is a remedy to this predicament, and Dr. Busick's erudite introduction to this new edition allows for an even fuller understanding of a true American hero and his contribution to American social and political life. Reading Simms on Marion, guided by Busick's careful and terse introduction, we can recover the military genius and personal affability of the man Tarleton called the "old fox."
   
   H. Lee Cheek, Jr., Ph.D.
   Chair, Social Sciences; and Professor of Political Science, Brewton-Parker College, Mt. Vernon, Georgia
   www.drleecheek.com
   Author of _Calhoun and Popular Rule_ (University of Missouri Press, 2001 and 2004).



3. I wanted to read a contemporary book about General Marion. This is an interesting book but was written in 1844. It is undoubtedly accurate but I found it difficult to read for a nonhistorian.



4. This is well written Narrative of the life of a real hero and his participation in the revolutionary war

5 comments about Thomas Paine and the Promise of America.

1. This book takes a surprising amount of time to read due to the 'hidden' density of the writing. It is a superlative history of one of our most important founding fathers. The impact of 'Common Sense' by Paine simply can hardly over stated. This book is not a dry or boring read, it simply takes more time than I had expected.
   
   The gnawing knowledge that America largely ditched Paine after he dutifully served his purpose is disturbing. He contributed the proceeds from Common Sense to buy mittens for our troops. When imprisoned in France and marked for execution, precisely noyone rode to the rescue. The reason that Paine was largely forgotten is that he had acquired a reputation for not being a man of solid faith. In spite of a remarkable literary career, Paine was destined to die a poor man with a poorly attended funeral. It does seem that he liked to imbibe in the spirits more than he ought to have.
   
   Teddy Roosevelt went on to describe Paine as a "filthy little athiest". He was actually none of the above.
   
   Paine and Samuel Adams suffered the same fate. Both were men of tremendous talent with the pen. Both worked tirelessly. Both played inestimable roles in our freedom. Both tend to be forgotten by mainstream historians. Neither one was an aristocrat. Are historians largely elitist snobs?



2. I'm no Paine scholar - so I do not understand the quibbles. I love this book. Where today is the person who touches the human heart to stoke that which is already in us, as Paine did? I find the progressive candidates both ring the same (negative) bell about not liking George, Jr. That, however, is a just a pull away from the negative. Where is the today's beckoning cry for that which is in the human heart? Thank you, dear author, for this offering.



3. When I ordered this book I was thinking of updating my knowledge of one of that group of men we usually think of as our "forefathers"--the ones who were there at the birth of our nation. I got that AND SO MUCH MORE. In addition to learning more of Thomas Paine himself, I learned why he has never had the place of distinction and honor accorded others of his time despite his seemingly crucial activities in securing our independence. THEN, this fine historian takes the "essence" of this dynamic American, traces its ( and his) waxing and waning influence through the decades, and presents us with the need to re-capture, if we can, that zeal for maintaining our freedom and our "national theme" of a nation for the common good--for the common man. For me, anyway: A Masterpiece. The only drawback (if one can call it that): Now I MUST read ( and own) the basic works--in Thomas Paine's own words



4. I was recently looking through the history shelves of a local book store when I saw the cover of this book staring at me. Recently I've been doing a lot more reading of history on the revolutionary generation and as a consequence I have been looking for biographies of the founders. Since Thomas Paine is someone I've long read and admired, and considering the positive reviews from Ellis and Hitchens on the back cover of this book, I decided I'd give it a try. Wrong move.
   
   The first three or four chapters are a concise history of Paine, but Kaye hardly does the history any justice. He glosses over Paine's actual life and spends the last two thirds of the book giving a history of progressive and socialist movements in America. Apparently, in the eyes of Kaye, because Paine espoused liberal democratic views concerning government providing for the welfare of its citizens, no one but socialists and leftists can quote or admire him. How preposterous! Jefferson famously thought that the slaves should be free and realized the contradiction of fighting a revolution for liberty and keeping men in bondage, but he was a racist who thought blacks were inferior to whites and that the two races would never be able to coexist peacefully. None of that, though, prevents anyone from appreciating the Declaration of Independence any less and it certainly doesn't mean that only white supremacists and the Klu Klux Klan have the privilege of owning his legacy.
   
   Anyone looking for a biography of Paine, or even an entertaining read concerning how his reputation has evolved since his lifetime, should stay away from this book.



5. This is a brilliant work that breathes new life into the legacy of Tom Paine and links his writings to our lives as Americans today. We in the Borough of Fort Lee, New Jersey are proud that Paine began to write "The American Crisis" while in Fort Lee as an aide to General Nathaniel Greene. The retreat to victory through New Jersey in November 1776 was one of the darkest periods of the American Revolution. Paine's words in The Crisis inspired this young nation so much so that General Washington had "The Crisis" read by his offcers to his men prior to the crossing of the Delaware.
   
   We in Fort Lee are presently forming "The Common Sense Society" to promote the ideals of Tom Paine and to work with the Borough of Fort Lee to erect a statue to Paine in our Monument Park where Paine encamped with the American Army in 1776. This would be only the sixth statue of Paine in the world and the fourth in the United States.

2 comments about Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861-1868 (Library of Southern Civilization).

1. Like Mary Boykin Chesnut, Kate Stone wrote her diary during the Civil War. They were both members of the slaveholding planter class and at the start of the war both were surrounded by servants who met their every need. But twenty year old Kate Stone's life would be more directly affected by the war. Her young uncles and brothers went to join up at the onset and before the war ended several were dead of injuries or disease. Kate Stone's Louisiana home was occupied by the Yankees forcing the family to flee to Texas. Both describe the deprivations of the war years, lack of shoe leather, lack of cloth and the unavailability of new books, and both were at times cheered by false reports of great southern victories. The two diaries complement each other.



2. Kate Stone is one of my favorite Civil War diarists. She is an admixture of a great privilege, passionate beliefs, lover of literature, keen social observations and amazing fortitude. Her Civil War was dangerous, turbulent and life changing.

   Brokenburn was a large plantation containing over 150 slaves in Madison Parish, LA. From 1862 on, it was in the center of the Union Army's fierce assault to gain control of the Mississippi River and divide the Confederacy in half. Plantations were commandeered and slaves were encouraged to revolt. The civilian population was helpless before the demands of military control. Madison Parish had a population of approximately 9,000 of whom 7,000 were slaves. After 1861, the Parish was emptied of able-bodied white men, most of whom had been sent to far-off Virginia and Tennessee, leaving none to protect the civilians.

   In 1861, Kate was 20 years old, her immediate future being beaus, courtship, and a gay social life before she settled down to become a proper southern matron. She was unsure whether this route was ideal, as she remarked, "women grew significantly uglier in wedlock and ignored and abandoned their former female friends." This comfortable world was turned upside down, never to reappear again. With great enthusiasm and some trepidation, she watched her three older brothers go off to war. Her widowed mother made it clear that 14-year-old James was now in charge of the running of the plantation and the protection of the rest of the family. I was amazed at the serene assumption that a young teenager was thrust in this role, but it seems that was the custom of the times. If you had to grow up fast, you did. Yellow fever was a constant in the area, and longevity was not a norm. Both Generals Grant and Lee wanted their troops out of these areas during "the seasons of pestilence." This was not to be, and both armies suffered devastating losses to disease. Kate treated the "fever season" as a fact of life, and planned around it with remarkable briskness.

   By 1862, the Stone family was desperate. The Federal leadership demanded that they stay on their property; yet there were serious slave insurrections that threatened the lives of the plantation holders. Those slaves who were not hostile were running off, and there was no labor to farm the crops. Many southerners could not believe that their "loyal" slaves would run away. Kate was not among them, saying, "If I were in their place, I'd do the same." She was by no means sympathetic, just practical.

   The family finally escaped through the bayous in a rickety canoe with nothing, not even underwear, and finally made it across the border into Texas. They were refugees along with many other prominent Louisiana families. Kate was convinced they had arrived at "a dark corner of the Confederacy." Upon noting the barefoot but hoop skirted frontier ladies, she sniffed "there must be something in the air of Texas fatal to beauty."

   Kate agonized over the increasingly bad war news and was devastated by Lee's surrender. Kate is one of the most vivid, perceptive diarists of the Civil War. Her diary is one of social history, a time of calamitous change and invaluable for understanding this crucial time in American history. Kate is a natural writer and observer. A highly enjoyable read.

5 comments about Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic.

1. This is the most impacting, and disturbing, book I've read in the past year. I found myself identifying strongly with Charles Colcock Jones, an extremely sincere evangelical Christian who thought of himself as utterly consecrated in service to God, and who was held in high regard by the evangelical community of the South. Through Clarke's detailed and highly documented narrative, I was able to understand how his understanding of slavery was gradually warped through several factors: 1) compromise with the viewpoints of his peers, 2) cultural difficulties with the slaves, 3) losing sight of the ends by concentrating on the means, and 4) by being a beneficiary of the status quo.
   
   It's easy to think of slaveowners as sadistic monsters with no shred of humanity. It's more difficult for people of our time to imagine themselves as slaveowners. Dwelling Place accomplished that for me. Charles Colcock Jones was not the typical slaveowner, but he was one that evangelicals might identify with. More than that, he had a spirituality and a heart of service that many evangelicals might ASPIRE to.
   
   Contrary to another reviewer, I did appreciate Clarke's attempts to infer the viewpoint of the slaves, though because of their illiteracy there is infinitely less documentation of their thoughts. Perhaps some of his inferences are off-target, but to not make an attempt at representing the slaves' point of view would be to leave out an equally important part of the story. Many of the African-American characters were developed as multi-dimensional compelling actors in the drama.
   
   I also appreciated the number of characters described, both white and black, because they comprise the very intricate and dynamic context which produced Jones's mindset, so analagous to the context which Americans find themselves in our time.



2. It was to my surprise that I discovered the existence of the remarkable Reverend Mister Charles Colcock Jones, 1804-1863, of whom, even through my years of historical studies, I had never heard. It was first via this book, Dwelling Place, and later through another, The Children of Pride, that I became aware of Jones, his extended family, and their place in both the religious life of antebellum America, and of their significant contribution in the form of letters and first-hand accounts, to some further measure of understanding low country life in the decades before the 1860's war destroyed that culture.
   
   Let me say that the author of Dwelling Place, Erskine Clarke, is a gifted researcher, writer, and interpreter of the American past. He has crafted a book certain, if there is fairness among scholars, to stand through time as the definitive reference on its subject matter. I also say while I understand religion was the Reverend Jones' vocation, that I found Dwelling Place to be far more compelling as an investigation into the lives of planters and their slaves than I did its primary theme of chronicling the career of an influential Christian cleric. As such, I was engrossed in the first hundred pages, but soon found myself slightly less captivated by the constant reflections on Jones' considerable evangelism: in large part among the non-Caucasian populace.
   
   As a sort of expose on the realities of life as a black and as a white in coastal Georgia in the early and mid nineteenth-century, I know of no finer work. As a study on the life of Jones, on religion in his time and place, again, this book is preeminent. It's simply true that speaking for myself, had it strayed a little less far from its initial subject matter, southern plantations and their inhabitants, I would have enjoyed it even more.



3. In Dwelling Place, Erskine Clarke expands the chronological range of a notable series of letters--published in 1972 by Yale as Children of Pride--to write a history of the extended Jones family of nineteenth-century coastal Georgia, as well as the families of their "people," their slaves.
   
   This is a good book but not a great one. Clarke writes well enough, though his attempt to be novelistic by foreshadowing the future often seems forced. Clarke does significant service by emphasizing how important life events for southern slaveholders--marriages, deaths, and removal to distant locations--could often have disastrous effects on slave families, many of whom were torn apart by separations so final that slave spouses were treated as if they were dead to one another.
   
   Nevertheless, Dwelling Place has significant weaknesses. First, Clarke's chronological sweep, which takes the reader from 1805 to 1869, scoops up too many characters, many of whom are tangential to the main story as told through the lives of Charles and Mary Colcock Jones. Clarke provides helpful biographical notes and elaborate genealogical charts, but it's doubtful that any but the most persistent reader can keep all the characters straight.
   
   Second, although Clarke tries to put as much weight on slave existence as on the life of the masters, he is faced with a conundrum that exercises every historian who tries to write antebellum history from "the bottom up," that is, that the poor are frequently illiterate and therefore virtually inarticulate. Furthermore, lower class existence is repetitive and usually has small effect on the course of history. Sea island cuisine cannot hold its weight against the coming of the Civil War, which (in passing) Clarke slights.
   
   A more serious weakness is Clarke's repeated attempts to read the minds of the slaves in ways that satisfy twenty-first century taste. For instance, Cato, a driver for Charles Colcock Jones, says in a letter (written for him by a plantation manager) that he felt "like crying with love and gratitude" for such "a kind master." Clarke can't leave this letter without suggesting that slaves understood that "successful revolution only `grows out of the barrel of a gun,' and that slaves lacked the necessary firepower and military organization to challenge white hegemony."
   
   Maybe, maybe not. I have never been a slave, but I was a draftee infantryman during the Vietnam era and one definitely unsuited to military life. A historian who tried to guess how I felt about being pulled away from school to prepare to kill people would probably go far astray. Frustration and fear were mingled with patriotism and pride in my new (but definitely limited) military prowess. My calculated desire to shirk as much work and responsibility as possible was combined with a determination to accomplish my mission to the best of my ability. We do not have to adopt the Gone-with-the-Wind mentality about plantation slavery to believe that slaves were sometimes sincerely devoted to their masters and to the religious faith that they shared. They were not always hypocritical when they spoke words later romanticized by purveyors of the Lost Cause.
   
   Although I recommend Dwelling Place, the more sophisticated reader (especially one who has a taste for big books) should read Children of Pride instead. In that massive volume the reader can approach the remarkably articulate Jones family on its own terms and calculate its conflicted feelings about slavery without twenty-first century intervention.



4. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Gave me an insight into what my ancestors went thru. Also gave me a couple of clues to follow as my Ashmore family was mentioned several times in this book.



5. "Early on a March morning in 1805, as the first hints of dawn touched the Sea Islands and the marshlands south of Savannah, Old Jupiter rose, went out of his cabin, and with a blast from his conch-shell horn announced a new day." With this first sentence of Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic, I was captivated by the history of three generations of families- plantation owners and slaves- in Liberty County, Georgia.
   
   The author of this Pulitzer-nominated book has thoroughly researched and beautifully written this true story, which reads like a novel. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, especially when I had an hour or two to read it without interruption. The story moves the reader through the inter-weaving history of families on several plantations in the Georgia low country, and takes place from Darien and Midway, Georgia, to Savannah, Atlanta, Marietta and Roswell, Georgia. The book occurs from 1805 through the end of the Civil War, with the end of a way of life for the plantation owners and the dawn of a new freedom for the slaves.
   
   I particularly enjoyed the parts of the book that describe how people lived on Georgia low country plantations in the early to the mid-19th century. The book describes how plantation houses were built and farms and rice were cultivated, the role of Christianity and the conversion of plantation owners and slaves, how meals were prepared, the horrors of slave families being sold and split up in front of the courthouse in Riceboro, Georgia, how slaves lived and the secret paths they took from plantation to plantation, and the often symbiotic relationship among the plantation owners and the slaves.
   
   At times the various characters and families can be difficult to follow, and the author's inclusion of family trees and a brief description of the principal characters in the appendices make it easier to follow. A map at the beginning of the book of Midway and the surrounding plantations is also useful. The narrative part of the book is only 465 pages; the rest of the book is appendices and endnotes. I whole-heartedly recommend this book to any person who loves history.

1 comments about J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biography.

1. Rick Geary does it again with his graphic biography of an American icon, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI. He uses his trademark illustrative style to chart the course of Hoover's life from birth to death, and all points in between. Hoover is now a controversial figure thanks to some scandalous, yet unproven rumors (mostly about his personal life), but Geary treats his subject matter fairly, and portrays Hoover in an unbiased fashion. This is a new venture from Geary's excellent "Treasury of Victorian Crime" series, and it does not disappoint. Anyone looking for a concise, yet thoroughly enjoyable biography of Hoover need look no further.

1 comments about Iconoclast: Abraham Flexner and a Life in Learning.

1. Professor Thomas Neville Bonner who is a distinguished historian and has authored several books about medical education has produced a real literary gem in "Iconoclast-Abraham Flexner and a life in learning". Abraham Flexner and his brother Simon were true giants in reforming medical education and introducing scientific medical research respectively in the USA at the beginning of 20th century. Abraham Flexner's life story is traced with marked clarity and precision of details in this remarkable book. Professor Bonner informs us about his fascination with Abraham Flexner's work in the Introduction by reading his first book "The American College" followed by the famous "Flexner Report- Medical Education in the US and Canada" published in 1910. He then takes us through Abraham's early years growing up as the youngest son of poor Jewish immigrant parents in late 19th century in Reconstruction Louisville, Kentucky, his graduation from high school, attendance at the newly opened Johns Hopkins University and coming back to Louisville at age 19 to become a teacher at his alma mater, Louisville Male High School. Thereafter he becomes principal of his own highly successful preparatory school. At age 42, he " breaks free" from Louisville and enrolls at Harvard and subsequently at Oxford in Britain and then at Berlin University in Germany. On his return back to the U.S.A, he is commissioned by Henry Pritchett of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to survey 155 medical schools in North America. Flexner Report was a scathing critique of the deplorable conditions of the then extant medical schools and catapulted him into an education specialist status overnite.After being hired by the Rockefeller Foundation, Abraham Flexner was in a unique position to implement medical education reforms, start full-time plan and improve university-hospital affiliations by being able to disburse huge sums of Rockefeller largesse.Bonner points out the immense influence Abraham Flexner enjoyed being at the helm of an epochal reform movement in medical education. He was an author, a negotiator, a highly effective fund-raiser and a philanthropist. He established the Instiute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ which became an intellectual powerhouse , through the philanthropy of Louis Bamberger and was solely responsible for Albert Einstein's immigration to the USA. Abraham Flexner's long life was a multi-faceted and highly eventful one. Professor Bonner has done an admirable job in writing this thoroughly researched and definitive biography which will serve as a highly dependable reference work for future researchers. He writes with great clarity and conviction. The book reads like a novel with tremendous intrigue and drama. I recommend this book as a required reading for medical students, physicians and medical educators.General public will also find this book extremely enjoyable and informative