5 comments about Washington.

1. Every year there are biographies published on the life and career of George Washington. Years pass but still no one has matched Douglas Southall Freeman for a biography on the Father of our nation. Freeman was the dean of Southern historians winning many awards (including the Pulitzer Prize) for his unsurpassed life of RE Lee in 4 volumes; Lee's Lieutenants in 3 volumes and 7 volumes on the life of Washington (he died before he completed this overwhelming project!)
   Richard Harwell abridges the work as he has also done on Freeman's volumes on Lee. Overall he has done an excellent job.
   I do wish the book had included more maps to follow the battle action.
   Many of the sections of the book will seem dry. Freeman's work
   is basically a military history as he rarely comments on the social scene in colonial and early America.
   While not williing to spend time with Freeman through his seven volumes on Washington I found this one volume work to be
   essential in my understanding of Washington.
   Washington was a man who loved duty, honor and country. He was
   honest and ambitious. Frugal Washington never gave up on American independence. He was kind and though somewhat aloof could also be there for his friends and nation when in need.
   No wonder he and Lincoln are always at the top of presidential polls.
   In this sober work of scholarship you will meet a great man and enjoy the words of a great scholar. Recommended.



2. His decades of efforts for the multi-volume biography is a gift to all fans of American History. Even though it drags in a few spots, this edited version is one of the best one volume biographies of the "Father of Our Country"



3. His decades of efforts for the multivolume biography on Washington is a gift to all fans of American history. While this summary drags in a few places, it is the best one volume biography of the "Father or Our Country" available. Particularly pleasing is the concise chronological arrangement of the materials.



4. Harwell does a good job of pulling together and redacting DS Freeman's epic VII Volume (actually VI - he died before publishing the 7th) account of George Washington's life. I often find myself wishing he would annotate, at least on a chapter basis, which volumes of the larger work he is pulling his info from.

   A basic understanding of the extreme hardships early Americans (Colonists) went through can be gathered through this book, and this understanding should be required basic knowledge in all schools. The birth of this nation, was founded on some of the most remarkable physically, financially, emotionally and seemingly impossible acheivements by a few who had the courage to see the delivery through. Freeman captured these trials and victories in marvelous detail.




5. Multiple reviewers of other Washington biographies recommended this abridgement over the book they were reviewing. I am a reader, as claimed above, but I have NOT read ANY Washington biography. I still thought the above information might be helpful to other seekers.

1 comments about A Puritan in Babylon: The Story of Calvin Coolidge.

1. Ok, so Silent Cal was not one of our greatest Presidents. He was a very honest President, who had a very shy personality. White wrote this biography in the thirties, and knew Calvin. Even though White knew Coolidge, criticism is still present in this biography. The most damning was Coolidge not taking action to prevent the build up of credit and speculation in the stock market. All indications are there that he should have limited money at some point, but Coolidge let the market make its own correction. This was one of the reasons why the market went down so fast.
   White does a good job of showing how someone like Coolidge (and Harding) rose to the top of the heap. Throughout this book, Coolidge is shown as an honest politician who lived off his salary. He even stayed in boarding houses when he was Governor and Vice President. He was very shy and limited his talking. He asked people to vote for him and they did. He only lost one election, so this shows people trusted him. He worked the political system for his constituents and his beliefs. Although conservative, he backed some very liberal ideas at the time including the vote for women and opposed anti immigration efforts against the Japanese. When he told people what he was going to do, people could trust he would do it. He even made fun of himself and his personality. His personal characteristics were very admirable.
   White's biography is a bit dry at times, but the subject comes across in very human terms. The book is divided into four sections, so one can read bits and pieces of that history which may interest the reader. The first one hundred pages was slow going, but it gets better after that. For those interested in a President who governed for six years, this is a good read.

3 comments about Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America.

1. This beautifully written book brings to light, in an understated but poetic way, the genius and greatness of the man who, as Gaustad says, "was out to do nothing less than alter the institutional structure of the Western world." It is a measure of our time that many people, especially young people educated pursuant to the fashionable bromides of contemporary social science education, have never heard of this first founder of liberty of conscience and disestablishment of religion in America. In our epoch of attempted "faith-based" governmental initiatives, Gaustad's book reminds us, by constant reference to the writings of Roger Williams, of those principles that, after a bitter struggle of more than a century, came to distinguish this nation from the government-controlled religion and thought of the rest of the world. The life of Roger Williams shows that deeply held religious belief necessarily implies an unwavering commitment to the principle of absolute separation of church and state. Williams' life also demonstrates that at least one colonial leader tried, unsuccessfully, to overcome the tendency of the Puritans to treat Native Americans as less than human or as mere subjects for conversion to Christianity. The tragedy of Williams' life consisted solely in the failure of his decades-long effort to resolve the conflict between rapacious, religiously hypocritical English settlers and the Native Americans. The triumph of his life was his original pronouncement, in this country, of the enduring but often threatened principle that government should be restricted to civil, not religious, tasks. More than a century later, Jefferson and Madison built on the foundation that Roger Williams so nobly established in his writings and in the constitutional documents of Rhode Island.



2. Gaustad did an excellent job of portraying not only Williams' beliefs, politic and theology but the state of the world that led to their development and need. Very readable, never boring, practical and insightful to William's America as it is to ours. WE could learn a great deal from Williams, even so mamy years later. Gaustad truly brought him to life.



3. Gaustad's Liberty of Conscience is the second biography of Roger Williams I have read this summer. Perhaps because the first, Covey's The Gentle Radical, was so prolix, I loved Gaustad's work. His selection of historical data, his clear sequencing, and his explication of Williams's own writings make this a delight to read. Seventeenth-century Britain and colonial America and all those names one vaguely remembers are vividly described. The prose is clear and attractive. I came away with a new appreciation of Williams. Gaustad sees him as the first to set forth those principles of religious liberty that were picked up after him by Locke, Penn, Jefferson, and others and which we take for granted today. Toleration is a subject of current conversation within the United States. This biography depicts someone who fought for toleration in a time when people were being banished and even executed for not believing what the political powers said they must believe. It really gives a healthy perspective on our times. I recommend it highly.

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.

5 comments about Infinite Potential: The Life And Times Of David Bohm.

1. 
   "Infinite Potential" is excellent. David Bohm's thoughts - which are sometimes difficult to understand for non-physicists - become clear the way David Peat is explaining Bohm's physics/philosophy.
   I highly recommend this book to everybody interested in reaching to a kind of solution as to how our mysterious world may function.
   
   Karen



2. A neat overview of an inspiring life. Unfortunately, although the book read well, it felt somewhat unsubstantial in relation to the man himself. I could not pin-point exactly what left me with this impression as the author seems to touch on all bases. Perhaps it was a result of the extent of my own admiration for Bohm, but I think it also has to do with the depth and breath of his life and work. As a man and a thinker Bohm seemed to give so much- what a huge task it is to attempt to give some back! A previous interest in Bohm places this particular view within a greater whole, in which case I would recommend this book.



3. I can say, without question, that Peat's biography is a disappointment. The book's only redeeming characteristic is that Peat makes ample use of interviews that would otherwise be unavailable or nonexistent. In other areas, however, Bohm is not well represented. Peat uses information obtained from Russell Olwell concerning Bohm's case before HUAC. Unfortunately, Peat corrupted much of Olwell's work and presented an inaccurate picture of Bohm's case. Further, Peat fails to fully explore the impact of Bohm's work in the foundation of quantum physics and his alternative interpretation. In his review of the book Dr. James Cushing wrote that Bohm deserved better. Sadly, Dr. Cushing is correct.



4. This book illuminates the life of David Bohm as both man and scientist--who was nothing at all like I imagined. I knew of Bohm chiefly through the reputation of "Wholeness & the Implicate Order" among New-Age/Fringe Science circles, and through his collaboration with J. Krishnamurti (the darling Theosophical saint, of lately tarnished reputation.) Here, we see Bohm *exactly* as depicted on the cover, wrinkles in high relief and all. Betrayed by squealing Oppenheimer, mentor to famous Feynmann, dumped by Jiddhu Krishnamurti, he was stripped of his citizenship and lived a sorrowful life, despondent & frequently bitter that he had not been given a fair chance to realize his true potential, his scientific contributions not properly acknowledged. He clung to his materialist Marxist philosophy throughout his life; indeed, his Communist connections partially explain (along with Oppenheimer's "tissue of lies") his citizenship problems. Most importantly for would-be devotees, Bohm's life-long devotion to Marxist dogma strongly influenced his materialist interpretation of quantum mechanics and should give pause to those attracted to the "Implicate Order" as somehow acknowledging consciousness in science and the universe. All in all, a good biography of a strangely moving man



5. This is an excellent account of David Bohm, his work and his philosophy. It details his encounters with some of the leading thinkers of his day, including Albert Einstein, Jiddu Krishnamurti and Richard Feynman. Bohm's treatment of his theory of the explicate order and implicate order is described in a very eloquent way by the author. It also addresses how David Bohm was one of those super intellectuals whom the United States had difficulty in accepting and how he "lost" his citizenship over his beliefs. It is a book that is worthwhile reading!

5 comments about The Captain is Out to Lunch.

1. Charles Bukowski, The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (Black Sparrow, 1998)
   
   A year in the life of Charles Bukowski, 1991-92, as he neared death. He knew he was nearing death; he writes about it as often as he wrote about the deaths of other things in his poetry. Of course, his is not the only death to mention in these pages; car accidents, a falling neighbor, etc.
   
   Other than death, Buk's diary talks a lot about horseplaying. Great for me. Perhaps not so great for others.
   
   Bukowski was always a better poet than he was a prose stylist, but The Captain Is Out to Lunch... is likely the most readable piece of Buk's prose I have ever come across. Probably because there was nothing to writing it; instead of coming up with characters, plot, theme, etc., they're sitting there at the track or in the neighborhood waiting for you.
   
   Worthwhile. One of the better posthumously published works. *** ½



2. i have read everything bukowski has ever written and this is not bukowski. sure, it has the same name on the cover and on the spine, but charles bukowski who raged so hard to do nothing, who fought in alleyways and picked glass from his bleeding feet this most certainly is not. and, yet, if this were the same bukowski it would be somehow less satisfying. i've laughed and cried with buk, ive winced and ive looked away and this time i shed a tear. here, for one time only, is the tamed poet, recording his last thoughts in a journal with the final entry weeks before he passed. he knew death was coming and he faced upto it like a man, but he had mellowed, his body had started failing him and, as i hope we all will get the chance, he had started to take the time to reflect on his life, to consider his achievements and know what he would be leaving behind. this is a fascinating, absorbing, frank and bare portrait of bukowski's final days and what sat in his head and i can only say that i cried a tear of sadness by the final entry and wondered where on earth i would ever find another author that could mean as much to me as bukowski.

   still, i suppose there is a strict need to have read some of the other works in order to fully appreciate this and that must limit the appeal in some way. but this is 4*'s for bukowski, which is probably 3*'s for anyone else, in my opinion.




3. I had an indirect contact with Bukowski in the 1970s when I was working at a Long Beach college newspaper and our Arts editor had just gotten back from seeing him at one of his poetry readings. I was asked to write the headline for the rave review on it we were publishing, and as a young poet I was more than happy to do so.
   
   In the headline I called him "Buk the bard" and they gave it the go ahead for printing. But the editor had met his friends and they'd mentioned that Buk no longer lived in Hollywood and had moved to the notorious San Pedro area.
   
   We all got very concerned for him and told Buk's friends that he shouldn't live there, and that L.A., Belmont Shore, Long Beach - almost anywhere else, in fact - would be preferable. As I recall, at that time there was a stabbing in Pedro almost every weekend.
   
   Soonafter we got word in the newsroom of what Buk thought of the suggestion by us little upscale college smartasses - he said it was a rather dumb one, and that he actually regarded it as an insult, as if we'd just ridiculed his new jacket.
   
   Since his writing didn't float much on the waters of pretense, he enjoyed being where the action was, even if it was now within a very dangerous environment for a guy getting on in years. He planned to stay put anyway and he indeed did exactly that.
   
   I was surprised to hear years later that he'd lasted until 1994, because I'd always bet that, even escaping any physical injury, and with his seeming million gallon booze capacity, he still wouldn't last past 1980.
   
   But don't worry, the old warhorse will still be running new words at the literary track for quite some time. The godsend that was John Martin's Black Sparrow press still has more of Hank's unpublished stuff in their files, so the Captain journal won't be the last you hear of our favorite pulp fiction barfly.
   
   Hopefully lots of them will also have more of those groovy drawings by underground komix king Robert Crumb, too. Now that would be a good day at the races.



4. my favorite passage from this book ' i wonder what the next step will be after the computer? you'll probably just press your fingers to your temples and out will come this mass of perfect wordage. Of course, you'll have to fill up before you start but there will always be some lucky ones who can do that. Let's hope.'
   good stuff and a smooth read--my reason mainly for reading bukowski



5. I was hoping to gain some new insights into the writer/man that was Bukowski by reading this collection of journal writings. To be honest, not much new ground was covered. I did find out out about a failed TV deal I'd never heard of, and some other trivial points, but nothing much deeper. The R. Crumb drawings are worth the price of the book, and well, hell it's Bukowski so I enjoyed it. This is, however, one of the few Buk books I haven't read more than twice, which is as close to a "bad" review as I can get.

3 comments about American Character : Curious Life of Charles Fletcher Lummis and the Rediscovery of the Southwest.

1. I live within walking distance of Lummis' home El Alisal. It's fitting that it perches on the edge of what was the Arroyo Seco (dry gulch) whose raw beauty had attracted Lummis and early settlers. And symbolic in that the world's first freeway rushes past it now. In fact, El Alisal faced demolition until preservationists--always outnumbered in L.A.--saved the site. Lummis gave his adopted city a complicated heritage: he boosted its Spanish Californian image and so lured many newcomers who overwhelmed the vistas of fragile arroyo, hills and valleys with millions more homes. The millions clogged the roads, and so freeways followed, along the riverbeds now encased in concrete.
   
   Mark Thompson's biography follows that assembled two decades earlier by Lummis' daughter and edited by his son from Lummis' own manuscripts, and one biography from the mid-70s that dwelt on Lummis but with far less access to personal papers. Thompson has access, and has used his resources well to more fully explore the complexity of a truly memorable character whose legacy spanned the Southwest, as he sought to preserve and conserve Native American artifacts and cultures as well as restore the California missions, create a world-class municipal library, write for what became the city's leading newspaper, and still found time to build El Alisal from boulders in the arroyo, hold there wonderfully wacky parties, carry on love affairs, conduct archeological research, ruin three marriages, keep a menagerie of animals and people at his home, and roam off from it on even more travels that followed his first publicity stunt--he sought sponsorship by keeping a travelogue weekly sent to newspapers in an early commercial tie-in for one who sought celebrity-- on his "tramp across the continent" (or most of it!) to Los Angeles from Chillicothe, Ohio, a Harvard dropout at 25 in 1888.
   
   Naturally an exciting story, but Thompson digs deeper into how Lummis reflected but overcame some of the prejudices common to the East Coast elite from whose lower ranks he came, and how he struggled with a tempestuous personal life and a libido that created tension, led to an early stroke, and led him on even more intimate adventures much less documented. The readable yet thoroughly documented text reads at a brisk pace; all facets of Lummis' many angles gain clarity. Well-chosen photos capture the idiosyncracies of this unforgettable sombrero-bright green corduroy suit-and-Navajo belt attired eccentric, who did so much to both sustain and unwittingly erase the traces of the Spanish and Native California he came to love.



2. Charles Lummis is a very interesting person in American and Southwest history, but author Thompson goes way beyond what most biographers would do and produced a richly researched and highly readable story. I read this book in my car, under a streetlight, while my wife attended a Christmas function. Does that tell you how interesting it is? I've passed Lummis's home/museum thousands of times but never visited--now I will.



3. Mark Thompson's long & deeply researched biography of a forgotten, complex American born just before the Civil War, is fascinating. Over a long & restless life, Charles Lummis became a poet, prolific letter writer, journalist, photographer, archaeologist, editor, champion of Spanish heritage in the Americas, & Indian Rights advocate - the classic workaholic of the late 19th & early 20th Centuries.

   It was his TRAMP ACROSS THE CONTINENT in 1884, which he weekly serialized in newspaper articles, that catapulted him into the public's eye. In time, as his assignments for the newly-formed Los Angeles Times, took him deeper into the Southwest which would capture his heart & soul, & closer to the American Indians for whom he would advocate mightily, he caught the ear of a President. Theodore Roosevelt came to consider Lummis a vital part of his "cowboy cabinet," & often invited him to Washington. Lummis enjoyed a life-long influence, via his editorials & many books, on the way Americans thought of themselves.

   In this era of bland plasticity, AMERICAN CHARACTER, reminds us of how individualistic, passionate, offensive & charming our forefathers were. It also reminds us of how devastating was our impact upon the people & the land in a time when a man could bemoan the wholesale slaughter of buffalo & Indians, while not batting an eye as he shot other critters just for the thrill of it!

   In the light of today's political correctness, Charles Fletcher Lummis' love life was as gilded with misogyny as you would expect from a man of his time - he kept his first marriage secret all through his Harvard years. As in every other aspect of his life, his thirst for affection & companionship was both utilitarian & fascinatingly eccentric.

   AMERICAN CHARACTER: Charles Fletcher Lummis & the Rediscovery of the Southwest, has been named by the Western Writers of America as Winner of the 2002 Spur Award in the biography category.

5 comments about George B. Mcclellan: The Young Napoleon.

1. Has anyone of so much purported skill and promise failed so spectacularly at such a critical moment in American history as General George B. McClellan? If there is, I can't imagine who it would be. Douglas MacArthur comes to mind as a possible analogue (indeed, Harry Truman turned to Lincoln's dealing with McClellan for inspiration in dealing with MacArthur), but at least MacArthur ultimately prevailed in the Pacific in WWII and can at least point to Inchon as a moment of triumph.
   
   This biography is heralded as scrupulously balanced and fair. If so, few actors on such a large stage have had so few redeeming qualities, the fascist and communist dictators of the twentieth century included. The man that Stephen Sears describes is incorrigible - there is no other word for it. Sears paints a portrait of a fool. Several Union generals matched wits and nerve with Robert E. Lee and suffered humiliating defeat, but such men as Ambrose Burnside were, at least, self-aware. They recognized the enormity of their task, felt inadequate, but pressed ahead to the greatest of their ability to fulfill their duty. McClellan, as Sears portrays him, was delusional. His arrogance and conceit were colossal. As he stumbled from one miscue to the next - and the Lincoln administration fretted over how to prod their field general into action - McClellan was convinced that history would confirm his genius and place him in the pantheon of military greats. Not American military greats, mind you, but alongside the likes of Napoleon, Caesar, and Hannibal.
   
   The only positive things that Sears has to say about McClellan is that he was not disloyal to the Union (he was committed to seeing re-union as a precondition to peace with the South, but disagreed vehemently with the Emancipation Proclamation), he never intentionally contributed to the defeat of another Union general, such as Pope at Second Manassas, and he had a loving and tender relationship with his wife. Beyond that, this biography is essentially an indictment of McClellan's military conduct at the head of the Army of the Potomac and his character as a military officer and human being.
   
   What this biography fails to do is explain why so many people - from the front ranks of business, politics and the military - thought so highly of McClellan, so consistently and for so long. McClellan was one of the highest paid railroad executives in the country while in his early 30s. He received the vigorous patronage, as Sears describes it, of Jefferson Davis when he was secretary of war in the Pierce administration and Salmon Chase when he was secretary of the treasury in the Lincoln administration, but Sears never describes how or why those relationships developed or why those men had such confidence in McClellan. When the Civil War broke out, the governors of the three largest states in the Union - New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio - all turned to McClellan as their first pick to lead their state militias. McClellan clearly had the ability to impress intelligent and experienced men - the type of men one would expect to be good judges of talent and character - yet the reader gets no sense of this from the Sears biography. Moreover, for all of the failure and hardship endured by the Army of the Potomac while under McClellan's command, the rank-and-file largely remained loyal to the general, often enthusiastically so.
   
   Sears emphasizes several themes throughout the biography. First, McClellan had utter disdain for civilian control of the military and the performance of non-regulars in the army, an opinion that emerged during his early days of service in Mexico and that he carried, unaltered, through the Civil War and to his grave. Second, McClellan harbored a personal animus against his superior, Abraham Lincoln. He felt that Lincoln was his social and intellectual inferior (McClellan regularly referred to Lincoln as "the gorilla" in his correspondence with his wife), and resented the commander-in-chief's meddling in military matters. Third, Sears argues that McClellan was paralyzed by the unknown and unexpected. If a maneuver met with unanticipated resistance or a plan seemed to go awry, McClellan's impulse was to freeze and react to enemy movements. Sears frequently contrasts McClellan's timidity with Lee's flexibility in the face of regular surprises and setbacks. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Sears stresses how badly the Army of the Potomac intelligence apparatus, run by Allan Pinkerton, failed to understand the order of battle of the Confederate Army of Virginia. Throughout McClellan's tenure as commander, the general belief was that the Union troops were outnumbered by as much as two-to-one, when the reverse was usually the case. The catastrophic intelligence failure of the Union (and McClellan's eagerness to believe the inflated numbers) raises the question: if McClellan had accurate intelligence on Confederate numbers, would it have changed his behavior and battle plans? Sears never addresses that question directly, but one can anticipate his response: no, it wouldn't have changed anything.
   
   Political scientists Eliot Cohen and John Gooch argue in "Military Misfortunes" that readers should be suspicious of the "man-in-the-dock" explanation to failure on the battlefield. In short, large scale military failure is rarely the result of one man's actions (or inactions). Yet, it seems to me that McClellan has been squarely put in the dock by history for the failures of the Union forces on the Peninsula and for not destroying the Army of Virginia at Antietam after receiving Special Order 191. Is that fair? This biography suggests that the answer is "yes," but I'm not convinced. I'm no fan of McClellan, but there had to be more to this man than Sears conveys here.



2. Stephen W. Sears proves once again that he is a master of Civil War histories. A must ead for students of America's greatest conflect.



3. Billed as neither an indictment nor an apologia, Sears makes it pretty plain that George B. McClellan was a failure as a military leader. Overly cautious, slow to act, seeing the worst in every situation, McC was probably his own worst enemy. It's easy to see why so many of the soldiers liked him, though: fighting with McC meant there was a good chance you wouldn't see much action and if you did it was with the utmost planning for the soldiers' safety and well-being. He always thought he was outnumbered by the enemy and let opportunities for victory slip quickly through his fingers. Sears makes the point that McC always planned his campaigns and battles as if facing an overwhelming enemy force, and in that regard they were superb plans. Unfortunately, that wasn't the way it was on the field. Antietam probably should have been McC's best chance to destroy Lee's army and perhaps end the war then and there, but he squandered every opportunity and left a third of his army in reserve. Even worse, and what surely makes the man detestable, was his tremendous ego and feelings of self-importance. Sears' biography covers McC's entire life, though 90% of it deals with the Civil War years. Well written and interesting.



4. History and historians have, on the whole, not been very kind to Major General George B. McClellan. Lately a trend, or better, the beginning of a trend, can be discerned in Civil War historiography towards a kinder view of McClellan. I'm referring to books like: "McClellan's War" by professor Ethan S. Rafuse, the book on McClellan by professor Thomas Rowland and to the 3 books on the Army of the Potomac by Russell Beatie.
   All these books are very good and offer many valuable insights.
   
   Yet I remain convinced that the reputation of George B. McClellan is quite beyond saving and that that there is only one man who comes in for the lion's share of blame for this: George B. McClellan.
   
   On the plus side, and this has to be acknowledgded, McClellan never got near enough credit for his greatest achievement: he MADE the Army of the Potomac. He really did, and it was a magnificent job, considering the time he had to do it in.
   So often we read about McClellan: "oh well he was a great organizer, but a very bad general" but that -unfairly- belittles his tremendous skills in that respect. So more kudos to McClellan for that. It is very, very hard to organize, to build, to equip arm, feed and clothe an army, and then to train and drill it in preparation for it's deadly work. Then of course there was another task: he had to select it's leaders, from the senior command level on down. Don't think to lightly about this. McClellan did so superbly. He gave men like John Gibbon, George Meade, Henry Hunt, Rufus Ingalls, John Buford, Winfield Scott Hancock, John Sedgewick, Charles Griffin and Andrew Humphreys their first commands on brigade level.
   
   He should never have led it out to fight himself, though, his beloved Army of the Potomac. He was distinctly unqualified for that. I think that deep down inside of him, he was aware of this, read his correspondance (also compiled in a magnificent book by Stephen Sears, buy it!!!): his letters offer a case-study of a man plagued by insecurities, complexes and paranoia.
   
   mr. Sears comes down hard on McClellan, very hard. But the points he argues are correct: McClellan was singularly unfit to lead an army.
   Yet he was so boastful and arrogant that he put himself first and the Union war effort second, as is witnessed by his behaviour during the interlude in august 1862, when Major General John Pope commanded half of MacClellan's army aginst Lee. McClellan preferred to let Pope (who possessed as annoying a personality and as large an ego as McClellan) be beaten by Lee than come to his aid.
   
   By then Lincoln was don with him: he let McClellan lead the army for the Antietam campaign, in order to drive Lee from Mary land, but when McClellan again started whining and dragging his feet he fired him.
   "Alas, my poor country"McClellan wrote his wife after his removal from command. Alas indeed: the war was to last another two and a half years, while he could have ended it in one day, had he not so utterly mismanaged the battle of Antietam.
   That is McClellan's enduring bequest to his country: two and a half more years of war.
   
   What baffles me is this: why wasn't he brought to account for this in his own time??? Instead he was honoured, admired and even nominated for the Presidency in 1864!!!
   McClellan lost the 1864 election to Lincoln, thank God. Had he won the world would not have been the same: maybe America would still be split in two countries: the USA and the CSA, or the Civil War would have restarted and be contested with even more bitterness and more ruinous consequences for the nations after his presidential term, or even terms.
   Why he was not impeached, tried or court-martialled after his inept campaign in september and october 1862 is a question I ask myself. Surely others must have too?
   
   Lincoln should have made McClellan Quartermaster-General in Chief of the Union army and put him in charge of supply, armament, recruitment, equipment and training. That was what he was good at. He would have been the Union's Lazare Carnot: "the Organizer of Victory" of the French Revolution. There is litle doubt in my mind he would have done a very good job.
   
   A solid biography on this remarkable man. Well done Stephen W. Sears!!! Keep 'em coming.



5. I'd like to knock some sense into this little brat General.
   
   Lee rules Dixie! Long Live the South.

5 comments about The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley (1874-1958).

1. As the first full length biography of James Michael Curley, a long term fixture in Boston Democratic politics who served as mayor, governor and congressman, in between two brief prison terms, to be published in almost forty-five years, this book was a most welcome addition to library bookshelves.
   
   Curley possessed great personal charisma and wit, so much so that he makes Chicago's long term mayor, Richard J. Daley, look like a dullard by comparison. Throughout his public life, Curley seemed to be a cat with nine lives.
   
   The book is enjoyable, but somewhat uneven. The concluding chapters seem hurried. Occasionally, the author mixes in (then) contemporary comments about the 1988 presidential race that have nothing to do with Curley whatsoever. I rate the biography as a near miss owing to its minor defects.
   
   The novel and the motion picture "The Last Hurrah" which are loosely based upon Curley are deservedly well known, but the truth is oftentimes more entertaining than fiction.



2. Loved this book about Curley. I agree with other critics here that the book can be uneven at times. Overall it is a fascinating work about a mythic politician. His personal and political life is arguably more tragic and flawed than the whole Kennedy saga. Curley's wife and seven of his children die during his life. A lifelong politician, he is loved and feared, respected and vilified, a loving husband and the most crooked of politicians. His funeral was and still is the largest in Boston's history. It's amazing that more hasn't been written about Curley, there is no website devoted to his recorded speeches. He would be a wonderful subject for someone like Ken Burns. If you have an interest in boston politics....read this book...you won't be disappointed.



3. For a journalist, author Beatty, doesn't seem to care about balance. His historical research is great and filled in some gaps for me, but his personal spin is not objective and anti-Curley. The author wonders what Curley's son Francis would think of the author's use of the information and perspectives he provided. Easy answer, Jack, he'd be spinning in his grave. You've done a good man a great disservice. My advice for those who wonder whether to buy this book - pass, read it at the library.



4. As a life long Massachusetts resident born after Curley's death, I have heard antidotes about James M Curley for years and hoped this book would provide the details of this interesting character. But I have to agree with a couple of the previous reviewers, the author's handing of this subject is a bit weak. The early childhood section was the worst, just a string of antidotes that bounce back and forth thru time becoming almost impossible to follow. The author also apparently brought into this work his own personal political agenda. Written in 1992, the author 'liberally' inserts poor and in some cases run on analogies to the Reagan - Bush administrations. I can still recommend this book to those interested in Curley, the books coverage of his career is excellent, just be prepared to skim through the sections where the author vents his political beliefs.



5. I read "The Rascal King" after reading Edwin O'Connor's great "The Last Hurrah," a barely fictional account of Curley's reign over Boston. I have to say that O'Connor achieved with fiction what Beatty failed to do with biography... paint a realistic picture of the fascinating life and times of James M. Curley.

   Beatty's work, while greatly researched, was extremely choppy and amateurishly written. His timeline is vague and, at points, difficult to follow. He feels it necessary to interject into Curley's story several times with poorly made comparisons to present day political situations, as well very annoying literary references. (He consistently refers to Curley's arrogance of power as Massachusetts governor as a "Xanadu complex." Why not just call him arrogant?). Overall, it felt like Beatty was trying too hard.

   Structural and literay problems aside, James Curley has one of the most interesting stories in 20th century American history. His use of "race baiting" against Boston's old Yankee elite (although "nationality baiting" may be more appropriate a term), his questionable campaign tactics, his dubious financial activities as an elected official, and his compassion and kindnes towards the forgotten common man make him one of the great populist leaders of our history. He was the quintessential campaigner and politician. It's too bad Beatty couldn't do him justice.

No comments about The Soldier's Pen: Firsthand Impressions of the Civil War.