2 comments about From the Pen of a She-Rebel: The Civil War Diary of Emilie Riley McKinley.

1. Avid civil war women's diary readers may want to take a pass on this book. While Ms. McKinely is definitely a fiesty southern sympathizer with a Union heritage, I didn't find this book to present anything new or that much more interesting than other southern women's diary.
   
   What draws me to diaries is not only the historical value of the diaries but the chance to become initimately involved in the lives of these women and their families. Whether it be the editing, Ms. McKinely's writing style or the sparse details of her background, I didn't connect with Ms. McKinely. In my opinion, the best diaries are those that have left me wanting to know more, wishing that the diary hadn't ended and feeling as though I know more about the writer and the plight of civil war women then when I started. From that standpoint, the book fell short.
   
   That being said, I would recommend the book to someone who hasn't read any or only a few diaries. Ms. McKinely's fiestiness is typical of women in the south and much of what she goes through is similar to other women across the south.



2. Historian Gordon Cotton's From The Pen Of A She-Rebel: The Civil War Diary Of Emilie Riley McKinly is the fascinating and informative story of Ms. McKinly, told in her own words, as she and her rural Southern neighbors witnessed the depredations of the Civil War. What made Ms. McKinly unique was that she was a Yankee by background, yet she personally embodied deep sympathy for her Confederate neighbors. Extensively annotated vignettes bring to life the travails of living under Union occupation, and paint a vivid picture of a corner of America that was uprooted and changed forever by the surge of history. An epilogue provides as much historical closure as is available concerning Ms. McKinly and her neighbors after the war. From The Pen Of A She-Rebel is a unique and welcome addition to the growing body of Civil War literature available for readers and students today.

4 comments about Cynthia Ann Parker: The Life and the Legend (Southwestern Studies).

1. I suggest reading this book before reading "Ride the Wind". It serves as a chronicalled historical foundation before reading the novel "Ride the Wind" that will definitely prepare you for an unimaginable journey into the world of the American Indian of 150 years ago.



2. This is a compact history ... but it does just what you want - gives what history is known of Cynthia Ann Parker. This is an excellent resource if you are wanting to know about Cynthia Ann Parker from the settler's perspective - the people she left behind, the family she had come from, and the search for her that continued throughout her 'captivity'. The author seems to steer clear of any area of conjecture, such as why Cynthia Ann got shuttled between family members after her return or what may have happened to her pension, and sticks only to documentable history. She also avoided sidetracking into the history of Cynthia Ann's famous son or the other people in her life except for as far as they pertain to Cynthia Ann's life. Focus is very tight, very informative.



3. On May 19th, 1836 nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker, a member of a group of religious families occupying Fort Parker in Texas, witnessed the massacre of friends and relatives by combined bands of Caddos, Kiowas and Comanche warriors. Abducted by the Comanches, Cynthia was raised for the next 25 years as a tribal member and became "fully" Comanche, giving birth to Quanah Parker, the last Comanche Chief and one of the most influential intermediaries of his time, a representative of both the Native American and White cultures. Abducted a second time as an adult by a well-meaning Texas Ranger, Cynthia Ann was forced to return to White society, but mourned deeply for her Comanche family, ultimately starving herself to death out of grief.

   Much lore and legend has grown around the story of Cynthia Ann Parker over the years, and it has often been difficult to separate the myth from the reality of her dramatic story. However, Margaret Schmidt Hacker has done just that. Over a period of five years, Ms. Hacker painstakingly researched the archives in Texas, Oklahoma, California and Washington, D.C. and objectively weighed all the accounts of Cynthia Ann's life. The result of her efforts is what is considered the most authoritative book on the subject. Although scholarly, it is at the same time, a gripping drama of the Texas prairies, and very readable by anyone with an interest in the Old West. Highly recommended reading.




4. Countless folk tales and sagas have focused on the story of Miss Parker, a captive of the Comanches for more than 15 years. Many of them deal only with her years as the mother of the famous Quanah Parker. Author Margaret Schmidt Hacker devoted five years to researching the life of the Cynthia Ann to reveal the history behind the myth. This is the tragic story of the abduction of a nine year old girl who returned reluctantly to white society when she was 24. A fascinating portrait of her life among the Comanches on the Texas frontier.

No comments about Dearest Hugh: The Courtship Letters of Gabrielle Drake and Hugh Mccoll, 1900û1901 (Women's Diaries and Letters of the South).

5 comments about The Anthropology of Turquoise: Meditations on Landscape, Art, and Spirit.

1. There are three reasons to possess this book. The first reason: You want to read an author whose prose verges on poetry... "On the Colorado Plateau... nights come less as a smooth pause than as a steep, enduring purity of eye-blind dark. (In the day) The mesa's colors in their flanks - terra cotta, blood-red salmon, vermilion - bear the temperament of iron."
   
   Second: Color for you, as for flowers, are a part of your being. You draw colors into your life as an elixir to defeat life's monotony. Ellen Meloy is a master wordsmith. She, more than most, knows that colors "challenge language to encompass them", yet, unabashedly, she tracks down the colors of nature, feels them, tastes them, holds them in her mind and then vividly gives them life. No color is sacrosanct to her. Yes, orange, red, blue, green will all find an expression, but Meloy seeks, not the plebeian, but the unusual, unique, even ruthless colors: burnt sienna, magenta, burgundy red, Prussian blue and of course turquoise, "the stone of the desert," "the color of yearning,". For Meloy; "Colors bear the metaphors of entire cultures. They convey every sensation from lust to distress. Flowers use colors ruthlessly for sex. Moths steal them from their surroundings and disappear. A cactus spines glows red-gold in the angle of sun, like an electrocuted aura." Life is good.
   
   Finally, you will find in Ellen Meloy a forthright lover of nature. She is a south westerner, lover of the desert and outdoors woman who sees in desert life the paradoxes of being. She calls for attention as she expresses the damage to the earth that we are so thoughtlessly committing. She points out how we, Homo sapiens, are the first species to witness and will our own extinction. Her social - naturalist commentary is balanced with humor and memoirs; her narrative is both captivating and informative. She is at her best when she sticks to the southwest, but the chapters that chronicle her forays to the Bahamas and the Yucatan are nonetheless engaging. This is a well-crafted work that is filled with captivating metaphors, naturalism, travelogue, memoirs and humor. If you seek award winning writing, are captivated by colors and find sustenance in the natural world this is a highly recommended read. 4.5 stars



2. What an incredibly talented writer! In a book such as this, which requires lavish descriptions, it would be so easy to succumb to cliche. Yet the author presents what she sees in new, fresh, exciting ways. Interesting anecdotes create layers to the information being presented. This book is to be read cover to cover, and re-read again and again. I found my copy at the library but this is a book to be owned and enjoyed throughout time, so I plan to purchase a copy for myself, and a few more as gifts!



3. While reading this book, I was amazed and exiliharated with the descriptions of the desert country and the Caribbean (what a juxtiposition) and their charms. Turquoise and other colors in nature are lovingly examined in endless forms and their response in humans is probbed. Meloy is a gutsy, warm, funny, slightly crazy and exceedingly gifted author. When she talks about her encounters with nature, the descriptions are sensual and palpable. I was wishing I could be as courageous; taking solitary rafting trips on the San Juan River and camping out wherever she found herself; a modern day wanderer, a female John Muir. The book is a uniquely personal account of a beautiful relationship with nature, that inspires and challenges. The deep richness of relationships, both human and environmental, are within our grasp and Meloy beautifully shows you her way.



4. I first became aware of Ellen Meloy in a excerpt from this book in a recent Patagonia catalog. That seems to have been a appropriate venue as I have since discovered she is as sensible and durable and dependable as a pair of Talus pants and presents herself with the best of Patagonia's whimsical flair.

   Her writing is Edward Abbey without the macho polemic, Annie Dillard before she lost her way in the incomprehensible, Terry Tempest Williams with a playful and self-deprecating sense of humor and without the Salt Lake City-Cosmo angst. (If you spent a week in the desert backcountry with TTW, I think you would begin to wonder how she stayed so CLEAN. Ellen Meloy IS the desert!) Anyway, sprinkle in a little Loren Eisely (literally in this case) and I think you have it.

   So this probably sounds like a "women's book", and in many ways it is. But know this guys, this lady had three brothers, rows I would guess at least Class IV, and has roofed her own home. Any guy who has done at least two of those things and has done them with grace and dignity and good humor is welcome to take a bye. (But probably won't.)

   But here's how to tell if you would want to read this book. Open the back cover. Look at the photograph on the dust cover flap. If this is a face you would drive by at high speed with the air-conditioner roaring and the punk rock blaring, drive on. If, on the other hand, it is the face you sense in the willow shade of a deep redrock river canyon...




5. I have been a fan of Ellen Meloy's writing since her exquisite book about the southwest's Green River. Now, with "The Anthropology of Turquoise," she shows her full colors: skilled writing (there are passages of pure poetry), a firm grasp of natural history and the talent to make seemingly dense scientific subjects of interest to the reader. "A Field Guide to Brazen Harlotry," a chapter about plant sex and unrequited love, for example, reveals the alluring bloom of desert wildflowers. She spends her midlife crisis with a herd of rare bighorn sheep and most of her life outdoors, traveling landscapes of terrific beauty and lively absurdities. Most of all, she has a riotous sense of humor. A lot of so-called "nature writing" ends up preachy or polemical or stuck in New Age fluff. But Meloy is smart. Her descriptive images stay with me. Her wit is joyful, playful and an engaging way to reach profound ideas. What a great book.

No comments about Diaries Of Girls & Women: A Midwestern American Sampler (Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography).

1 comments about Lugenia Burns Hope: Black Southern Reformer (Brown Thrasher Books).

1. This is an excelent piece of litterature. It delves deep into the persecution of the african-american population during the Jim-Crow south. This is an excelent piece of litterature. Do not hestitate to purchase this fine book.

1 comments about Gilded Girls: Women Entertainers of the Old West.

1. I love the wild west books written by Chris Enss. They are very vivid and detailed. The subjects are created very realistically. Great reading...

3 comments about So the Woman Went Her Way: A Personal Journey.

1. I just finished this lovely book again... and the second read was even more enriching than the first. This is a lovely personal perspective on so many rich passages. A treat.



2. If you are a woman who loves the Bible, this book is a "must read." I found it enlightening and a fast read. The title comes from a passage in I Samuel where Hannah has prayed.
   
   "Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him. And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad."



3. From the moment I read the title to the last page, I was caught up in a journey through one women's life, that though different from my own, was so familiar. Here was a woman who treated the Word of God, with clarity and mysterious awe, yet simplicity. "So the Woman Went Her Way" is a reference book for me. I keep it for those times when I need a spirit refreshment. Another great spiritual "journey" book for women is "The Feminine Face of God", a must have for any woman seeking spiritual sustenance and kindred spirits.

4 comments about Mary Black's Family Quilts: Memory and Meaning in Everyday Life.

1. As I am currently studying Historic Preservation, I appreciate what it takes to do research. This book is well-researched, and interesting, to boot.



2. I was somewhat disappointed that there was not a more extensive use of primary source materials. This is an easy book to read and understand.



3. This is landmark book, one that has the potential to broaden and, at the same time, focus the study of American quilts. It adds substantially to current knowledge of quilt history, particularly in the under-documented inland South. It also models an analytical approach, what one cultural historian calls "cultural behavior," that expands the study of material history to reveal the complex meanings inherent in artifacts.
   
   It is not a "picture book," although it is richly and thoughtfully illustrated. Over 100 sharp images, 32 of them in well-rendered color, depict the quilts and complement the text.
   
   Nor is it a conventional "quilt book," focusing only on quilt documentation.
   
   It transcends categories and is at once an analysis of sixteen quilts made and preserved by one family over six generations, a superb local history, and a study of a family whose values helped shape a community.
   
   But its focus is the sixteen family quilts preserved by Mary Black and donated to a South Carolina museum. In seeking to discover their meanings as textiles and as personal and cultural documents, the author creates a world both immediate and immensely interesting.
   
   This is highly readable book. After the first chapter, in which she identifies and illustrates the analytical procedure she used to study the Black family's quilts, Horton avoids the jargon of scholarship and critical theory. This choice and her crisp prose style are seductive: her book reads more like a story of discover than a scholarly analysis. The truth is, it is both.
   
   The epigram, from James Deetz' "In Small Things Forgotten," suggests the writer's mission and method. Deetz writes, "In the seemingly little and insignificant things that accumulate to create a lifetime, the essence of our existence is captured. We must remember these bits and pieces, and we must use them in new and imaginative ways so that a different appreciation for what life is today, and was in the past, can be achieved."
   
   In Laurel Horton's experienced hands, this approach yields bounty. Horton is uniquely equipped for her task. She has studied the same terrain for 25 years. She knows it from personal experience, from her study of the Scots-Irish who formed its backbone, from her study of the quilts of America and the British Isles. Her understanding of the deeply narrative South Carolina upland culture attunes her to stories and signs that point beyond the concrete object and reveal meaning. In fact, the metaphor running throughout this book is that of the scholar as one who "listens" to the voices in the material remains she studies.
   
   Yet it would be mistaken to conclude Horton regards the scholar only as a medium through which the quilts speak. She knows the textiles exist with a series of contexts that can help free their voices and permit the listener to construct valid meaning.
   
   In a culture where women left relatively few documents, however, the quilts remain the writer's primary sources. Horton says she began her research "with a close examination of the quilts themselves, attempting to set aside what I thought I already knew and trying to be receptive to what they could tell me....I have attempted to attend to the quilts and to `listen' to their stories objectively, without rushing to supply answers to my emerging questions."
   
   The result is a fresh and exceptionally well-articulated understanding of a coherent group of quilts. In her effort to identify their meanings, the author opens a world to the reader and in the end, the quilts also become memorable objects in the reader's experience.
   
   Mary Black's Family Quilts is valuable both to the cultural and political historian. It is important to anyone studying the lives of women in America. Certainly it will become part of any complete bibliography of the history and culture of the American South. It is being read in student coffee houses in Spartanburg and readers interested primarily in local or state history have created long waiting lists for it in Carolina public libraries. In short, it is a book for many readers.
   
   One of its more obvious audiences is that of quilt historians, for whom it provides a model and for whom it is also cautionary. Quilts from the inland South have been subject to many unfounded generalizations. A student of textiles and quiltmaking who is keenly attuned to the differences in the cultures and quilts of adjacent counties in Pennsylvania, for instance, often sees the quilts made south of the Mason-Dixon line as a unit.
   
   Studies like Horton's show the danger of such generalization. They remind us of the variety present even in a generally coherent community. The Spartanburg, South Carolina area and the members of the Snoddy and Black families are not offered as microcosms or even representatives of larger groups. Mary Black's Family Quilts focuses on the particular-quilts made by the women in one family in one place and time. Considering the general lack of scholarly attention so far accorded the quilts of the Deep South and the southern hinterlands, one hopes Horton's work generates the discovery and equally thoughtful study of other groups of quilts in the region.
   
   "Mary Black's Family Quilts" reminds us of the tremendous importance of the concrete detail in the study and communication of meanings in history, the sound or fragrance or scrap of fabric from which explodes a world of meaning. It also reminds us this detail is part of a larger whole. Both in its method and subject, it breaks new ground and will, one hopes, encourage other books that do the same.
   
   For anyone interested in the study of American quilts, women's history, or in the culture and history of the American South, this book is a must-read.



4. Laurel Horton is an independent folklorist and textile scholar who examines the family quilting traditions of six generations in Mary Black's Family Quilts: Memory And Meaning In Everyday Life. Sixteen quilts here tell the story of the family, a South Carolina legend - and reveals the trunks full of quilts Black left to her descendants. Don't expect a quilter's handbook here: this is local history at its best.

5 comments about The Woman from Mossad: The Story of Mordechai Vanunu and the Israeli Nuclear Program.

1. This is a great story if all you care about is money as the publisher and author seem to be interested in. Any news media which jeporadizes the security of any country must be a greedy lot. I liked reading the story just to see how far the Media would go. No suprises! No I will not be joining this author in his attempt to discredit Israel.Woman from Mossad: The Story of Mordechai Vanunu and the Israeli Nuclear Program



2. I preface my comments below by saying I truly enjoyed reading this book.
   
   However, the editing in this book is terrible. I wouldn't attribute this to the author, as he seems like a phenomenal writer, but the typos are just annoying and sometimes led me to think I should discount the credibility of the book.
   
   As for the substance, I think the author clearly writes this book from a viewpoint sympathetic to Vanunu; he writes as an advocate and not as an impartial objective journalist. To his credit though, he does make this agenda subtly but painstakingly clear on page one.
   
   One thing I don't think is well-established is the author's assertion that Vanunu was acting purely for humanitarian reasons. This is taken as fact and without scrutiny by the author. He does not critically or sufficiently analyze Vanunu's alternative options in arriving at the conclusion that Vanunu had altruistic motives. Why DIDN'T he go to the IAEA first?? To me this would have been an obvious option, which even if it wasn't, the reason for discarding this option is not spelled out well enough other than for a lone short paragraph in the book. Given that this is the international body/watchdog set up specifically for the purpose of nuclear monitoring, I thought more analysis of the purported futility of this option was required.
   
   Which brings me to my next point. One of the author's main criticisms of the treason charge was that Vanunu did not disclose the sensitive information to a foreign country, which is an element of that crime. Au contrare. While that claim is technically accurate, by publishing in a major international newspaper, the author glosses over the fact that in doing this Vanunu enabled disclosure of that information to EVERY (not just one) enemy of his country and that was a despicable, nation-abandoning act that deserves an even harsher punishment than he actually received (because he in fact committed **countless** acts of treason - one for every Arab and other enemy of Israel that benefited from this information). To me, that is the very definition of treason - a criminal charge whose purpose is intended to prevent individuals from harming the national security of the country to which the offender is a citizen. Vanunu did just that, and by the worst means possible, not only harming Israel's national security, but also damaging it diplomatically with its major allies.
   
   To those who claim Israel was skirting international agreements by pursuing these weapons, that is in fact true. But you need look no further than a map of the Middle East and history books of that period describing bellicose declarations of the hostile Arab countries surrounding this small Jewish state to understand Israel's need for these weapons as a deterrent force, and know that their intended purpose was and still is defensive. This was the only way Israel could get them, and I think it speaks volumes, as an implied acknowledgement of this assertion as well as an attestation to the trust placed in Israel, that the civilized world's then-superpowers willingly turned a blind eye while having overt knowledge that these weapons were being developed by Israel. These countries welcomed Israel in The Nuclear Club because they knew it could be trusted as a responsible partner in harmonizing the Middle East's balance of power and serve as a long-term deterrent for other nations to think about seeking, producing and possibly detonating a nuclear bomb in the Middle East. Just look at what's happening today with Iran and you can clearly see the different attitudes expressed to their pursuit of the same, in light of that country's long and conceded history of terrorism-sponsoring (Hezbollah) and declarations of their pursued destruction of the Jewish State. To think that "equal opportunity" is the proper framework in which to analyze the propriety of a given country's pursuit of nuclear weapons is, I think, not only naive but incredibly outrageous.
   
   I agree, if the author's assertions are in fact true, that Vanunu did not seem to be looking for money. But he damned well wanted notoriety, another human vice that unfortunately escapes an in-depth analysis by the author. (I think Vanunu knew full well that his offer to remain anonymous would have been a non-starter, for the reasons the author articulates very well.) He had revenge on his mind, too.
   
   Those criticisms aside, I think this book has a fantastic discussion of the shocking game that is nuclear politics.
   
   Last, I agree with the author that the later shameless decision by The Sunday Times to abandon Vanunu by not covering his legal defense costs is unequivocally an outright stab in the back and a black eye on this paper's otherwise internationally credible reputation. When someone gives you a scoop like this, as a paper I think you must undertake to unqualifiedly attempt to exonerate that individual no matter what the legal cost, and no matter how long that legal process may drag on and no matter what technicalities may not legally require you to do so. The fact that a contract was never signed to this effect also seems a little suspect to me, perhaps the result of deliberate oversight (a possibility not even remotely entertained by the author) rather than innocent scheduling conflicts as the author suggests, for the very reasons cited above.



3. First off, Mr Peter Hounam should get his facts streight. He's covering a story he seems to know nothing about. The books is horribly written, lie after lie, and he's promoting Vanunu a world class trader. Do not waste your money on this book as it's worthless.



4. (...) Hounam's book is a fine introduction. I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about nuclear politics, and about nuclear weapons proliferation in the Mid East. Hounam's research has added some pieces of the puzzle, for example, how rogue parts of the US government supplied Israel with nuclear technology (for the control room of the Dimona reactor, in triplicate) in violation of official US policy. In other words the left hand of the US government hasn't known what the right hand has been up to. This insanity has helped produce the current crisis in the Middle East. For surely if anything has inspired Saddam Hussein and the leaders of Iran to acquire nukes and other weapons of mass destruction it is the Israeli example; which is one of deception and contempt for the international community.
   
   Recently I received a letter from the nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu (who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize every year since 1987). In it Morde asked me to send him a copy of Hounam's book. This tells you everything you need to know. Get it. You won't be disappointed. (...)



5. all facts are either published already or invented by the author. I really didn't read many good books about Israeli espionage, and the reason is probably that these guys are so devoted and secret, nobody can infiltrate them.
   I'm waiting for Tom Clancey to write a good one about the Mosad.