Illinois Books

I liked this book as it was a story back in the 1940's and early 50's of the author's life out on the desolate Nevada desert. It was funny, sad, and the family was close knit and survived on very little but had a lot in love, and good memories. Author said he designed the cover for this book and his wife made a pattern for an afghan, crocheted one, and has the pattern for sale thru Ira Pub., 4208 Jasper Ave., Nevada, 89108. I thought this was a neat idea.

autobiography of the authors young life with his family and the kind of life that was experienced back then l940' and l950'. You wanted to laugh at time and cry at times and it was their life in the nevada desert. It was easy to read and kept your attention. He told of the times that he and siblings had and what they did to pass the time away, while living in such desolate areas. It was a real excellent book for all ages to read.

The normal historical point of view for November 1860 to April 1861 is Southern. Lincoln and the efforts to find a comprise are noted but the main story is what the South is doing. This book changes that by concentrating on Northern politics and reactions. Secession and all the maneuvering for and against it, take place off stage. Except for South Carolina, leaving the Union was a wrenching process. Many Southern states resisted secession until the very end. Kentucky was not able to make a choice and Maryland may not have been able to choose. Their stories are the subject of most histories about this period.
What about the North? How did the political, personal and public opinion shape a response to the crisis? This book tells that story and what a story it is. The Democrats, badly damaged by the events 1860, try to blame everything on the Republicans. While they work to construct a comprise to save the Union one more time. The Republicans are not united nor are they sure how to proceed. A substantial part of the party sides with the Democrats in trying to find a comprise. Another large faction is ready to allow the South to leave the Union. Large numbers feel that secession is wrong but that the Federal government lacks the authority to force states back into the Union. Many question if it is desirable to use force to maintain the Union and if doing so would not destroy the Union. Added is the plea of Southern Unionists for something to stop secession.
Lincoln, Douglas, Seward stride across these pages. Each man with multiple agendas that create and destroy alliances. Each man trying to lead his political party, maintain the Union and do what he feels is best for the nation. Shifting priorities, new developments, regional pride and abrupt changes of position make this a rollercoaster ride even if we know the story.
Russell McClintock is an excellent author. He tells this story in a straightforward manner with minimum back tracking. This allows each event to be placed in the proper perspective of the time and almost makes the reader forget we know the story. While moving from Washington to Springfield to New York, we never lose the story line nor the reason for the trip.
The decisions made during this time were difficult ones. The issues were complex and the correct response unclear. This book captures that and explains it to the reader in an informative and enjoyable way.

McClintock's first historical non-fiction fully engages the reader in the politics and personalities that defined the most important four months in the history of the United States, the months between Lincoln's election and the firing on Fort Sumter. Although clear that the ultimate decision for the war lied with Lincoln, McClintock provides insight into the significance of other key players, from Democratic leader Stephen Douglas to Republican party leader William Seward. However, more than just a politcal history, letters and quotes from common townspeople provide a complete view of the perceptions of the time. As an avid reader of history, I can safely say that this work combines the detail of Shelby Foote with the adventure of David McCullough. Bravo McClintock!

The "prime goal" of this marvelous book by Gabor Boritt, Professor of Civil War Studies and director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, "is the examination of [Lincoln's] economic persuasion, of how it broadly manifested itself in his political life, and how it affected American history." For many readers, a book about Lincoln's "economic persuasion" may seem pedantic, if not trivial, but Boritt demonstrates that Lincoln's economic views were central to his political philosophy. Had Lincoln not been an economic nationalist, he almost certainly never would have risen beyond being an unknown, provincial Illinois politician.

As Boritt explains in the preface, Lincoln's "connections with political economy" "may appear to be dreadfully dull to some," but the author cautions that "it is indispensable." Lincoln first came to prominence in rural Illinois in the 1830s as an advocate for "better transportation - `internal improvements,' as Americans called it." As a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, Lincoln "supported the creation of many, though not all, private, river, canal, turnpike, and railroad companies." At the end of the first chapter, Boritt writes that Lincoln's "political activity was inspired, beyond the hope of personal or party gain, by a vision of endless material progress," which became the "American dream."

Because Lincoln's origins were humble, he often is portrayed as a champion of the common man, but, as Boritt observes, for Lincoln, "banking was a special interest," and, in 1835, he supported a state bank because, according to Boritt, "the Illinois economy needed banking facilities above all to support internal improvements." By 1837, Lincoln was a member of the [Illinois] House Finance Committee, and, according to Boritt, he "made economics the most substantial part of his campaigning, legislative labors, and private studies outside (and not infrequently inside) his legal work." In an 1837 speech defending the state bank, Boritt writes that Lincoln "was giving voice to the prime element of his developing economic persuasion. The fact was that for the man who would rise, for the nations that would rise, banks were necessary." Boritt's assessment is: "Lincoln's involvement with improvements helped him reach convictions which played a crucial role during his presidency." According to Boritt, "the improvement episode helped make Lincoln a lifelong opponent of the localism and sectionalism that proved so destructive in Illinois."

In the mid-1840s, when Lincoln was hoping to be elected to Congress, his "Whiggery was mainly economic oriented," and his acceptance of broad party principles "meant national economic goals." According to Boritt: "Lincoln's thinking...exuded nationalism." In Washington, he "desired large scale federal improvements, federally directed, at federal expense." "But in Congress Lincoln began to shift his attention from specific questions of economics" as a result of the Mexican War, which Lincoln opposed. In Boritt's view: "Lincoln's lack of enthusiasm about expansion may have been shortsighted in economic terms," but, according to Boritt, Lincoln appears to have believed that "[e]conomic development demanded peace."

In the 1850s, according to Boritt, as Lincoln was "pulled...toward Republicanism," he continued to believe "the economics of prosperity, freedom, and this democracy." In several places, Boritt observes that Lincoln believed in the inevitability of material progress. In contrast: "Slavery was a relic of barbarism." In 1856, according to Boritt, Lincoln noted that the "`central idea' of America was equality." To Lincoln, in Boritt's view, "equality" meant "opportunity to get ahead in life." Boritt explains: "Since the central idea of America was economic, the measure of the nation's success had to be economic, too." In this respect, according to Boritt, Lincoln "institutionalized the American Dream - made it perhaps the most central idea of the nation," and slavery had to be extinguished because it "subverted the Dream." According to Boritt: "Lincoln could perceive America only through nationalist eyes....As Lincoln saw it, the nation was to become either free or slave, one or the other."

During the 1850s, according to Boritt, Lincoln became increasingly absorbed with the slavery issue. Once elected president, according to Boritt, "Lincoln's eyes remained set on one foremost goal: stopping slavery extension in the name of the American Dream." According to Boritt: "Lincoln defended the Union on many occasions and in almost as many ways, but by far his most extensive and determined defense was a largely economic defense." In his annual message in 1862, according to Boritt, Lincoln declared that the "United States could not be broken up...because it formed am indivisible economic unit." In Boritt's view, "Lincoln's first important military act was essentially economic: the proclamation of a blockade of Southern ports....The adaption of economic policy to military strategy, thus began a few days after the fall of Fort Sumter, continued to Appomattox." According to Boritt: "Emancipation by itself ran counter to the President's policy of enticing Southerners back into the Union through economic means." Boritt writes: "Lincoln appreciated the need for an economic base for the former slaves." The employment of former slaves liberated by the circumstances of war, Boritt explains, "transformed the slave into a wage-earning free laborer." Nevertheless, in Boritt's view, Lincoln "failed to come to grips fully with the needs of the masses of blacks." In the final chapter, Boritt writes: "For Lincoln, unobstructed upward mobility was the most important ideal America strove for....Mobility was the ideal and slavery its antipode." For Lincoln, in Boritt's view, "the most `central idea' of the Union war effort was the preservation of man's right to rise.'"

What, ultimately, is the connection between Lincoln's economic and political philosophy? I believe Boritt would say that Lincoln's economic nationalism made him a lifelong opponent of the localism and sectionalism, as well as a strong believer in economic opportunity. In one of this book's key passages, Boritt writes that "slavery was the supreme issue for [Lincoln] because he feared its extension would strangle the American Dream." After reading this book, no reader will doubt that, throughout his public career, Lincoln was a man ahead of his time.

I've read many titles on Lincoln and have come to know the man, his words and his deeds. But now I can say that I understand him. American revisionists have lately found it fashionable and all too easy to knock down our heroes and charge them with crimes from the perspective of the Twentieth Century. Yet, Boritt's insights are a wonderful celebration of a true American hero. And better yet, Boritt makes no apologies for it. Perhaps we needed to wait for this foreign born author to remind us what has been really important about the USA all along. Wrap yourself in the red, white and blue and feel patriotic again. Oh, and by the way, don't let the title scare you. The book is quite an easy read.

Being a Lincoln fan, I pride myself on keeping up on the latest books that come out, and usually, one way or another, end up purchasing them. So, imagine my surprise when I visited a local bookstore, and was browsing in its impressive Lincoln section to find this jew, "The Lincoln Family Album". What, a book that I hadn't heard of?

At first, I thought it was just a simple recounting of the many familiar books with Lincoln photos in it. But upon glancing inside, I realized how wrong assumptions are. The pictures in this book are from the actual Lincoln photograph album, kept through the family generation after generation, until the last surviving member of the clan died in 1985. Up until then, the book lived in secrecy, but now, in this stunning paperback, the photographs have been reproduced. Each page contains a picture, and a small vignette that describes the person in the picture, and why it would be found in the Lincoln family album.

I found myself engrossed, not only in the pictures, but the information contained in each page. For some reason, the pictures came more alive to me with this information than any other picture book of Lincoln. Especially touching are the pictures of Lincoln's kids, Tad, Willie, and Robert. As proud parents would, they are well-documented in this book.

If you are a devotee of Lincoln, I highly recommend this book. With an engrossing first chapter that talks about how photography was catching on just as Lincoln became President, and a wealth of knowledge of the Lincoln family, this book is sure to please you!!

Mark Neely has compiled a fascinating collection of the Lincoln family's pictures from their family album. What's interesting is what is NOT included in the album: not many photographs of Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the most photographed president of the 19th century. But the pictures of his children and grandchildren are especially interesting and poignant, especially those of a grandson named Abraham (Robert's son) who died at 16 but who bore an uncanny likeness to his famous grandfather. An important addition to any serious Lincoln student's library.

This book, a sequel of sorts to Mr. Holzer's 1993 volume 'Dear Mr. Lincoln,' gathers together even more letters than Americans from all walks of life wrote to the President. Mr. Holzer is a Civil War and Lincoln expert, so he really knows his stuff. As he explains in the foreword, many of the letters he had decided for various reasons to leave out of the original volume are now included here. What makes this collection of letters so special is that many of them were never even seen by President Lincoln, and of the ones seen, many of them were never endorsed or answered. It was for that reason that Mr. Holzer originally thought such letters didn't merit being included, but then he realised the value of including them, particularly since many of them were written by African-Americans. They'd already been ignored once, and didn't deserve to be marginalised and written off again nearly 150 years later for the same reasons they'd been excluded before.

People wrote to President Lincoln because they felt that he was a man of the people and would therefore understand their hopes, dreams, worries, and fears. He didn't appear to them like some out of touch government bigwig who didn't care for the common people; due to his humble origins, they felt as though he were one of them. The subjects include the issue of equal pay for African-American soldiers, old widowed mothers wanting their sons, their sole source of support, back from the Army, a Harvard professor warning him that his oldest son Robert was doing pretty poorly at school, people writing to him about their warfare-related inventions, people (a number of them his relatives) wanting jobs in government (even local government), people who sent gifts (such as socks, scarves, gloves, hams, and flags), people requesting he appear or at least send a speech to their charity balls, congratulations on his re-election, warnings of assassination plots (such as the letter from the less-than-literate West Virginia man who hid inside of a wheat bin to eavesdrop on a conversation between some suspicious characters he worked with), and a man who wanted to start a Lincoln Club (but only on the precondition that the President rescind the Emancipation Proclamation!). Among my favorites were the letter written by Karl Marx (and signed by many of his colleagues) congratulating him on his re-election and lauding him for being such a friend of the common people and freeing the slaves, and the long threatening religious diatribe in verse (so long it was written by two different people) sent all of the way from New Zealand.

Though most people are traditionally used to studying history through the eyes of the ruling classes and the leaders of government, the people who supposedly make history, this book gives a valuable look into what life was like for ordinary American citizens during the Civil War. In many cases, the view of history provided through the eyes of the common people is even more interesting, and far more personal, than studying the exploits of a bunch of heads of state.

I had bought Harold Holzer's 1993 book "Dear Mr. President" and enjoyed it tremendously. That book dealt with the mail that ordinary and famous people from around the world sent to Abraham Lincoln during his term as U.S. President. Now, Holzer has produced a sequel book, "The Lincoln Mailbag", which contains even more letters written to Lincoln. A large number in this new volume consists of mail Lincoln never even saw, such as correspondence from black Americans. These two books by Holzer offer a fresh, new insight into the world of President Lincoln which is far more interesting than the ordinary, standard Lincoln biographies which seem to pop up every 6 months or so.

When it comes to baseball poetry, nobody knows his stuff better than Tim Wiles, and that expertise is evident in the outstanding quality of this collection. Many of the expected poets are here, but so are many I'd never heard of before whose work I am glad to have been exposed to. The poems range in tone from somber and serious to playful and irreverent. One of my particular favorites is the entry by former pitcher Dan Quisenberry, who was a funny guy and had quite a way with words.

I keep this book on my nightstand and try to read one poem each night before I go to sleep. Except I often have a hard time reading just one.

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. Sometimes with anthologies of sports-related fiction/poetry, I've been disappointed because there seemed to be differing levels of quality. With Line Drives, I was satisfied because all of the poems were worth reading-they offered a consistently high level of quality and all had interesting insights or fun ideas. Then there were a number of them that were among the best baseball poems I have ever read. Katharine Harer's "The Cure" speaks with a tremendous depth of understanding of the game and the emotions that go into our continued obsession with it. Joseph Stanton's "Stealing Home" uses an engaging poetic technique to compare the difficult return to the place where we grew up with that difficult play in the game. Dan Quisenberry's "Baseball Cards" offers an important perspective on players' insecurities and the myriad aspects of their lives that fans never see.

I also appreciated that the poems collected here do not revert to cliché comparisons or images when they connect baseball to life. In fact, some of them work against clichés. David C. Ward's "Isn't it pretty to think so?" challenges the idealization of fathers and sons playing catch and reminds us that individual experience is much more powerful and thought-provoking than any (false) perfect image. The poems felt fresh and that was in large part because many of the poets used personal experience as the starting point, reaching out to the game to make connections between their lives and those of the reader. As a result, I think that even those who are not baseball fans would appreciate and enjoy many of these poems. As a baseball fan, I know I'll enjoy rereading this collection and I think most baseball fans would as well.

Julianna Baggott writes outstanding fiction (for adults amd children) but she was first and still an outstanding poet. This one speaks from the voices of women from Lizzie Borden to Mary Todd Lincoln - and each poem is true to the speaker while touching the reader who may have nothing in common with the woman.

First, let me say that I discovered Julianna Baggott in Third Coast - a journal out of Michigan. I fell in love. I went on a search to learn more about my "new" favorite poet and discovered the lizzie borden book and immediately ordered it. I devoured it upon arrival and called my three best friends, (also poets) and suggested that they buy it, too. I read a couple of pieces over the phone to my poet friends and they orderd the book, too. The work is simply alive, though the majority of the women the poems are about are not. Norman Rockwell's wife, Helen Keller, Monica Lewinsky and of course Lizzie Borden are present among others. The poems are biographical fiction - Baggott paints tender, raw, angry, forlorn portraits. These poems are written so well that they ring true...it's easy to forget that they are poems and not pieces of autobiography. There is technique here, and patience with word choice and image. The closing piece, about Helen Keller, is worth the price of the book alone. I cannot recommend this book enough... I recommend it to everyone I talk to who's looking for a new poet (or not!).

Once again I find myself astonished and delighted that a subject one might have thought too insubstantial to merit more than an article in an obscure scholarly journal has, in fact, attracted a writer to produce a thoughtful, interesting, and thorough treatise for the general public. Anyone with any interest in American folk or popular music has probably long ago made LONG STEEL RAIL part of her library, but those whose interests are more casual or general would do well to do so also. Mr. Cohen neatly weaves his narrative of railroad song into the broader fabric of American history, so that his reader can easily appreciate how such songs reflect the changing concerns, fears, and values of our society. The stories of many of the songs are fascinating in their own right: for example, the litigation over rights to "The Wreck of the Old 97", the mixed origin of "Casey Jones", the pluck and luck of Elizabeth Cotten, composer of the ever popular "Freight Train".

The accompanying discography and bibliography are as remarkable for their completeness as for their accuracy.

This book is a rare gem. I recommend it to any who have a passion for America or for folk music (in the broadest sense of the phrase).

While humming "The Wabash Cannonball," which remains a popular tune even today, have you ever wondered about the phrase "She's the wondrous combination called the Wabash Cannonball"? What in the world does "combination" mean? Apparently, it means nothing more than that someone (who may have been more familiar with songs than with railroads) misunderstood the meaning of the original words and wrote down the wrong word! Does it help to know that a very early version of the song went "She's the bo's [hobos'] accommodation called the Wabash Cannonball"? The train "accommodated" hobos by providing free, albeit unauthorized, transportation and at least temporary shelter from the elements. The song also derives from an even earlier one called "The Great Rock Island Route," has a number of mythical elements in the style of the Paul Bunyan legends, and speaks of "Daddy Claxton," who has yet to be identified with any historical character and who appears in other versions as Boston Blackey and even Long Slim Perkins!

The evolution of folksongs and their many variants is a fascinating study. Add to this the lure of the railroad, put it all together in a study of dozens of such songs, mix in a healthy dose of scholarly research, and we have Cohen's book. It is not a casual read, but it is invaluable for research into practically every American folksong involving railroads.

For everyone interested in the human aspects of railroad history, in railroad folklore, or in the evolution of the American folksong, this book is well worth the purchase price. That it is back in print and again readily available is a godsend to folklorists, musicologists, and railfans. If you missed the first printing, don't miss this one! Also, while you're browsing here, check out Katie Letcher Lyle's "Scalded to Death by the Steam," a highly readable examination of Appalachian songs inspired by disasters on the railroad.

I just returned from the Pekin area. I finished reading "Lynch Law" this past winter. I enjoyed detail the writer used in describing the area. I felt like I knew the area when I drove arrived in the Pekin area. I found the book to be acruate in its lay out of the towns and area. I plan to reread the book now that I have been in the area. I enjoyed the mixture of history and mystery.

One of the most realistic writings of midwestern history that I've ever read. The author made you feel like you were right there during the trial and lynching. What an exciting book! We are expecting great things from this author!

But what book about Machaivelli could possibly be sufficient? Only "a commentary consisting of many volumes" could accomplish that.

Nonetheless, this book is almost sufficient for understanding The Prince. One can only hope that de Alvarez is busy preparing a commentary on the Discourses.

Cosimo: send me an e-mail. I would love to discuss this book with someone who knows what he's talking about.

Leo Paul deAlvarez has finally released the book that many people have been eager to read for the past several years. Called the "Master of Machiavelli" by one of his students, deAlvarez has the uncanny ability to discern the many strands of the artful web of writing woven by the wiling Florentine. When we see that Machiavelli's primary audience are those thinkers who came after him, we begin to see the magnitude of his enterprise. He seeks to rule all those who come after him by keeping them ignorant of classical thought. Just how he accomplishes this task is now more exposed because of the work of deAlvarez. Dogmatic Pocockian Republicans will be aghast, but so will those who fail to see that the true evil of Machiavelli is his obfuscation philosophy.

Cosimo Rucellai