Tennessee Books

I was researching a relative who served in the 2nd Rgt Engineers, PACS, and there is not much information available on the three Confederate Engineer Regiments. This book is more of a biography of Wampler, who was a staff officer and not a line officer in an engineer organization.

I didn't think this book would mean so much to me but it did and I'm pleased. I am a mother, feminist, and yankee; certainly not a student or enthusiast of the Civil War. Somehow this book came to my attention and I read it at first out of boredom. But I could not put this book down. In feminist studies we say "the personal is political." Through the depiction of John Wampler, this book masterfully demonstrates that concept. Kundahl tracks this man's life in careful detail, from his uniform to his marching orders. Kundahl delves where other historians fear to tread; the homelife. It doesn't matter that he fought for the South or the North. It doesn't matter that he was an engineer rather than a foot soldier (although the description of 1800's engineering principles is fascinating.) Fundementally, John Wampler was a man, a husband, a son, a father who sacrificed everything for duty and maybe even just a sense of adventure. Kate Wampler demonstrates the concept of bravery as well. While John went off to war, she kept her family and community together. Very rarely does a historical text bother to address in such detail the effects of war on women and families. Perhaps the fact that Kundahl is related to this extraordinary woman serves as the impetus for that desicion. Perhaps we should all look to our family trees to find such matriarches. I would highly recommend this book. It reminds me of another excellent book entitled "Galileo's Daughter" by Dava Sobel. That book chronicals the life of Galileo through corrispondence with his daughter.

Kundahl's biography of Morris Wampler is an excellent read! The story of Wampler's life and untimely death has an appeal for Civil War enthusiasts, for those interested in the development of the engineering profession, and for those who would like to learn about the life and times of an average citizen in a tumultuous period in American history. The material of the book has been gathered from Wampler's personal diaries and from the painstaking research of the author, who is Wampler's great, great grandson. The rich source material and Kundahl's deft handling of it give the reader the immediate experience of Wampler's life from his early education at the Mercer Academy to his work with the U.S. Coast Survey, an important scientific body that was mapping the Nation's expanding boundaries, and, finally, to his labor and ultimate sacrifice in support of the Confederate cause. Viewing the progress of the Civil War from the vantage point of and, at times, in the very words of a mid-level officer is an extraordinary experience.

Kundahl had done a masterful job for transforming Wampler's life into a compelling experience for the reader. Four stars!

This is an interesting book for a variety of reasons. The subject is John Morris Wampler, a young man whose life we follow from an inauspicious start in pre-civil War MD, to his untimely end as a Confederate Captain in Charleston, SC. The story is made doubly interesting, as Wampler is the author's great-great-grandfather, and one can feel Kundahl's personal investment to tell the story completely and without embellishment. One strength of the book is the insight it gives us into the institutions that built our country. Prior to the war, Wampler finds his early niche with the U.S. Coast Survey; at the time, an organization considered to be the premier scientific organization in the country and charged by Congress to conduct a thorough survey of the US coastline. For those with a technical bent, they will enjoy Kundahl's detailed description of the surveying techniques used by Wampler in his work along the Texas coast. Another strength is the unadorned manner in which we follow Wampler's somewhat unsuccessful pursuit of fame and fortune, both prior to and during the war. Kundahl provides a solid record of Wampler's attempts to advance his career, to include the sometimes clumsy use and abuse of mentors. The underlying story could probably be written about any aggressive 30-year-old, however, and that adds credibility to the book, showing us that human nature has not changed. The real strength--and in some respects the weakness--is Kundahl's description of Wampler's involvement in various actions during the war. At best, Wampler's involvement was alwyas peripheral. Kundahl's strength is his ability to take the perspective of the periphery and show how it played into the greater scheme of things. For those without a detailed knowledge of the Civil War, however, the view is sometimes hard to grasp. While the book is well-illustrated with Wampler's maps--his forte--battle maps showing the greater picture would be a very welcome addition. Nonetheless, the thorough accounting of Wampler's actions does give an excellent insight to the life of a staff officer. This duty is not usually depicted in typical histories, which tend to focus on the generals at the top or the infantryment at the bottom. In addition, the book gives a good review of the art of military engineering during the war and opens the idea of other books focusing on specialized staff functions at the time. The book ends with the very personal story of Wampler's widow trying to place his sacrifice into a framework that brings it the dignity and honor she feels it deserves. Kundahl's ability to draw on family records gives this section special poignancy. Given his access to family records, Kundahl's book also raises an interesting question: In this age of e-mails and telephone calls, will such books be able to be written in the future? There will always be a large public record to help document the actions of the generals and a corpus of front-line reporting to reveal the ordeal of the privates. It is doubtful, though, that these personal accounts from the periphery--which is no doubt the view of the vast majority of the participants in any period of history--will be preserved. If for nothing else, Kundahl's telling of one particular individual's peripheral view is a valuable addition to our understanding of this period in our history.

My children and I have thorougly enjoyed our reading aloud of "Davy Crockett: His Own Story". Written by Davy himself you feel like you are standing along side this great man of courage, determination, and heroism. We were rivoted by the honoring way this man lived his life. An awesome model for boys to emulate!

A great read: True, I may be prone to some bias, as Disney's first (and highly idealized) broadcast of "Davy Crockett: Indian Fighter" made its indelible print on me when I was several months shy of four years old. But Crockett's own story is a splendid, vivid, and revealing piece of work that belongs on the shelf of every student of its era. As a veteran reader of such material, and a much-published college and university educator, I commend the publisher of this work for its civil large-print edition (some of Bertrand Russell's best material is done in the same format) of this volume. KN

Davy Crockett is a legend -- and Crockett knew this while he was still alive. Throughout this autobiography, he is careful to conform to his public image, while being willing to clarify some of the tall tales being told.

Some have doubted Crockett's authorship, and he certainly used fellow congressman, Thomas Chilton of Kentucky to edit and assist in the manuscript preparation. However, the book is the work of Crockett and he wrote it in 1834, two years before the Alamo.

Reading about Crockett in his own words (even though they may have been edited or enhanced by another congressman) is a delight.

Well worth one's time.

I bought this book specifically because Davy Crockett himself was the author. I thought it would contain his entire autobiography, but the book ends before he goes off to Congress. The book and type are also much larger than I realized they would be. This book is more suitable for younger children. As an adult, I am quite disappointed.

Crystabelle has no choice but to the run, to run far away. She knows that God did not call her to this marriage. She goes to Tennessee to teach and meets Drew. Drew and his friend Bear add some fun to this wilderness. Crawford tells her story about the westward movement of pioneers, their beliefs, their fears, their joys, and their courage. Try it you will like it. Ruth Thompson author of "The Bluegrass Dream" and "Natchez Above The River"

Desperate to escape the cruel man her parents insist she marry, Crystabelle grasps at the chance of a teaching position in a remote settlement beyond the mountains. Surely neither her betrothed nor her father will find her there! And she will be free to pursue the independent life of which she has always dreamed.

A beautiful, refined heiress is the last person Drew would expect to be seeking passage overmountain to Tennessee Territory. But the lovely miss seems determined to procure the position of schoolmistress to Reardon Valley's youngsters. Dubious but intrigued, Drew finds himself helping her achieve her goal. Once he gets her safely to the valley, though, he'll be off again. Not even the growing threat to Crystabelle's safety can dissuade him from exploring his beloved wilderness...or can it?

As the two join forces, they learn the true meaning of adventure and freedom--but a shocking betrayal threatens to tear it away from them forever.

Drew Reardon defines the word "wanderlust." Although he has declared a life of roaming and freedom, but struggles when an unusual situation puts a single young woman in his path. Although Crysta desires the freedom to make her own choices, she finds fulfillment in teaching, a job which requires roots. The batter between two tenacious, obstinate individuals (who both believe a future with the other is totally unattainable) is amazing and amusing. If you enjoy historical Christian fiction, you must add this to your collection.

While I enjoyed the first two books in the Reardon Brothers Triology and looked forward to this last book, I am sad to say that disappointment in the last three chapters of the book abound. While it was predictable to a point, the ending did not meet my expectations. The ending of the book was quite far-fetched to say the least. Any of us who read the first two books and remember the portrayal of Drew, the youngest of the Reardon brothers will find that Freedom's Belle did not follow the same path. The entire book up until the end was exactly what we had pictured and contained the detail we love from Dianna Crawford, however, the ending unfortunately overshadowed the great beginning. You would be better off not reading the third book of this triology and keep Dianna's first two as memories of a great story.

"Nursing America" is a chronicle of Balfour's year interviewing nurses at Memphis' Med. The Med began in 1829 as a hospital for those traveling the Mississippi; it now is a large public hospital serving primarily those in the Memphis area, but also those in Arkansas and Mississippi. It claims five centers of excellence - burn, trauma, high-risk OB, newborns, and wound care, and Balfour spend time in several of them.

The "good news" is that nurses, mostly black - as reflecting the area - are well educated (many have Master's degrees), well-paid ($1,000/week and up), generally happy - they particularly appreciate the autonomy afforded them at the Med, provide the best care they can - even when they know the patient will soon die, and competent. Some are males, even a former SEAL. The "bad news" is that the Med is in constant financial trouble due to the large amount of uncompensated care it provides - especially in the Burn Center.

"Nursing America" helps one better appreciate nurses and public hospitals.

This book gives us insights into what it's like to work at an under funded urban American hospital. The author profiles several specialty nurses and follows them on their daily rounds for a few weeks at a time. It's informative and very readable for anyone interested in contemporary nursing.

Nursing America: One Year Behind The Nursing Stations Of An Inner-City Hospital by journalist and television producer Sandy Balfour is a straightforward look at the daily lives of skilled nurses who must deal with the tragedies of sickness and all too often violence in an urban American public hospital. "Nobody ever came to the hospital to see a nurse", one of the profiled nurses mentions, yet it is often the nurses whom the patients remember most vividly. Black-and-white photographs illustrate this detailed account of a profession so often misunderstood, and the men and women who hold human lives in their hands from day to day, as surely as air traffic controllers and law enforcement officers do. Especially recommended for anyone looking to better understand what a nurse's life is like, from students considering a career in the field to writers striving to accurately portray nursing to lay readers looking to enrich their knowledge.

The inner-city hospital is Memphis' chronically under funded Regional Medical Center, known as "the Med." Unlike the city's private hospitals, the Med has to take everybody, which means lots of non-paying patients, many of whom are addicts, people without family, the homeless, the mentally ill. British journalist Sandy Balfour spends a year walking its corridors and talking to its nurses, the backbone of the hospital.

The nurses at the Med are a proud, dedicated bunch. Many are black and most of the ones Balfour talks to have been there for years. One of the things he doesn't say is how much turnover there is; going by this book, not much. Pay is the same as at private hospitals and the nurses have greater autonomy and authority. "We work as a team," is a refrain that comes up again and again.

He spends much of his time in the trauma center, burn unit and HIV clinic. Nurses who work trauma (including airlift trauma nurses) are a special breed; people who thrive on the challenge of emergency, and the rush of adrenaline. Most of them wouldn't work anywhere else.

But then nurses who work the ever-depressing burn unit are a special breed too; people who can spend months with a patient in constant pain, whose best will never be as good as it was. Death is frequent. It's not one of the more popular specialties.

And it takes a special sort of person to work with HIV patients all day. Like many of these nurses Marye Bernard takes her faith as seriously as her responsibilities. Patients respond to her determined optimism. Her goal is to prevent HIV becoming AIDS. "What this means is I do everything. Pap smears, teeth, dietary advice, antibiotics. You name it. I do palliative care, symptomatic care, and preventative care. I give anti-retroviral drugs. I do education."

Money and race come into the story frequently: constant threats by the state to shut down a place that runs deeply in the red; the differences in ambiance between a place like the Med and the private hospitals where everyone has insurance; the chasm in general health between people who get regular care and people who don't have insurance; the color divide inherent in all those differences.

At the Newborn Center about 30 percent of the Med's newborn babies require intensive postpartum care. The infant mortality rate for white babies in Memphis is 5.8 per 100,000, a bit better than the national average. The rate for black infants is 18.7. Here too, the Med has a dedicated staff, run by 79-year-old Dr. Sheldon Korones who believes "health care is a right, not a privilege," and that the worst faults of our system stem from making medicine "a product." He raised the money himself to start the Newborn Center in 1968, his reaction to the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.

The nurses, many of them considerably more conservative than Korones, talk comfortably to Balfour, inviting him to watch them work. He meets FSAs (failed suicide attempts) MVAs (motor vehicle accidents), GSWs (gunshot wounds), watches an operation to reconstruct a girl's face after she was shot by her boyfriend, attends a three-hour church service with the head nurse.

Frustrating, depressing stats and monetary issues punctuate Balfour's anecdotal, informative and inspiring narrative. The nurses are wonderful people, with a heartening sense of the importance of their work. As fascinating as this material is, though, it doesn't go deep enough. Why does Marye Bernard refuse to sign off on disability for even very sick patients with AIDs? Why a 24 hour shift for some nurses (enabling them to run other businesses, including a farm and a pet cemetery)? What about that patient at the outset who complained about the rudeness of the nurses at the Med? Are they? Why?

However many questions you may have at the end, Balfour puts his heart into this celebration of a caring profession, while capturing the sad ironies of the system's inequities.

It's 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee. The state has recently enacted legislation requiring that creationism (known now as intelligent design) be taught in all publicly financed schools. John Scopes, a highly principled teacher and "infidel" refuses to comply with this edict. His defiance becomes the catalyst for one of the most anticipated trials in US history, the Scopes Monkey Trial. Attorney for the defense is Clarence Darrow. State attorney A. T. Stewart is the prosecutor, aided by erstwhile presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan. Covering the trial for the Baltimore Sun and for posterity, is that acerbic scribe, H. L. Mencken.

In a packed 90 degree courtroom, litigants and audience alike endure 11 days of sweltering heat and blistering condemnation from both sides of the most volatile issue since the issue itself.

Mencken's daily reports from July 10 to July 21 are replete with critism and witticism. His, at times, withering commentary is clearly slanted agnostic. He makes no affectation whatsoever toward unbiased reporting. With his amazing command of the english language, he's more an elegant verbal assassin than news reporter. Mencken leaves no earth unscorched, from the "local yokels" to the "ignoramuses" who purport to govern them. His most potent venom is reserved for William Jennings Bryan. Bryan is seated as a bible expert and witness for the prosecution as he faces off against Clarence Darrow. Darrow presents compelling scientific facts refuting creationism, while Bryan defers to meaningless scripture and ridiculous superstition, advancing neither his cause nor his standing amoung the country's thinking elite.

A Religious Orgy in Tennessee is a compilation of newspaper articles. One should probably be an agnostic and Mencken fan to enjoy it. Also, have a dictionary close at hand. You'll need it.

I am a huge fan of H. L. Mencken and this addition to the library doesn't disappoint. Mencken was one of America's most respected, despised, and feared journalists. As the number one literary enemy of the fundamentalist most of his career, Mencken was in his element at the John Scopes trial that pitted the science of evolution against the mythology of fundamentalist Christianity.

In 1925, Mencken drew the nation's attentions to a trial taking place in Dayton, Tennessee that would test the boundaries of a new law (the Butler Act) that prohibited the teaching of: "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." One enterprising individual set about testing the law by asking a local teacher (a friend sympathetic with the cause) to teach Darwin's theory of evolution. That teacher was 24-year-old John T. Scopes. Lasting eight days in the courtroom and eleven days in total, the weather was painfully hot probably irritating Mencken even more.

Writing for the Baltimore Evening Sun, Mencken's verbal energy and acute wit are stunning (no journalist, pundit, or commentator today even comes close). And much of his sarcastic eloquence comes, of course, at the expense of the key figure at the trial William Jennings Bryan. As the billing promises, these reports are by the most famous newspaperman in American history are vivid, highly intelligent, scathingly honest, and hysterically funny.

Mencken saw the transparent attempt at keeping evolution from being taught in schools contemptible, and the Scopes trial as ample opportunity to ridicule the "yokels," "half-wits," and "buffoons" who believe that man is not a mammal and the earth is less then 6,000 years old. But Mencken left his most venomous criticisms for those representing the prosecution, especially Democratic presidential candidate and fundamentalist Christian William Jennings Bryan. Five days after the end of the trial, Bryan died. In writing one of three scathing Bryan obituaries, Mencken opines:

"The meaning of religious freedom, I fear, is sometimes greatly misapprehended. It is taken to be some sort of immunity, not merely from governmental control but also from public opinion. A dunderhead gets himself a long-tailed coat, rises behind the sacred desk, and emits such bilge as would gag a Hottentot. Is it to pass unchallenged? If so, then what we have is not religious freedom at all, but the most intolerable and outrageous variety of religious despotism. Any fool, once he is admitted to the wholly orders, becomes infallible. Any half-wit, by the simple device of ascribing his delusions to revelation, takes on an authority that is denied to all the rest of us."

"I do not know how many Americans entertain the ideas defended so ineptly by poor Bryan, but probably the number is very large...though they are thus held to be sound by millions, these ideas remain mere rubbish. Not only are they not supported by the known facts; they are in direct contravention of the known facts. No man whose information is sound and whose mind functions normally can conceivable credit them. They are the products of ignorance and stupidity, either or both."

"What should be a civilized man's attitude to such superstition? It seems to me that the only attitude possible to him is one of contempt. If he admits that they have any intellectual integrity whatever, he admits that he himself has none. If he pretends to a respect for those who believe in them, he pretends falsely, and sinks almost to their level. When he is challenged he must answer honestly, regardless of tender feelings. That is what Darrow did at Dayton, and the issue plainly justified the act. Bryan went there in a hero's shinning armor, bent deliberately upon a gross crime against sense. He came out a wrecked and preposterous charlatan, his tail between his legs. Few Americans have ever done so much for their country in a whole lifetime as Darrow did in two hours."

This volume includes all of Mencken's daily reports for The Baltimore Sun, as well as additional stories filed for The Nation and The American Mercury. It also includes his coverage of Bryan's death just days after the trial, plus numerous rare photos, and the full transcript of Darrow's historic cross-examination of Bryan. Oh wouldn't Mencken have a field day with with our fearless fundamentalist leader were he alive today! Alas, journalists like Mencken just don't exist anymore. Highly recommended reading and very contemporary as it seems little has changed in the "bible belt."

Religious Orgy in Tennessee was like filet mignon for my brain. To think that in 1925 the voice of reason was so strong yet now all we hear are whispers. Chris Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris are all very good, but they don't have the flare and finesse of H.L. Mencken. Yes, he's blunt, but he's right about religion. We need to stop being polite to superstition and H.L. Mencken is a good example to emulate in our endeavors to bring rationality back to our reason-starved nation and planet.

The Scope trial would fit into today's world so easily. Each side was absolutely 100% correct and the other side was 100% wrong. Now compromise was even thinkable.

H.L. Mencken was sent to cover the trial and report on it. I always like first hand accounts of historic events, and find them to be best place to get the true atmosphere of what was going on at a specific time or place.

H.L. Mencken's reporting tells almost NOTHING of the trial, and is page after page of blistering indictment against anyone who has the slightest glimmer of faith in their life. He came across to me as a very sad individual.

And to previous reviewers who states: "We need to stop being polite to superstition and H.L. Mencken is a good example to emulate in our endeavors to bring rationality back to our reason-starved nation and planet.", In this case, 83 years later, the roles are now 100 reversed. Any whisper of "intelligent design" or faith be even mentioned in schools is immediately attacked and squashed as fanatically as the evolutionists were in Dayton in 1925.

If you want an indictment of religion from the media circus that was the Scopes trial, this would be an excellent book. If you want to learn anything ABOUT the Scope's trial, this isn't it.

A surprising look at the Civil War from the perspective of a man trying to process his own experience many years after the fact. Willis Carr was the product of a Unionist family in East Tennessee. At age 13, he was caught up in a war he did not understand when he followed his father and older brothers on a mission to burn railroad bridges. Captured and offered a choice between joining the rebels and being sent to prison in Tuscaloosa ("The very name sounded like the end of everything holy.") Willis chose the Confederacy, and became a sharpshooter. The first third of the book is Willis's first hand account of his experiences in various battles, from the sharpshooter's nest in the tower of Bleak House overlooking the Kingston Pike and the Tennessee River during the siege of Knoxville, through the horrors of Devil's Den at the battle of Gettysburg, to guard duty at Andersonville Prison, where he first learned to read and write -- in Cherokee -- from a black prisoner. The remainder of the book chronicles his quest, later in life, to sort out his memories, fill in the gaps, and find out "what really happened" during the war by retracing his steps and talking to other survivors along the way. More introspection than action; thoughtful exploration of the mind of a soldier, the importance of physical and temporal perspective, and the fallibility of memory. Quite a remarkable read.

This is a unique way of telling the story of a boy from Tennessee, Willis Carr. The first part of the book deals this boy of thirteen who is a sharpshooter in the Confederate Army. In the second half of the book Willis returns from the west where he had a drinking spree. He has a need to come to terms with his part of the Civil War where he had been a sharpshooter. He travels to the battlefields trying to answer his question: was it War or did he commit murder? By Ruth Thompson author of "Natchez Above The River" and "The Bluegrass Dream"

Writing as a Small BusinessQualifying Laps: A Brewster County NovelSins of the Fathers: A Brewster County NovelTravelersThe Bluegrass Dream: A Wilderness Adventure of Early SettlersNatchez Above The River: A Family's Survival In The Civil War

This is a strangely-told Civil War novel. It's the remembrance of Willis Carr, who was drawn into the war at 13 in the hills of East Tennessee. Many localities from that area are mentioned in the story. Sharpshooter is strange because it is told by the narrator many years after the war and he doesn't seem to remember actually being a part of the events. It's a good effort, but could have been even better. Madden's work is pretty well received by critics, probably because he does such a nice job of making "history" readable.

Madden's novel is both entertaining and challenging. The first half is a young adults conversion from non combatant and Tennessee farm boy through an East Tennessee rail road raider and into the CSA army as a sharpshooter. The second half of the novel presents the soldier after the war as he returns from an alcoholic binge in the West. His personal recollections are hazy but he confronts the question: "Was it war or was it murder?" By touring the Civil War battlefields and bumping into assorted veterans, some of whom are truthful and some are liars, he confronts his battlefield wounds of his body and his psyche. Not your usual Civil War novel and at times it may make you restless but Sharpshooter does the work its sets out to do

As another book stated, "He is arrogant". I have never figured out how he got to be the so called endall of records in Nashville. Goes too show you, pickin's must be slim. In my book I will never forget the shoddy treatment of Gram Parsons (a real talent!) by this record spinner.

your first book was 2 thumbs up I will read your 2nd god bless you mr.emery since hee haw has gone and most of any old tm. music it is a pleasure to read about the real country from you some one who was there

This book was a very interesting read and and a minimum offers any reader a real "View" from Nashville, TN the World Capital for Country music and the stars and players involved.. I give it 4 stars and reccomend to all.

When a man has been in a business for all his adult life, he is well quialified to write about that business and the people within. There in lies the story of "View From Nashville". No other living person knows and can tell the story of "Nashville" scene better than Ralph Emery. The reader gets to know as a person one on one Dolly Parton, Marty Robbins, Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty and countless others. Loretta speaks of an out of body experience as she stood by the bedside of her dying friend Conway Twitty. Merl Kilgore relates through Ralph the message Jim Reeves sent him from the other side. One finds that being a child star does not always mean living in a big house, and driving a fancy car as Brenda Lee relates. That Elvis might have appeared on a recording after his death. Through the writing of this Nashville Icon one learns the humor of Roger Miller, and gets to know stars Reba McIntre and Brooks and Dunn. For Elvis fans he writes extensively about an interview with Colonel Tom Parker and the book he would never write. One can feel the love the author has for the business, his city, and peers. No one else could or has told the Nashville story like Ralph Emery in View From Nashville. No wonder his TNN program was voted the networks most popular for 10 consecutive years. Thank goodness he has had time to pen these stories in written form so they may be enjoyed forever.

Sensitively portraying the aftereffects of World War I on the people of Bourbonville, Tennessee, this robust, dramatic novel is a triumphant celebration of the power of writing to create whole worlds and then lead the reader in exploring them. Spanning the years from 1890 - 1930, the novel moves back and forth in time, leisurely building detail upon detail until an entire community, several generations of its important families, its important businesses, and its religious and social organizations spring to life, tied together, as small communities often are, by custom, gossip, and a shared past, not all of it pretty. As the war wreaks its changes on the fabric of society, the author explores life's big themes--what makes life meaningful, how we connect with each other, how we deal with death of loved ones, and how we face the future--adding an extra dimension through the symbolism of Greek legends, especially that of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun.

Main character Paul Alexander (formerly Kephalopoulos), a Greek by birth and Belgian by education and social preference, arrives in Bourbonville, not fully recovered from a head wound received during the early days of the war. Through Paul, an outsider who speaks to the ghosts of his two best friends, the reader comes to know a variety of local characters--a grassroots industrialist who runs the car works foundry for the local railroad, a leading family whose members realize that their agrarian way of life is ending, a delightful moonshiner, the last of the family doctors who were truly part of the family, a brilliant black man whose technical achievements as a member of the French armed forces gave him a taste of life denied him in postwar Tennessee, and various members of Paul's own family back in Greece.

Weaving together such diverse topics as the Spanish American War and the battle for Cuba, the early anti-war movement, the growth of railroads and industry, the early women's movement, the Ku Klux Klan (easily the most dramatic part of the book), strikes and the labor movement, Bolshevism, evangelical frenzy, and the interest in foreign travel, the novel is an expansive treatment of some of the early influences on 20th century thinking, and, as such, is fascinating. Its comprehensive thematic development is equally striking. It is somewhat less successful in its characterizations, which are not always consistent, and in its melodrama, which while emotionally seductive, tend to divide the book into separate and somewhat disconnected units. Still, for those who enjoy big books which offer a treatment of equally big ideas, this is a captivating novel, great fun to read. Mary Whipple

This is a serious book, and well written, yet it fails to move me. It lacks an intelligence that cares about what is going on, if not the narrator, then the narrator's creator. Marius's narrator is such a dull, immature, self-centered character that it is difficult to get interested in what happens to him. He doesn't care. He doesn't care about what happens in his own life. He doesn't care about his mother and sister in Greece. He just wants to sit in his little room daydreaming about his college chums.

At one point, the older version of Paul reflects, "I am angry at the stupid innocence of the young man I was then, which makes me in this later time want to slap him across the face and shout at him and tell him to grow up, to be different, to be somebody else." Indeed, but this doesn't happen until page 373. Throughout the entire first part of the book, Marius presents Paul's mumbling "I do not want to talk about it" stance as heroic. It is difficult to understand why everyone in this Tennessee town courts this silent foreigner. Paul will say ponderous things like, "After he [Bernal] died, I never did mathematics again." (Page 155) Well, why not? What has Bernal's death got to do with Paul doing mathematics? Are we supposed to think that Paul is sacrificing his supposedly great talent as some kind of offering to Bernal? Actually, the statement is not true. Paul goes to work as a chemist in which capacity he must use mathematics to some extent. Very few people continue to do theoretical math once they are out of college. It is just a silly adolescent sort of thing to say. But you do not get enough acknowledgement from Paul the elder, sitting at his kitchen table years later, that this is a very foolish young man.

On the other hand, Marius does present a very complex story coherently. I only question his narrative strategy. The narrator is such a stumbling block it is surprising that Marius didn't see the limitations of such a narrow approach to his subject. For instance, Marius intends to address the bigotry faced by immigrants to small American towns after the War. These Tennessee people hold themselves above the descendants of Virgil and Homer, and yet cannot even tell a Greek from a Belgian! That circumstance could have been used more effectively, however, if Paul were just a little more Greek. Why have him give up his bazooka? That was one of the few interesting things about him. Or, the fact that he has taken this rather menial job would mean more to the reader if, at the same time, he were thinking of problems in theoretical mathematics.

The parts of Marius's book that I enjoyed were those where Paul is confronting these odd Tennesseans and trying to figure out the rules of this particular game. If we had a Greek mathematician trying to fit into a small town in Tennessee at the turn of the century, that would have been an interesting book. I could not understand at all the fixation on Bernal and Guy. Maybe Marius intended these characters to be "symbols of the past" or something equally abstract and silly, but they just don't work. I think here the problem is that we know all too well these feelings of nostalgia for carefree days of drinking beer in the student union. To raise this banal itch to such level of personal agony seems a bit bathetic.

This is one of the finest books I have read in some time. The book traces the life of Paul Alexander, a Greek by birth who fought as a member of the Belgian army during World War I. Wounded during the war, he comes to America and obtains employment as a chemist for a railroad car manufacturer in the small town of Bourbonville, Tennessee. In Bourbonville, he progresses from being the town curiousity to being a friend, father, business leader and farmer as he mentally recovers from his shattering war experiences. Instead of telling the story in a strictly linear fashion, Marius flips effortlessly back and forth from Paul's days as a university student in Belgium and his post-war life in Bourbonville. Marius is subtle enough to tell the reader just enough background to explain Paul's actions and emotions. We learn of Paul's complex family history, his friendships with Guy and Bernal, two university students, and of his first love, an older woman employed as a dressmaker. What we are not told much of are the horrors of his wartime experience, other than that he watched all his university friends die one by one in combat, and that he himself was badly wounded at Antwerp. Much of the book is a description of how he comes to terms with his wartime experiences, having watched the disintegration of all that was familiar to him. When we first meet Paul, he dwells in the past because he cannot conceive of a future. The ghosts of Guy and Bernal follow him in his post war experiences, both comforting him and haunting him at times. In the end, when he has internally resolved the conflicts of his early family troubles and his wartime memories, and truly comes to appreciate his life in the present tense, Guy and Bernal bid him farewell. The astonishing thing about this book his how well it ties together the threads of many different plot lines and themes. This book is as much about life in the South at the beginning of the century as it is about the ravages of war. The themes of racial tension, religion, xenophobia, intolerance in its many forms and the effect of industrial development in the South are all explored and weaved together seamlessly. The characters are beautifully developed and their stories told with a true Southern flourish. This is a moving and powerful book.

I am a grad student who bought this text to get some help with studying for a major exam. Even thought it was helpful with the "big picture", the book is lacking in the more specific details that a more seasoned scholar might need. I recommend this book for undergrads or someone who is looking to return to college, but not for more advanced scholarly research.

I used this along with Norton Anthology American Literature to pass my CLEP exam. You certainly need more then this little book for studying, but it was great to help me focus on the authors that were covered in the test.

This make a great handbook or reference book for home educators. It is written with the authors in Historical/Literary Time periods in chronological order. Each key is an introduction to the author with examples of the author's works. I highly recommend it.

while i agree with other reviewers that this a scholarly great text in some ways, i also agree that the author has a vendetta against anything white. Apparently he feels some special right to talk about the blues just because he is black, saying that he and his people understand aspects of the blues us whities could never understand. While that may have been totally true 100 years ago, i really question his assertion that a college professor with a phd in 1993 has any special insight into the life of wandering poor oppressed artists 100 years ago. Maybe i dont get it because im white; im sure that would be the authors opinion. I love the blues, and while this text explores areas of the blues that may have been obscure before, I feel that his paranoia of white people passing the blues off as anything but philosophically and morally profound because we still somehow see blacks as nothing more than minstrels is just ridiculous. Nobody today, or at least very very few people have any special insight into a culture that at the time was obscure and is long gone by now. The author is arrogant and pretentious, but I'm sure im just saying that because I am a white devil. Apparently the color of your skin matters more than what you have to say, because the author joyfully and overtly discredits other scholars just because they happen to be white (I swear to God that is the reason he gives, we whities be dumb!). I got this book because I felt it could help me dive into the complexities of the human condition that we all share, and that i can relate to in blues music. Apparently, because I'm white, i have no right to listen to the sacred music that should only be avaliable to blacks with the mysterious power to somehow interpret it correctly. I hate this race BS. Using race to discredit other points of view was wrong a hundred years ago, and it is still just as wrong today, it doesnt matter who you are.

This book is essential reading for blues scholars and even for blues fans who want to understand blues mythology and the religious nature of the blues. Spencer writes well and the examples he uses from song lyrics do much to provide an understanding of where the music called the blues comes from, and the influence of religion and religious practice on its development. Spencer advances a few theories that I really found interesting: (1) That as the character of the blues changed from old country or delta to city blues and then to the urban blues of the Chicago blues - the religious nature of the music was "denatured" of explicit references to the blues, and (2)secondly that the blues has a strong tie to gospel spirituals and preaching. Both are interesting and provide unique insight. For that reason, this book should be read and I recommend it to anyone interested in the history of the blues.

The problem with Spencer is two-fold. First, he plays the race card over and over and over. He asserts that white musicologists can never begin to understand or grasp fully what the blues is about because they are not black and cannot understand what it is like to suffer from slavery and overt racism. I think it is a fair point to make that white authors cannot begin to understand racism and slavery - another thing to translate that in toto to blues music as a whole. Spencer repeats this line of analysis again and again and by the middle of the book - just advances it as if previously proven by his own assertion. Secondly, he seems to focus almost entirely on the work of Paul Oliver to discredit white ethnomusicologists - (Robert Palmer, Samuel Charters, David Evans and William Ferris are either ignored completely or lumped into Oliver's Europeanist school.) Oliver certainly deserves far better here. Spencer tirelessly picks apart Oliver and assumes the most sinister and racist intentions from what mostly seems trivial. (I am sure that Spencer would argue that being black gives him special insight but I find that less than appealing.) At one point, he takes Oliver to task for quoting from a specific song lyric to make a general point. However, this is a technique that Spencer relies upon for almost every point he makes. At times the racial polemics become the focus and the music is left behind - which is a shame. Surely we can all love this music without setting up racial litmus tests?

In the end, it is unfortunate but not lethal. His insistence on attacking Oliver ad nausea only weakens what is a very important piece of work. But don't let that distract you. I think Spencer has a good thesis - he supports it well and he provides an insight into African as well as Christian religious influences on the blues - which has not really received this kind of in depth focus.

Blues and Evil is an exploration of a neglected area, that is, how the nature of AficanAmerican religious belief had an impact on the emerging art of the blues in its early stages when blues could be seen as an authentic expression of a very localizable Southern Black culture. The music of Southern Black folk is contextualized in a refreshing way; not as the antithesis or inversion of a powerful religious culture; but rather as an expression of its depth and breadth. Stereotypical views of both white scholars and somewhat conformist Southern Black Church leaders are challenged by the author, who shows that the blues constituted a cultural space in which the fears and difficulties, the personal and sexual conflicts, and the threatening social conditions of life among Black folk in the south could be worked with as a raw material for the spiritual elevation of the individual in his experience of these in his daily affairs. The blues therefore emerges in the author's hands as a tool with which conflicts are mediated, contemplated, and reintegrated for the participants in its rituals, its celebrations, and its expurgations. Perhaps the most moving revelation is that the extent to which these wonderful and brilliant artists lived as outsiders in an outsider culture has been exaggerated to a degree by romanticizing, though well meaning scholars, and by extension, in the eyes of the public. The book should be regarded as worthwhile both by students of the emergence of the blues, but also those interested in the emergence of a black culture in post-Reconstruction south at the beginning of our century. A very thoughtful book