Indiana Books

The Allied invasion of Germany was accompanied by another army, of photographers, military and civilian, who took thousands of pictures of the devastated country and its inhabitants, including Displaced Persons and concentration camp inmates.
Barnouw has closely examined a remarkable selection of the disturbing images, and provided more thorough and searching interpretations, showing that the victors' predispositions affected their objectivity and clouded their assessments of the Germans.
The reader is warned that many corpses are depicted.
(The numerical rating above is a default setting within Amazon's format. This reviewer does not employ numerical ratings.)

Andrea Del Jorio penned this work in the nineteenth century, and now Adam Kenton has gracefully brought it into twentieth-century English. Amusing, informative: a sheer delight to read, and you'll laugh heartily with recognition.

Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?

No, but I do bite my thumb!

Now, you'll know why.

Gettysburg Heroes: Perfect Soldiers, Hallowed Ground, Glenn W. LaFantasie, Indiana University Press, 2008, 279 pp., index, endnotes, $24.95.

"Perfect heroes were conspicuously absent from the field of Gettysburg, as they are from every battlefield, every war. Every soldier, nevertheless, likes to think his is perfect," LaFantasie states that the subtitle of his work is meant to be ironic. The author reviews the passing of certain soldiers through the battle of Gettysburg and the history of their interpretations. Longstreet, Chamberlain, Haskell, Oates, Lincoln, Eisenhower, Montgomery, as well as LaFanatasie and his daughter Sarah, have each passed through a Gettysburg experience and some have encountered it several times.

"By and by, out of the chaos of trash and falsehood that newspapers hold, out of the disjointed mass of reports, out of the traditions and tales that come down from the field, some eye that never saw the battle will select[,] and some will write[,] what will be named the history. With that the world will be --and if we are alive we must be--content." Haskell, recognized as one of the finest soldier-writers of Gettysburg primary sources, is quoted by LaFantasie to explain the business of sorting the various interpretations of the battle. The 145 year construction effort by participants and historians to describe and explain the battle has produced a plethora of writing. Personally, CWL shied away from this book for that reason, but after reading the first chapter LaFantasie won this reader over. CWL also had a similar experience with Twilight at Little Round Top: avoidance until reading the book and then a regret when it was over.

On Longstreet, LaFantasie reconciles Lee's 'Old Warhorse' with McLaw's 'A Humbug' sieves the man and his reputations. Evaluating Longstreet during his Mexican War, his Civil War and and his post-war careers, the author understands Longstreet to be a natural warrior whose finest moments occurred in combat as a steady and dependable soldier who had unpolished manners and a high degree of ambition. At times, he would be viewed as disrespectful to authority and abusive to his subordinates, especially in the eyes and by the pen of Jubal Early, a Lee defender and a writer of the 'Lost Cause' interpretation of the war.

Among the highlights in Gettysburg Heroes: Perfect Soldiers, Hallowed Groundis the chapter on Frank Haskell and the creation of his Gettysburg memoir which was actually a consciously drafted long letter home. Several chapters describe the several war time and post-war collisions between Joshua Chamberlain, 20th Maine, and William Oates, 15th Alabama; and in several more chapters, William Oates, as a fugitive from the law, as a Confederate captain and colonel, as a lawyer and politician, and as an historian is revealed to be quite similar to Longstreet. Both Confederates were warriors, who at times were ill-mannered, abrasive sentimentalists and as soldier-writers hda selective and creative memories. In particular LaFantasie explains Oates creation, distribution and further enhancement of the false story of Union Brigadier General Farnsworth's suicide on July 3rd during a cavalry charge between Bushman's Hill and the Slyder Farm. In this eighth chapter, LaFantasie reveals subtle themes that appear tangential throughout this book: how successful were soldier-writers when they wrote history? How is evidence created and how is it handled and mishandled? The misreporting by an eye-witness of a battlefield death, the addition of details to this report, the telling, re-telling and finally being offered as history is thread throughout the book. These themes appear tangential but at the close of the book they are fully set before the reader.

The battlefield and the park have their histories created by warriors, veterans, and the national park service. LaFantasie lays before the reader "the number of egregious errors" the NPS has made, including the building of the visitors center ('a drum on its side') on the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge site, granting permission the National Tower to be built in the midst of the battlefield, and giving to Gettysburg College a portion of the battlefield and then watching the portion bulldozed.

In the last chapter, LaFantasie places in context Chamberlain's, now famous "'In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays.' paragraph. For author Bruce Catton 'echoes are felt' and not heard LaFantasie remarks. LaFantasie and his daughter walk the ground of the battlefield and written wartime reports are examined against the terrain. On the rocks contested by the Maine soldiers and the Alabamians, the author, as a young man, became reconciled to the early death of his father. Near the same location, LaFantasie's daughter Sarah asks him, "Did you feel it?" and he has no idea what she is talking about. She says "I feel something." Something nameless, something intangible, some emotional fog or shadow that made her feel sad. Later the author recalls that it was there, on the southeast slope of Little Round Top and near the 20th Maine monument, that he had released his own sadness over his father's death.

"Our pasts are locked inside us" and the past is not always tangible and knowable. "But sometimes it can be seen and sometimes it can be felt. . . . . On a misty spring day, across the lush fields and hills of Gettysburg, my daughter and I felt the far-reaching echoes of our past." LaFantasie's conclusion underscores Chamberlain's remarks concerning how spirits linger at Gettysburg and consecrate the ground as an oracle, a vision-place, for souls of flawed heroes.

Glenn LaFantasie continues to draw readers into the story of Gettysburg. By turns very direct and very subtle, Gettysburg Heroes offers concise and clear stories of soldiers, civilians, generals and presidents. Those who lived through the battle and returned, or came to Gettysburg after the battle, found that their personal pasts were locked both within the battlefield and within themselves. The Gettysburg battlefield both wounds and heals us, and at times allows us to hide within its story and then reveals us to ourselves. As William Faulkner said, "The past is not dead. It has not even passed." The truth make us transparent to others and ourselves. Well written history does the same. LaFantasie's writing brings us a little closer to the truth about the battle of Gettysburg and how it has become an oracle for this nation.

This book is similar in style, layout, and contents to Sulzer's other books. It has lots of anecdotes and human interest stories about hardscrabble lines (and pieces of bigger roads) that operated for a time in Kentucky, and then vanished. You'll find a wealth of material in here about local history and economic development in the Blue Grass State. Buy it - you'll enjoy it.

I thought this was an excellent book that helped construct a frame for me to begin to understand India. After travelling in the country recently, my memories of the book helped me put into perspective what I saw about the Indians, and the times I saw them taking advantage of each other. More importantly, the book described the search for dignity that people of all countries must share. It is a very complex country and I was glad I read this.

The book was in perfect condition (said only "good" but looked like it had never been touched) and came at a price so low I was afraid it was too good to be true. Thanks!

This book was given to me as a gift. I was not prepared for the story and the very eloquent talents of the author. I felt seduced. At many times, I felt as though I was part of the story, part of the group, traveling throughout Turkey, Cyprus, and Amsterdam. I took the book on vacation with me and when I got home, I immediately went to Amazon.com to see what else Hofstadter has written. Wonderful book!

When Jacob Neusner compared the achievment of Jose Faur's Golden Doves with Silver Dots to Judah ha-Nasi's Mishnah (compiler of Jewish Formulas) and R. Moshe ben Maimon's Mishneh Torah (codifier of Jewish Law)he was certainly not making a hiperbole.

Though I am not an expert in rabbinics myself, I must say that R. Faur's explanation on 2nd c. rabbinic exegesis is yet the best I have seen anywhere in 20th century Jewish literature, perhaps the only one in existence ever.

It is a brief, yet an immensely dense book, that anyone who applies its features will gain important understanding of Jewish tradition.

I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand Judaism in its most pristine form. For the students of Jewish Law, it will bring brilliance to the texts they have already studied in ways they never thought before, in the very ways of the Sages who formulated the oral Law. It is a most wonderful sifting net in this world of clouded realities.

Jew or non-Jew, you got to buy it!. DR

If you think the ideal of American womanhood was established by Doris Day and other goody two shoes, then think again and read this enthralling exploration of the women in the Walt Disney films from Sleeping Beauty to Alice in Wonderland to the Little Mermaid and Pocahontas.

"The Goodriches" is a scholarly book about the impact of the Goodrich family's lives and the influence they exerted, not only locally, but nationally and internationally. Events chronicled in the book are clearly the work of extensive research. Sheds light on an important period of Indiana history. A must-read for fans of well told historical accounts!