Kentucky Books

Margaret Mitchell was very lucky Gone With The Wind beat this great work by Caroline Gordon into print.None Shall Look Back was a better, richer story in all respects and, in my opinion, would have made a much better movie and still would. BTW - I'm a big Gone With The Wind fan. MWY

None Shall Look Back is the type of book which has "sticking power". This power will remain as a companion long after the volume has been finished. The path of the hero, so carefully and unpretentiously illuminated here, is always that of self denial, of an abandonment toward a worthy principle or cause. Sometimes it is also a path of suffering and sorrow. Body and Soul. The heroes of this book are human. That is to say they have limitations of flesh and blood, of body and soul, of time and place. And yet for all that, passion placed at the service of honor and forged in unselfishness rises transcendent, and lasting, a truly heroic and enduring fragrance which remains after all lesser things have passed away. Is this a scent your senses respond to? If so, you will be proud to have known the humans, the heroes, of None Shall Look Back.

As a postscript I would suggest saving the Preface and reading it as an Afterword. It is a very fine contemplative piece which serves far better as an after dinner enzyme than a pre-meal appetizer.

First published in 1937 "None Shall Look Back" represents an attempt by author Caroline Gordon to follow the fortunes of one family throughout the Civil War years. In this she has achieved her goal admirably. The story focuses on the Allard family of Kentucky and Georgia as they struggle with the consequences of war both for those who take up arms and for those left behind.

The central character of the novel is Rives Allard, a scout under General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Gordon follows Rives with skill and eloquence, she writes well of both the physical battles and the internal conflicts that Rives experiences.

Gordon writes with a passion regarding her subject matter, at times however I felt that she has the tendency to over romanticise the idyllic nature of the pre-war south. However this is a small quibble and one that does not detract from the overall power of the book. General Forrest appears throughout None Shall Look Back and as a personal preference I would have liked him to play a larger part the novels structure but again this is not a criticism of the book just a personal observation.

Ultimately None Shall Look Back is an account of what the author saw as the stand of the heroic south, both Rives and Forrest are presented as heroes of the Southern cause and the struggles against deprivation and poverty are presented in an heroic yet believable manner.

Before reading the novel I had some reservations regarding both its age and subject matter. Other accounts of Civil War written during the same period as None Shall Look back have at times been cliched and repetitive. Gordon relies on neither of those qualities with the end result being a well-written, engaging and thoughtful novel.

I thought this book was an ok read, but I wouldn't request just any old person to read it. I really liked how the people in the book explained the Holocaust and how it affected their lives. It amazed me what these people had to go through just to try to live and have a normal life. I also liked how the people explained what they did to live in specific details. What I didn't like about the book is how the people would talk about stuff a person like me would want to hear about, like, "your doing this for Poland",I mean not to be stuburn but I wanted to hear more about blood and gore. So that's my review, and thats my story and I'm stickin to it.

Richard C. Lukas has provided a detailed anthology of Poles who had undergone the brutal German conquest and occupation of Poland during WWII. The reader of this book becomes immediately aware of the fact that not only Jews but also gentile Poles suffered constant humiliation, privation, torture and large-scale death in the hands of the German Nazi occupant. The testimony of Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski (pp. 139-142) is especially revealing in that it includes discussion of his experiences as an inmate of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Henryk Wolinski (pp. 177-181) provides detail about his involvement in the aid of the Polish underground (AK) to Jews during their Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 1943. Wolinski soundly refutes charges that the AK did not provide more arms to the Jews because of anti-Semitic attitudes. He shows that the AK always had a severe shortage of arms, even a year later, when it came out in open warfare against the Germans.

This book includes mention of seldom-discussed factors tending to limit Polish aid to fugitive Jews. This not only includes the German-imposed death penalty for the slightest Polish assistance to Jews, but also the danger of fugitive Jews denouncing both would-be Polish rescuers and other Jews currently being hidden (Jackowski, p. 77; Kierszniewski, p. 90).

The careful (or even cursory) reader of this book can easily see that it has been egregiously misrepresented by he Publisher's Weekly review posted above. The claim that prewar and interwar Polish anti-Semitism had been ignored can be dispelled just by looking in the index (p. 194) which shows it discussed in no less than ten pages! The claim that prewar Polish Jews experienced "daily brutality and prejudice" is very much debatable. Based on direct personal experience, Januszewski (p. 79) points out that, while anti-Semitic legislation and incidents definitely occurred, most Poles got along well with Jews. He is of the opinion that prewar Polish anti-Semitism had been exaggerated. Wolinski, widely respected in both Polish and Jewish circles, is of the opinion that Polish anti-Semitism tended to die down in the face of common misfortunes caused by the German occupant (p. 178).

Of course, when they occurred, Polish-Jewish prejudices had been mutual, as candidly admitted by one Jewish scholar cited by Lukas (p. 9). Elsewhere, the Dubiks (p. 64) suggest that Polish anti-Semitism had been fueled by the prewar Jewish dominance of commerce and by the postwar Jewish over-representation in the hated Communist police establishment. Jackowski (p. 76) suggests that Polish anti-Semitism had been much stronger in eastern than in central Poland owing to the large number of Jews who had collaborated with the invading Soviet Communist forces. In fact, Czelny (p. 40) provides an eyewitness account of a group of Jewish militiamen guarding a group of Polish soldiers who had been disarmed by the invading Soviet armies.

The Publisher's Weekly review insinuates that Lukas was expressing an anti-Semitic opinion by suggesting that Jews were largely passive during the Holocaust itself. In fact, Jewish passivity has been discussed by numerous authors, including Jewish ones. For instance, the eminent Jewish psychiatrist, Bruno Bettelheim, cited by Lukas (p. 11), came out strongly against Jewish passivity. Does this make Bettelheim an anti-Semite in spite of himself? Furthermore, none of the authors of this volume presents Jewish passivity in any sort of pejorative manner other than perhaps the fact that most Jews seemed to be in denial about what was happening to them for a long time. Martin (pp. 117-118) discusses her experiences with Jews in this regard. Also, for a long time, Jews had tended to think of Germans as a cultured people (p. 47) for whom acts of genocide would be unimaginable. The Poles, in contrast, knew immediately what the Germans had in store for them, as Poland had been the recipient of German aggression for at least the last thousand years. For this reason alone, Poles were more prone to take up arms than the Jews.

From time to time, there are vague and unsubstantiated accusations that Poles did not do enough to assist the Jews during the German occupation of Poland and the ensuing Holocaust. Others gloss over the 3 million Polish gentiles murdered by the Germans during WWII. This book is a collection of eyewitness accounts of both the Holocaust and of Polish assistance to Jews. And, remember, that in Poland, unlike other German-occupied countries, the death penalty was imposed for the slightest assistance to Jews.

It was a great show while it lasted, the subject of fervent newspaper reports, television specials and an exposé by Geraldo Rivera in the 1980s. Satanism was rampant across America, nay, the world, with protean manifestations, if people would just pay attention. Twenty years before, there had been Satanism, but it was not very well publicized and not very interesting. But somehow it became the fashionable scare. How did this happen, and what should we do about it?

Bill Ellis is a folklorist, and an academic specializing in English and American studies. His book, Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media (University Press of Kentucky) attempts a sympathetic understanding of how the Devil made one of his cyclic emergences and how folklore can affect society and politics. Scares about Satan and witchcraft have been present for centuries, and seem to give a safety valve for social aggression, scapegoating deviant individuals. At the individual level of, say, someone who thinks he is possessed by a demon and someone who thinks he can cast that demon out, there is a social agreement on a folkloric belief that may be beneficial for both concerned (if not for the demon). But Ellis's theme is that social groups can take over a folkloric belief to push a religious or governmental agenda, with disastrous consequences. He shows how demon possession and speaking in tongues are two sides of the same coin, and how belief in demons was ballooned into the belief that there was a huge underground satanic network ruining our country. Those who promulgated such conspiracy beliefs also bought into conspiracies involving Jews, vampires, the Illuminati, and cattle mutilations.

Raising the Devil is an academic work, well documented and organized. Ellis tries to illuminate the role of the folklorist in examining these sorts of belief, and realizes that he and his fellows have the difficult road to follow of accepting folklore (even if it is patently untrue) as a force between small numbers of individuals, while they also have to confront institutions that would harness folklore for political or religious change. His academic prose is leavened by the strange subject matter. For instance, the Governor of Colorado is quoted as saying that cattle mutilations were "one of the greatest outrages in the history of the western cattle industry," and a leader of a coven in England warned about bogus cult groups, as he had heard about one in which members "started getting in prostitutes dressed in rubber gear and there was wife swapping, too. It gives Satanism a bad name."

It wouldn't surprise me at all if some people believe that Ellis doesn't have the "right" to write a book like Raising the Devil, and not would I be very surprised if many of these critics stated their opinions without even bother reading the book. But why shouldn't Ellis be allowed to make a thorough analysis of the so-called "satanic panic" that raged in both North America and Great Britain from time to time during the 20th century? Because, he happens to be an active member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. And to many narrow-minded Satanists, this equals an inability to remain objective.

Well, that might be so, but let's not consider the fact that he happens to be a Christian. He also happens to be a folklorist, and a very good one, too. He might be the most Christian guy you ever met; this still doesn't stop him from with Raising the Devil creating a book that's not only a high-quality analysis of how Satanism and devil worship, both in America and Great Britain, were forced to become the no.1 scapegoats for various social ills; it's also a study that most self-appointed Satanists should read and ponder. And let's not forget all the hard-core Christians who never hesitated to put the blame on something without making sure to know all the facts first.

What Ellis does is describing how phenomena that not necessarily has any reality to it still becomes something very real, when fear for the unknown and unnatural forces the antagonists into creating something that isn't really there to begin with. Or in the words of Ellis himself discussing alleged witch-cults in Great Britain: "The claim that they existed seems to have brought the witch-cults into existence", that is, it wasn't until people started worrying about witches that witches came into existence.

In America, not-so objective representations of different law enforcement agencies and Pentecostals, with their fanatic struggle to exterminate everything which in their eyes was satanic and evil, resulted in the accusations of both innocent individuals and actions. It's a thin line between what's good and what's evil, and the most fascinating aspect of his study is his ambition to point out how fanatics (mostly Christians) with extreme, yet well-meaning, intentions are mostly to blame. Their ruthless crusade against everything occult (which in their eyes were a whole lot of things), turned out to be "a sincere but wrong-headed effort to fight the devil by raising the devil".

So far, Sweden has been spared the same kind of hysteria about satanic panic and occult conspiracies, mostly because we simply don't have the same kind of religious landscape that the U.S. has. However, there's always a risk for fiction to become more believable than truth wherever folk-narratives and folk-processes are able to triumph over what's really out there, and because of this, books such as Raising the Devil are good tools in the fight against imaginations and prejudices.

This is a book that I could not put down! It explains how the media reacts so viciously to Satanism and new religions, which they know very little about. I myself am a Satanist and think that the media makes it sound much more evil than it really is. I think this was a good book because I can relate to the media and Satanists.

If you've ever wanted to reach right into the movie screen, shake one of Woody Allen's characters by the shirt collar, and say, "Snap out of it, bub," here's a book for you. Peter J. Bailey's The Reluctant Film Art of Woody Allen offers a fascinating, crystalline analysis of one of the most vexing questions to dog three generations of Woody Allen characters: Is the fictional world of art--especially film art--more a help or a hindrance in our difficult lives?

Bailey, an English professor at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., demonstrated his gift for making sense of challenging contemporary literary art with Reading Stanley Elkin in the mid-'80s. In The Reluctant Film Art of Woody Allen, he takes on a more readily accessible subject but does not hold back any of the tremendous critical insight at his command. The result is a book both for serious film buffs--that is, buffs of serious film (a subjective distinction taken up in this book)--and for film scholars alike. I was impressed by Bailey's scholarly precision, yet after reading the first couple of chapters I wanted to dash out and rent Stardust Memories, Manhattan, and several other signature Woody Allen flicks. This book has actually made watching his movies a more intellectually stimulating experience without killing the comic moments so abundant in them.

A college English instructor myself, I appreciate the challenge of leading a critical investigation of something fun and entertaining without making that subject, well, less fun and entertaining. Bailey succeeds admirably with this book, mainly because he never puts Allen on a pedestal. The author is a fan, to be sure, as indicated by his generous praise for what Allen does well--and has done well at a pace of roughly one film a year since 1972. This book's thesis, however, delves more deeply into a particularly compelling set of questions at the core of most of Allen's films: What do they say about the role of art in our lives? Is it a redeeming social force or merely a pleasant diversion from life's suffering? Are Woody Allen's films art or merely pleasant, entertaining diversions?

Bailey combines his own convincing interpretations of Allen's film work with previously reported comments from Allen on these questions to show not only how equivocal Woody Allen movies are on the matter of art's benefits and costs, but how central a theme this equivocating is in those movies. To his great credit--and unlike many scholarly investigations of film and literary art--Bailey avoids overbearing suggestions that HIS interpretations are REALLY what Allen's films are all about. Rather, the author has found a thread running through Allen's work that he holds up to the light--a light that has lingered too long on the personality of Woody Allen and the attending tabloid drama. This more illuminating thread--the vexed relationship of art to life and the difficulty of reconciling the two, both in art and in life--is of such enormous importance in the broader conversation of American popular culture that the absence of details on Allen's personal travails reads as a virtue in Bailey's book.

While Woody Allen fans will definitely find The Reluctant Film Art of Woody Allen most enjoyable and accessible, any moviegoer who has ever contemplated what distinguishes the cinematic good and bad from the ugly will find this book thought-provoking, perhaps at times profound. Ultimately, this is not a portrait of a filmmaker so much as the study of an intriguing film mind at work--and a snapshot of a possible film legend as a work-in-progress.

Peter Baily establishes his thesis that a primary thread running through many of Allen's major films is an examination of the tension between art and life and the struggle of the artist to disengage from the real world to unleash the creative juices. Citing examples from many of my favorite Allen films and following through on his major premise Baily delivers a fine book that challenged me to look at this films from a new perspective. I highly recommend this to fans of Woody Allen. I am cueing up my DVD copy of Hannah and her Sisters as soon as I log off.

I have read several books on Woody Allen and this is the most brilliant so far. Those who are tired of hearing about his squabble with Mia Farrow will be relieved to find that the author concentrates on his work and only mentions facts of Woody Allen's life that are relevant to his films. The book painstakingly analyzes the psychological and philosophical undercurrents in Woody's work, and especially delves into the issue as to whether art cand lend coherence to an otherwise contingent and random life. It'll help you see Woody's films from a broader standpoint but also set you brooding over your life as well.

I read this book because my friends older sister said that it was a good book, it looked kinda spid, but I read it anyway I am sure glad I did read it was the best book! know I am looking to buy the other ones!

It's June of 1778, and thirteen-year-old Sarah Moore has been living with her relatives in Williamsburg for a year when she receives the news that her mother and new baby sister are seriously ill back home on the Kentucky frontier. Sarah immediately leaves Williamsburg to return home. When she arrives, she finds that their home has been burnt to the ground by Indians, her family is living at the fort, and her father and older brother have gone off to fight the Indians. Sarah must struggle with the challenges of living in this harsh frontier land, with the constant threat of Indian attacks and worry over her family.

Readers who enjoyed the previous two books about Sarah Moore will definitely want to read this one as well. Although the Sarah's Journey books are not among my top favorites, they are still sweet, well-written, and historically accurate stories that will most likely be enjoyed by young readers who enjoy historical fiction set in colonial and pioneer times. I particularly enjoyed the colonial frontier setting of this book and the first in the series. It's a setting I'd really like to see more of, as it combines my two favorite historical fiction topics, colonial times and pioneer life.

This book was wonderful! Wanda Luttrell writes as if she were really there. she writes with all the things that make a book interesting, suspense, danger, and problems that make this book hard to put down! Sarah is a young girl that is moving back to Kentuckey from Williamsburg to be with her sick mother.While she is there, she is asked to find a friend's family. The novel takes you through the chalanges Sarah faces all along the way. If you like historical fiction, than you will love Wanda Luttrell's "Stranger in Williamsburg".

Struggle For The Heartland: The Campaigns From Fort Henry To Corinth by Stephen Engle (professor of history, Florida Atlantic University) is the exhaustively researched, in-depth story about the military campaign that was the first significant Northern advance into the Confederate west. This campaign crushed all hopes the South had for avoiding a protracted battle, and set the stage for a grim and bloody war of attrition. Highly recommended for Civil War studies reading lists and reference collections, Struggle For The Heartland is an alternately fascinating and disturbing portrayal of a pivotal aspect of American military history.

Stephen D. Engle's Struggle for the Heartland takes the latest scholarship on "the campaigns from Fort Henry to Corinth" and ties the military, political, and social issues faced during the campaign into an efficient and readable discussion of these events. The book is an entry in the University of Nebraska Press' Great Campaigns of the Civil War series of books. The book covers the time frame of the military campaign from Fort Henry to Corinth, including the Battle of Shiloh. Rather than focusing solely on military events, however, Engle provides a large amount of coverage to social and political considerations as well. The result, then, is a balanced overview of a campaign in which there was a "struggle for the heartland" of the Confederacy.

Northern military planners saw the obvious routes of attack into the Confederate "heartland" region provided by the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. It was simply a matter of preparing the armies to move in this direction, at least according to timid, methodical minds such as Henry Halleck and Don Carlos Buell, the two department commanders in the west. Albert Sidney Johnston, the overall Confederate commander in the west, gave wide latitude to his subordinates. One of these, Bishop Polk, had become obsessed with defending Columbus, Kentucky along the Mississippi River and virtually ignored the forts on the Tennessee and Cumberland to the east, even though they were in his department. The Union preparation may have taken quite a long time if not for the aggressive nature of Halleck's then unknown subordinate Ulysses S. Grant. Grant was determined to take Forts Henry and Donelson, defenders of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, respectively. His movement south caught both Halleck and Buell somewhat by surprise. The end result was that Grant managed to take both forts and capture over 10,000 Southern prisoners while Halleck and Buell haggled over cooperating in the expedition. As Grant's Army of the Tennessee rested and refitted along the Tennessee River south of the now captured forts Buell was to march his army southwest to meet them. Continued arguments between Halleck and Buell coupled with Grant's complacency at his Pittsburg Landing camp almost ended in disaster at the Battle of Shiloh. While Buell slowly marched toward the Tennessee River, Johnston and his subordinates had been busy at Corinth trying to recover the large amount of territory lost to Grant at the forts. The Battle of Shiloh prematurely ended these hopes as Grant's army was able to recover from their shock at being attacked and hold on as Buell's Army of the Ohio reached the field of battle. Johnston was killed and Beauregard, his second in command, was forced to retreat to Corinth. At this point in the campaign, Henry Halleck managed to obtain sole command of the armies in the West, and he gathered the armies of Grant, Buell, and Pope (fresh off a victory at Island No. 10 on the Mississippi) for a laborious advance on Corinth, the most vital railroad crossing in the Confederacy. The ending to this large campaign was anticlimactic, as Beauregard was forced to retreat due to poor water and increasing sickness in his army. Halleck had taken Corinth and cleared the Confederate Heartland of Southern armies. These military campaigns had seen great change in the way the North would prosecute the war, with important consequences.


Engle focuses quite a lot of time and energy to explaining how the large increase in the amount of Confederate territory controlled by the Union led to changes in the initial "soft war" policy espoused by the Lincoln Administration. Before Grant sailed south on the Tennessee to assault Fort Henry, Union armies were typically restrained and respectful when it came to the treatment of Southern civilians. No one better personified this idea than the commanders currently in charge of Union affairs: George B. McClellan as General In Chief with Henry Halleck and Don Carlos Buell as department heads in the West. These men were all democrats, and they believed in a war that would not upset the status quo. In other words, they wanted to leave the slavery issue alone, instead trying to treat Southerners well and return their slaves in the hope that they would come quickly and quietly back into the Union. The campaigns from Fort Henry to Corinth showed that this soft war policy was not practical. Southerners continued to resist even when treated well, and guerilla forces sprung up where Confederate armies were unable to hold territory in a conventional manner. Soldiers from privates to generals also began to see the difference between poor white subsistence farmers and wealthy slave owners, eventually blaming the institution of slavery as the primary cause of the war. These troops began to resent orders such as Buell's General Orders 13a, which prevented foraging, returned runaway slaves, and otherwise treated Southerners with kid gloves. Men such as division commander Ormsby Mitchel began to take matters into their own hands, and eventually the government agreed with this "hard war" course of action. Ironically, writes Engle, the Union push into Confederate leaning western and central Tennessee only hastened the Union policy change. If Buell had instead invaded Unionist eastern Tennessee, per Lincoln's wishes, this soft war policy may have continued long past June 1862.


The Union war effort in the west was plagued with bickering among its top commanders, writes Engle. Partly to blame was the unwieldy command structure. Don Carlos Buell's Department of the Ohio and Henry Halleck's Department of Missouri joined together at the Tennessee River, precisely where the easiest avenue of attack into the Confederate Heartland was located. This naturally enough caused great friction between the two men, both of whom always proceeded cautiously and believed their own opinions were correct on military matters. McClellan and Lincoln did not help matters in Washington, instead simply ordering the two men to cooperate. While they bickered over who should move first and along what lines, Grant seized the initiative and moved, catching both men by surprise. Buell still refused to send much help and almost literally warned Halleck not to fail. Grant's attacks succeeded, and the next logical move was to concentrate on the Tennessee for a move against Corinth. This time Buell did finally move, but he managed to take his time. Luckily for Grant, Army of the Ohio division commander "Bull" Nelson marched forward rapidly and was available late on the first day at Shiloh. The command friction between these two men only ended when Halleck managed to persuade Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton that the West needed one commander.


Halleck also had his problems with Grant. Grant's victories at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson made Halleck jealous, and he childishly reacted by removing Grant from command on trumped up charges of drunkenness and Grant's failure to be present with his army when the Confederates launched an attack at Fort Donelson. Lincoln and Halleck, impressed with the aggressive Grant, and especially when they considered the conservative Halleck and Buell, lost no time in forcing Halleck to reinstate Grant. After Shiloh, Halleck again removed Grant from command of the Army of the Tennessee, bumping him up to the meaningless and superfluous "second in command" position during the advance on Corinth. Despite these and other quarrels, the Northern armies were able to force the Confederates from a large portion of the territory they held at the beginning of 1862.


Much of the Southern failure to hold this territory has to do with Jefferson Davis' utter lack of concern for the West. The roots of this attitude can be traced to the appointment of Albert Sidney Johnston to command in the West. Johnston was Davis' friend, and Davis believed him to be the finest general the Confederacy had. Davis left Johnston with very little men and materiel to work with, and as a result he had far too few men with which to defend a far too long defense line running from the Appalachians to the Indian Territory. To make matters worse, says Engle, Johnston frequently gave his subordinates far too much latitude in defending their various districts. This came back to haunt Johnston when General Polk became obsessed with defending Columbus, Kentucky, spending very little time preparing Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. Grant's quick strike caught the Confederate generals by surprise as well, and Johnston decided not to fight for Fort Donelson, in effect abandoning middle Tennessee and the capital at Nashville. This loss of large amounts of territory shocked and angered many Southerners, and Davis finally consented to send Johnston reinforcements. Johnston and Beauregard attempted to regain the lost territory with a surprise attack at Shiloh and failed, costing Johnston his life in the process. Beauregard was subsequently unable to hold Corinth in the face of a large Union force, poor water, and increasing sickness in his command.


Despite these Union successes, the Northern Generals did not typically take the political concerns of the Lincoln Administration into account in their military planning. The main case in point for the time frame of this book, according to Engle, concerns Lincoln's desire to liberate Unionist leaning, mountainous eastern Tennessee from Confederate rule. Lincoln knew that this area centered on Knoxville, Tennessee would more readily come back into the Union than the other flatter, slave holding sections of the state. Buell repeatedly refused to advance in this direction (at the same time refusing to cooperate with Halleck), claiming bad roads and numerous other reasons for delay. Buell also clashed with the Lincoln appointed military Governor of Tennessee, Andrew Johnson. Johnson was a Radical Republican, and he wanted southerners punished for their treason. He and Buell held violently opposite views on the prosecution of the war, and they would clash for as long as Buell held command of the Army of the Ohio.

Struggle for the Heartland is one volume of many in the Great Campaigns of the Civil War Series, published by the University of Nebraska Press. Series editors Anne J. Bailey and Brooks Simpson write that the series "offers readers concise syntheses of the major campaigns of the war, reflecting the findings of recent scholarship. The series points to new ways of viewing military campaigns by looking beyond the battlefield and the headquarters tent to the wider political and social context within which these campaigns unfolded..." In addition to exploring strictly military events from February to June 1862 along the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Mississippi Rivers, Struggle for the Heartland takes a deeper look at the political and social issues as well, weaving all of these together into a cogent whole.

The eight maps are functional, but the battle maps do not add considerably to the discussion. The notes are mostly secondary sources, but in this case it is acceptable since the book's primary purpose is to bring together a syntheses of the latest findings on this subject. I suspect that the other books in this series follow this mold as well. Rather than a bibliography, we instead get a "Bibliographical Essay" of several pages. While I typically favor a standard bibliography, the focus and goals of this series make this essay perfectly acceptable under the circumstances. The index is rather bare bones as well, but serves its purpose.

Struggle for the Heartland is a well written summary of the campaigns from Fort Henry to Corinth, giving readers used to a military-only approach to the Civil War a look into the political and social aspects of of the war tie into and guide military thinking. Engle's book is a fine example of "New Military History", and one which should serve to enlighten quite a few students of the war used to standard military history approach to a campaign. I do not want to imply that this book supplants those focusing on specific battles, such Benjamin Franklin Cooling's work on Forts Henry and Donelson or Larry Daniel's and Wiley Sword's studies of Shiloh. Instead, Struggle for the Heartland supplements traditional campaign studies and ties together strategic, political, and social concerns across a large area and span of time. I would recommend this one to those readers less interested in the military tactics of the battles themselves who are instead looking to study other aspects of the war. The book also serves as a fine primer for those students of military history looking to decipher how political and social aspects of the conflict moved and shaped military campaigns.

Struggle For The Heartland: The Campaigns From Fort Henry To Corinth by Stephen D. Engle (Professor of History, Florida Atlantic University) relates the Civil War campaign that began in early 1862 with Union penetration under General Ulysses S. Grant into the Confederate held west that culminated with the Northern capture of the Southern defended town of Corinth, Mississippi. Historian Stephen Engle also examines how prewar economic relations formed in this region, how relationships between locality and loyalty were developed and expressed, the commanders on both sides of the conflict, as well as other civil and military authorities. Engle also describes the campaigns' significance within the larger theater of war and the post-war era of Reconstruction. The Struggle For The Heartland is an informed and informative contribution to Civil War Studies and an enthusiastically recommended contribution to academic reference collections, as well as Civil War buff reading lists.

SWEEPING UP GLASS (Novel/Mys-Olivia Harker-Kentucky-1930s) - Ex
Wall, Carolyn D. - 1st book
Poisoned Pen Press, 2008, US Hardcover - ISBN: 9781590585122

First Sentence: The long howl of a wolf rolls over me like a toothache.

Olivia Harker lives with her grandson in a run-down, cold-water building with a grocery out front, a small bedroom, kitchen and sleeping alcove in back and an outhouse. Her emotionally abusive mother lives an a shack separate from the house.

Someone is killing silver-faced wolves on her property. She knows who, but the why takes her back through her life's story until it places her, her family and friends in danger for their lives.

This is quite a story. It covers 40+ years of a woman's life. It's a hard life filled with emotional pain, hard work and disappointment while Olivia is hardened by it, in the way steel is tempered by fire and pressure. While Olivia is the primary character, those around her are just as real and memorable.

It's hard to say much about the story without, in some way, diminishing it. It is sometimes painful to read, buy only because Olivia is such a wonderful, fully-realized character.

Wall doesn't just give you a sense of place. She takes you to the sights, sounds and smells of Kentucky hill country along with very real emotions that can make it an uncomfortable and painful read at times. But it's wonderfully done; a book I shan't soon forget and one I'm very glad to have read.

In 1938 Kentucky, Olivia Harker Cross runs Harker's Grocery; her only help comes from preadolescent Will'm, whose mom Pauline dumped him on her before vanishing. Business is poor as no one can afford much. Looking back she thinks about her mom Ida living in a sanitarium in nearby Buelton, while her beloved Pap Tate ran a still and cared for ailing animals. Though married to Saul, for three decades Olivia has loved trumpeter Wing Harris who reciprocates, but neither has made the first move beyond howdy.

After Tate delivered a litter of puppies, he ran into James Arnold Phelps. Soon afterward Pap was dead and Ida had come home. Saul died not long afterward. Despondent, Olivia turned to Wing, but he rejected her. Even further upset, she chases after seedy male losers in dives.

However, she began to turn it around when Pauline dropped off Will'm on her as he is her salvation. When they hear shots fired by the mysterious Hunt Club members tracking silver-faced wolves, the pair becomes frightened as it is too cold to be outdoors hunting for sport. However, they soon have a bigger fear as the hunters stalk Olivia and Will'm.

Not for everyone as this is a strange historical thriller in which fans obtain a deep look at a beleaguered heroine who is seemingly betrayed by her loved ones whom she has loyally taken care of. Will'm is her redemption as Olivia will do whatever it takes to keep the boy safe although that might mean breaking the perceptions she and others have of her. Fans who enjoy something different will relish a tense look at Depression Era rural Kentucky.

Harriet Klausner

Sweeping Up Glass is the story of Olivia Harker, her family, her friends, and the hardships they all endure in rural 1938 Kentucky. The book introduces us to Olivia and her immediate surviving family, and then shifts off into about 15 chapters of back story. These chapters relate Olivia's childhood and her previous struggles with her mentally ill mother, her doting father, the love of her life, and the segregated black community in her area. Olivia encounters many hardships and setbacks as she grows up, and some are completely devastating. She grows from being a sweet and loving child into an acerbic and unbending woman. She is fiercely loyal in her love and ardently forceful in her hate. It is clear that her circumstances have shaped her. Olivia's daily existence is a tribulation that most would shrink from. Though she handles her situation with poise, she also carries more than a little bitterness. Olivia is a complex woman who is stubborn and resigned, yet still somehow hopeful. When we finally resume the action in the present, Olivia is faced with the realization that someone is killing the wolves that have always been protected residents of her land. Along with her grandson William, she attempts to track down the hunters. What she discovers is more than a simple poaching scheme, and the effects will be volatile to herself and the community.

The secondary plot revolves around Ida, Olivia's mother, who lives in a tar paper shack on the edge of her property. Ida is a fantastically rash character. She is mentally ill and has been abusive towards Olivia all her life; there is no love lost between them. Though Ida was absent for most of Olivia's adolescence, she returns to the family and creates havoc and heartache for Olivia and her father. Through all of her erratic behavior, Olivia's father, Tate Harker, remains loyal and steadfast to her. Yet Ida shows no reciprocation towards Tate, and remains cruel and unyielding. One of the interesting aspects of this book was the portrayal of the mental hospitals of the day. When Ida must retreat to one of these hospitals, Olivia visits to inspect it, and it is harrowing. The women there are either forced to be immobile or locked in small cages. Electroshock is mentioned, as are head shavings and ice baths. I had trouble with this section of the book, as it seemed a savage fate for Ida, one that Olivia didn't fully ruminate on. Though Ida had made some very bad choices in her life and didn't feel even the slightest bit of remorse, the choice to send her to that facility seemed heinous. It seems the author's point was that Olivia couldn't forgive Ida for what she had done and that as far as she was concerned, Ida was irredeemable. I feel that this section of the book may disturb many readers, and it was the only thing that marred my pleasure in this book. It was the only piece in the book that didn't seem to fit. The blatant cruelty of the decision was shocking.

Another aspect of the story involved Olivia's current relationship with her former high school sweetheart, Wing Harris. Olivia and Wing had only a brief time together before events separated them. Wing watched with stolid silence as Olivia went through horrible stages of her life, offering any help he could, while Olivia in her pride rejected him. As the book progresses, Wing and Olivia tackle the obstacles involved in their reconciliation. It is not as easy for them to reunite as one would hope. I liked the character of Wing because he was noble in the face of all his humiliations and trials, and he was always there when it mattered. Wing was a likeable character. Though somewhat sedate, he was unflinching in his honesty and loyalty.

The segregated black community portrayed in this book is poignant and revealing. Though they must remain separate from the whites, even having separate days for shopping at the local store, they embrace Olivia and her family as one of their own. The community's hardships are not harped upon, but relayed with respect to the adversity they faced. It was touching to see that there could indeed be no separation of color as far as Olivia's family was concerned. Themes of racial acceptance, real or imagined, hoped for or denied, ran through the book.

But as wolves continue to be slaughtered, Olivia unwittingly places herself and those she loves into the hands of unjust men who are trying to keep a devastating underground society alive. The story becomes a race to save those she loves, and the town, from certain destruction. Great forces are aligned against her, and it was with great trepidation that I realized the odds were against her. The many tiny revelations, along with the great, kept me on the edge of my seat, wondering if there was more to come, wondering how much more she and those of the town could take. Malice and discord sweep through the pages as the truths are slowly picked out. In addition, there are mysteries surrounding her father, secrets shrouded in perplexity that may indicate that her father was not the man she once knew.

This book had me hooked from the very first pages. The hard-scrabble daily existence of the characters was captivating and engrossing. The economies that had to be made were many, and the details of 1930's Kentucky were so precise that it was greatly absorbing. The language was rustic and simple, yet very clear and concise. I found myself wanting to know more about these people, to know more about their lives, hurts and victories. This book has a lot to say about the times that it portrays. The small issues and the great, neither is neglected. There are wise and humble characters as well as wicked and sinister ones. Love, anger, betrayal, duty, honor, racism, and death, forgiveness: they are all here. And the tapestry created is one of beautiful complexity.

By the end of the book, I was wishing I could spend more time with these characters, that they would not go. Aside from the aberration regarding the mental hospital, this was an outstanding debut novel. I will definitely read any other offerings from this author, and I wish her luck in her writing career.

This is a wonderful book written by an author who got to know the families and understands their ways. Even though this book does tell the history of how snakehandling came to be included in church services, it also explains the side of the individuals who have a deep desire to serve the Lord entirely and hold back nothing from Him, even their own life if so desired by Him. In an age of lukewarmness, it is encouraging to read of Christians willing to suffer persecution or give their life for their faith. This book includes many photos of the persons written about in the book. I am glad that I bought this book and highly commend the author and the Lord who supplied it.

This is a very thoroughly researched book about snake-handling Pentecostals. I highly recommend it for an unbiased account of the practice. The author focused on one family, and did an incredible job of detailing the history of snake handling through them. The book covers everything from why these believers handle snakes, the very beginnings of the practice, the other "signs" (taking poison, handling fire), the basic doctrine of their church, the legal battles, the migration of the church & the snakes, the miracles, and the deaths. It also offers a wonderful history of the Saylor family, including their religious beliefs. I married into this family not even knowing that snake handling existed outside of old-time circuses and music videos, and after reading this book have a MUCH better grasp of the whole concept. Though all 53 of the photos are black & white, they add quite a bit. Even if you have no interest in purposefully picking up a rattlesnake or drinking strychnine, or don't even know who the Saylors are, this book gives the reader a front row pew on a part of American culture few people will ever experience.

Being a snake handling buff and unable to read David L. Kimbrough's, Taking Up Serpents for years, I finally had the pleasure. Kimbrough's work far surpasses anything else that has been written on the subject. Kimbrough being an Appalachian and Ph.D. sets the standard for doing oral research along with combing the archieves.
Kimbrough's work focuses on the Saylor family in eastern Kentucky and shows how the movement evolved. Kimbrough illustrates how the snake handling movement gained momentum when industrial capitalism surfaced in Kentucky.
The work is simply the best source for scholars and people with a general interest in snake handliing. No other book comes close to this masterpiece.

As with all things associated with Wendell, this book of gatherings is well worth a reader's time -- peaceable rantings is a pretty good description. The most interesting article in the book is, ironically, Eric Freyvogel's, which more or less eviscerates the rugged individualist stance that does occasionally creep into Berry's world -- in spite of the ever-present language of community.

For those who have the privilege of knowing him as a friend, this book
provides additional personal glimpses into the life of the man and his
passionate friendships, as well as revealing the nature of his work as
understood by his colleagues and associates in the fields of agriculture,
poetry, and the art of the essay. For those who have never met him, nor
perhaps ever heard of him, this gem of a book will give them some of
the essence of what he and his work stand for, and will make them want to
seek out the primary texts for themselves. An entertaining and well-
meant tribute to a man who has not only contributed greatly to American
letters, but has turned the ordinary toward the holy (as it was meant
to be) once again.

I most treasured the personal essays in this book and frankly skimmed or skipped over the more scholarly pieces. What becomes clear in this book is how many people's lives and careers have been influenced by Wendell Berry, the professor, the farmer, the poet, the philosopher, the writer, and the friend. I thank Jason Peters for this book and particularly the essays by Wes Jackson, Barbara Kingsolver, Hayden Carruth, and Gene Logsdon and for the wonderful pictures.

Her is a delightful quote from the essay by Donald Hall, a fellow poet, farmer and teacher.
"Another thing we had in common was good, solid, loving, and companionate marriages. On one of our car trips, I complained over the useless, trivial hyperactivity of my eyes gazing at women, At any conference, or in an airport on the way, I find myself continually checking out the beauty of young women, dwelling on figures and faces. It disturbed me that I wasted time and energy evaluating quarries I would never mine. Wendell agreed explosively, as if he had been waiting for someone to bring up the subject. He suffered from this idle habit himself, and found himself in lecture halls doing inventories of the female audience. One day, he told me, he saw one face that was absolutely perfect and irresistible to him. It was a few seconds before he realized that his eyes had lighted on his wife, Tanya."

Being born and raised in Eastern Kentucky, I took for granted the culture that I was surrounded with. When I was in college at Prestonsburg Community College, this book was required reading and then was more of a chore rather than an eye opening experience. After moving from Kentucky to Michigan, I yearned for home. I ordered this book from Amazon.com hoping that it would take me back to the home I longed for. And that it did. I cried when reading the book. Not because it had sad or heart breaking but because it took me back to the home I love so much. I have since sent the book to my dad and he agrees that this book is a must read. It should be required reading in all schools in Eastern Kentucky. Thank you Verna Mae for taking me back home.

Appalachia has gotten a bad rap...hillbillies, poor, ignorant, etc. Those who have lived there, or know people who have, know this is false. After all, Appalachians formed the bedrock of the union movement in this country (think United Mine Workers), fought much of the Civil War, and ran our steel miils.

Ms. Slone does a powerful job of exposing the powerful inner strength developed by residents of these mountains over the generations. She makes you believe that "hillbilly" is not an epithet, but--as she says--an adaptation of the Shakesperean Wiiliam ("Billy") to the mountains--hence, hill billy's.

A great book for anyone who wants to understand (or who already admires) this very important region in our country.

Simple and truthful. If you love the Appalachian South, you'll enjoy this one.