Maryland Books

While Baltimore Sun's columnist Michael Olesker (a native) is too liberal for my sensibilities, his "Baltimore, "If You Live Here, You're Home" is a wonder read.

A collection of his columns between 1979 and 1995; it's a respectful and loving paean to the city of Baltimore.

The heroes, characters, politicos, sports figures, neighborhoods, crime and missing friends are featured subjects.

It resonates for all who enjoy, love, live or work in Baltimore.

Well done.

This book tells its stories mostly through pictures of the types of people you are likely to encounter in the city of Baltimore. Being a recent convert to the charm of Baltimore, I really enjoyed the photographs and appreciated the way they conveyed the sense of community that you can find in the inner city if you look for it.

With much of the historiography of Liberia concentrating on the settlement planted at Monrovia by the American Colonization Society in 1822 and which proclaimed its independence in 1847, the colony independently founded by the Maryland State Colonization Society in 1831 near Cape Palmas and not incorporated into Liberia until 1857 is all but forgotten. Richard Hall now fills this lacuna with his excellent account of the "Colony of Maryland in Africa," later the "State of Maryland in Africa," which was the home some of the oldest educational institutions in the West African nation and which held a disportionate influence on its subsequent development. The reader can pick up where the author leaves off by referring to the important political histories written by Dr. Amos Sawyer (The Emergence of Autocracy in Liberia, 1992) and, more recently, by Dr. John Peter Pham (Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State, 2004).

This reprinting of a book first printed over a hundred years ago is an enjoyable, if somewhat depressing review of the managment and mismanagement of the oyster resources of the Chesapeake Bay. The first half is a review of the biology, and the second goes into all of the politics and problems of trying to manage an open fishery. Much of what is said rings true today.

The compilation of "Pearl to V-J Day" was the result of the talks from guest panelists at the Air Force sponsored symposium on the War in the Pacific. The panelists discussed a variety of subjects ranging from strategies, intelligence, technology, and submarine warfare to the atomic bomb. I was most interested in the talk about the strategy of the United States before Pearl Harbor. Gerhard L. Weinberg commented that the United States tried to avoid the war. What was interesting to notes was that had Germany been defeated at Moscow just two weeks earlier, Japan might not have attacked on Pearl Harbor for fear they'd be joining a losing Germany.

The book also gave a review of the Island Campaign in the Pacific. It focused on Nimitz's controll of the forces in the Central Pacific with the Gilberts, Marshalls, and Marianas and MacArthur's controll of the forces in the Southwest Pacific from New Guinea up to the Philippines.

The book gave a summary of how the U.S. has used intelligence to track down the enemies' whereabouts and plans and has used the information to its advantage, especially in the Battle of Midway.
One shocking example of intelligence was presented by Edward J. Drea. U.S. expected the Japanese to have 350,000 troops at the most on Kyushu at the time of Operation Olympic when U.S. would invade. However, with intelligence, U.S. learned that they were completely wrong, because by August, there were 560,00 troops and rising on the island when the invasion was planned for November.

The book gave an in-depth analysis of the components of the Pacific campaign in World War II. There were many pictures with captions that correlated to the subject at hand. While, not being too exciting, it presented information that was actually quite interesting.

Published in 1974, Gerald Astor's A QUESTION OF RAPE is a story of racial injustice in mid 20th century Maryland. In 1961 three young African-American men, Joseph Johnson and brothers John and James Giles, were charged with raping Joyce Roberts, a 16 year old white girl. What followed were two perfunctory trials in which the state withheld information vital to the defendants. Race was prominently mentioned during the grand jury procedings, witnesses - particularly the purported victim - were coached and their original statements to police investigators corrected to fit the story desired by the prosecution; and the social history of Joyce Roberts, highly important as to the accuracy of the charges in this particular case, was not disclosed to the public defenders for the accused. As a result the three men were convicted of first degree rape.
The penalty for rape in Maryland at the time ranged from 18 months to the death penalty. There was considerable doubt, though much of that information never reached the jury, that a rape had even occurred, but if it had, the victim was not physically hurt at all, and the penalty at the time for this type of crime was generally at the low end of the scale. The defendants were sentenced to death.
Through a coincidence the case became known to a relatively affluent and liberal community in the Silver Spring, MD, area, and a defense commitee was founded. Had it not been for the work of the committee, the case would have remained obscure; but instead it wound its way through the Maryland system of justice, and was eventually heard by the Supreme Court.
I won't reveal the result in this review.

Gerald Astor has done a nice job with A QUESTION OF RAPE. The writing is intelligent and professional. There is, in the last third of the book, considerable narrative concerning the legal steps through which the case was taken and therefore, considerable detail regarding the filings of various lawyers. This section gets a little dry, though Astor handles it well. But there is also a great deal of detail concerning the lives of all three defendents before their arrests, and also excerpts the many letters they sent from prison to members of the committee. Thus, the reader gets a real understanding of the Johnson and the Gileses, and also of Joyce Roberts whose history gets a similarly thorough and highly revealing examination.

Ultimately this is a book about injustice due largely to racial reasons, and the efforts by a large number of people to right a societal wrong.
A QUESTION OF RAPE is interesting and well written. If the subject matter appeals to you, I highly recommend it.

Call me a Luddite, but I still remain unconvinced by most photographs as examples of worthwhile art. We were in the Whitney the other day during a New York trip, and the Ralston Crawford photographs really stood out for me. They seem to have a strength of composition which of course was very important for his paintings as well. In fact many of the paintings are based on them. This small catalog which I bought many years ago has a variety of different photographs, including more personal looking shots of people, that still somehow carve out an identity as art, and not just a record of life. The ideology of the record of life, so to speak, which is so important to an individual person (where would your scrapbook be without them) is actually permanently dull as art. It's a measure of the extent of the ideologization of art that many photos which are definitely snoozy in the composition area but heavy in unnamed meanings now qualify as art. On the other end you've got artists of rather world-class creepiness whose photos are positively revolting. And speaking of the Whitney, the very fine, to my eyes, Kara Walker show demonstrates that you can deal with really awful subjects in a way that produces moving and even funnily striking art. How different all the blatant photographs which are supposed to be cutting-edge. Perhaps it's because the Ralston Crawfords photographs were produced quite a long time ago now, but they get you in a different place. Where memories and artistic valences mix. It is, admittedly a more attenuated form of composition, but still it aims in that direction. Though this is quite a slender volume, the reproductions are quite fine.

Unlike the biography of himself entitled "4 Years in the Saddle" whereas Colonel Gilmor elaborates maybe a little too much on his triumphs and set backs personally, this book gives a more accurate account of the 4 years of struggle for this Maryland native who went south to fight. I have read both books and find Mr Ackinclose's version much easier to read and more factual based on the actual history from that era. Highly recommended.

While this may not be the strongest of Kate Wilhelm's mysteries, it is still worth a read. I have read just about every mystery that this author has written. The sad part is that there are several books that she has written that are out of print, so you will have to go to other sites to find them used, or on auction.

This author has written sci-fi and mysteries for a good many years and I find her mysteries to be my favorites. If you like some of the newer female mystery writers you should give Kate Wilhelm a try. She is a local Oregon writer, so most of her works are centered in Oregon (Eugene in particular). Her Barbara Holloway series is quite good, but I also have to recommend Skeletons. It is one of my favorites. I really enjoy the Constance and Charlie series too. Too bad she doesn't write about them anymore.

You can usually find her books in a used bookstore, or online, and they are worth reading. If you enjoy local mystery writers, give her books a try.

I can't say I have never heard of Gary Gentile, but this is the first and only book I have from this particular author. To say I was impressed would be an understatement. I live in the UK and whilst I have no plans whatsoever to visit Delaware or Maryland, it is books like this that can make anyone change their plans and simply turn up with all their diving gear.

The book is laid out just as a book about the shipwrecks of any given area should be laid out. Under each vessel's name we have those technical details which divers are seeking more and more these days. Then we are treated (and some of the stories really are a "treat" to read) to the story of the vessel's final moments. There are 30 wrecks featured which include an "African Queen" as well as a "Poseidon." But it is the book itself which is the greatest adventure because the greatest part is that not all the wrecks have been found. Just as ancient maps of unknown areas carried the words "Here be Dragons" so this book carried the message "Here be virgin wrecks."

If I was living on the coast of Delaware or Maryland I would start my next search and research project by reading this book and then visiting all the appropriate museums, libraries and other institutions for further information before getting stuck into some very serious diving.

If you have any more of these books Mr Gentile - please let me know.

NM