University of Missouri Books

If you have any interest in Depression-era art, this is a must read. Frank Long's writing style flows smoothly and makes for an absorbing and entertaining experience. Full of humerous anecdotes, this book evokes the period eloquently.
The author is my father (deceased, 1999), but I would have said all these things even if I had no relation to him.

While David McCullough's more recent biography of Harry Truman has received widespread recent attention, Robert J. Donovan's earlier biography published in 1977 has much to recommend it. Whereas McCullough's extensive volume covers Truman's entire life, Donovan zeroes in on the pivotal period of a pivotal presidency. Donovan begins as Truman takes over the awesome responsibility of the presidency after Franklin D. Roosevelt's death. Donovan covers in perceptive detail Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan as a means of ending World War Two. Donovan follows the war to its conclusion, and also focuses carefully on the exciting 1948 presidential campaign, when Truman scored one of the greatest upsets in American political history by defeating heavily favored Republican nominee Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York.

Donovan turns an astute eye as well on Truman's great foreign policy accomplishments of the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, and the creation of NATO. As a Middle East historian, I was benefitted by his thorough presentation of the controversy leading up to the granting of recognition to the new nation of Israel, and how Truman's decision was crafted.

I would urge that any dedicated Truman scholar should read both the McCullough and Donovan volumes. McCullough covers a wider perspective, while Donovan, on the other hand, gives broader coverage to the pivotal foreign policy events from 1945 to 1948, as well as Truman's sensational upset victory over Dewey.

"A Consuming Faith" is an important study of the ideology of the Social Gospel movement present among American Christians during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Susan Curtis argues that the Social Gospel provided a necessary linkage between the Protestant-Victorian construct of society of the nineteenth century and the more secular consumer culture that emerged following World War I. Most Social Gospel reformers of the 1890s shared middle-class origins and a concern for the underside of America civilization. They have been portrayed, usually accurately, as a generation of Christian reformers who gave up their middle-class comforts to enter a world of squalor and hopelessness to help others. They ministered in ways that were fundamental to an urban underclass.

Curtis confesses in her preface that she was skeptical of the "do-gooder" image of those involved in the Social Gospel movement. Not surprisingly, therefore, she found good reason for skepticism. "For these American Protestants, responsible for acts of courage and kindness in the name of social justice," she wrote, "were also men and women bedeviled by private anxieties that impelled them into the arena of reform" (p. xi).

Carrying farther the well-established theories of status anxiety developed for progressive reformers of the same era by George D. Mowry and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., Curtis argued that they not only honestly wanted to accomplish good in the world but also desired to find meaning in a world undergoing rapid and sustained change in response to forces collectively identified as modernity. According to Curtis a range of motivations propelled the Social Gospelers and their activities; some overt and others subconscious, some lofty and others more base.

The Social Gospel, Curtis suggested, emerged in response to the dislocations of the industrial revolution in the late nineteenth century, including large-scale immigration and rapid and sustained urbanization. In its early expression the Social Gospel brought to the fore a sustained critique of industrial capitalist society and helped to displace the traditional American Christian concern for afterlife and eternity with an emphasis on the welfare of humanity in the here and now.

For Social Gospelers the Kingdom of God was very much of this world and not the next. It was something of a utopian vision that represented a spiritual condition where righteousness and justness are partners with goodwill and charity. The result would be what Washington Gladden, one of the reformers profiled here, defined as "social salvation." To accomplish it Social Gospel advocates organized cooperative ventures, undertook political activism, and engaged in a variety of reform efforts with specific goals. The heart of Curtis' interesting and convincing thesis is that some of the elements of the Social Gospel's ideology, as well as its members' desires, sought a place not in opposition to industrialism and modern society but in concert with it. Bound up in a dramatic cultural transformation as the older Protestant- informed Victorian order gave way to a modern, secular American society after World War I, the Social Gospel moved more in parallel rather than in apposition with these trends. By the 1920s, Curtis concluded, the adherents to the Social Gospel's ideas and actions made it easier for Protestant Americans to embrace a secular culture in which Protestantism was not prominently featured. They contributed to an American culture that validated abundance, consumption, and self-realization. Social Gospelers, reformers though they were, created not a critique of modern capitalism, but rather a consuming faith in the material abundance it promised (p. 278).

The Social Gospelers, therefore, not only accomplished positive social ends on a broad front but also established an intellectual rationalization for modernity that allowed contentment with the world. Curtis demonstrates this thesis through a series of biographical portraits of fifteen Americans involved in a variety of Social Gospel activities. In subtle ways these individuals came to embrace modernity and the secular social system that emerged in the 1920s.

There is much to praise and little to criticize in "A Consuming Faith." Susan Curtis argues her case well, and offers a convincing thesis explaining certain aspects of the paradigm shift that took place in American society between the 1890s and the 1920s. The most important caution I would offer, of course, relates to how far the intellectual leaders of any group reflected the opinions of the rank and file. Howard Zinn's warning is appropriate in this instance: "There is an underside to every Age about which history does not often speak, because history is written from records left by the privileged. We learn...about the thinking of an age from its intellectual elite" (Howard Zinn, "The Politics of History" (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1970), p. 102). Can a series of fifteen elites accurately define the ideological origins and development of such an amorphous movement as the Social Gospel? That question may be unanswerable, certainly it would require some very detailed and imaginative historical research to arrive at a satisfactory answer. Having raised this question, I should add that this is not a major flaw of A Consuminq Faith. I would suggest, however, that readers bear the question in mind when considering the book.

"A Consuming Faith" is an important discussion of a significant reform effort that helped shape modern American society. It is one of several refreshing books to appear recently on the development of American religion. It should be of use to anyone interested in the development of American religion and culture at the beginning of the twentieth century. As a sophisticated analysis of several historical trends focused through the lens of the Social Gospel, it is at once religious, social, and intellectual history and probably some other types of history yet unnamed. Those seeking staid history with emphasis on the minutiae of organizations and denominations will be disappointed. Those readers pondering broader vistas, however, will be rewarded by considering Curtis' work.

If you are a gardener, are interested in Native American culture, and especially if you are both, you may value this as highly as I do. Through interviews with surviving women who remembered the details of their tribes' agricultural methods, and the way of life/religion that went with them, the authors have made an important contribution in an area that was undervalued at the time (the early 1900's). But thank goodness they had the foresight to put this information to paper. The book describes tools, varieties, planting methods, and agricultural customs of the Upper Missouri tribes. Thanks to the authors' preservation work, and the work of others, some of the varieties mentioned can still be found. If you are interested, google up the Seed Saver's Exchange in Iowa, and add a new dimension to your gardening.

To describe Sklenicka's book, I am going to quote from a review of it by the late Mark Spilka, who was one of the finest critics of the novel in the late 20th century: "The whole unsettled question of Lawrence's relation to children, and of his literary uses of his own childhhod experiences, is taken up handsomely by Carol Sklenicka in her breakthrough study . . . .[She] has given us the first important study of the thematic value of those years for he fictional treatment of children, and for his lifelong fascination with childhood."

Anyone who thinks of Lawrence as a now-obsolete proponent of free sexual expression should take a look at this readable scholarly study. Sklenicka shows that Lawrence had real insight into the nature of children and parenthood. Especially interesting is her idea that Lawrence (in 1920!) was a proponent of greater involvement by fathers in the raising of their children.

For anyone interested in the background, impact, and future of the Pick-Sloan Plan, you need look no further than Lawson's aptly titled "Dammed Indians". The tribes from Gavins Point Dam near Yankton, SD to Ft. Peck Dam in Montana have all been adversely affected with the damming of the Missouri River, a truth which Lawson documents with precision and skill. Originally a Ph.D. dissertation written in the history department at the University of New Mexico, Lawson is a fine example of some of the many outstanding American West historians who have come out of that institution.

Professor Lukacs might best be called a historic conservative rather than an ideological one. This collection of essays and articles reflects the mindset of a gentleman who wishes to conserve what is best from history. He has a few novel theories. Nationalism, not ideologies like Nazism, Communism and Fascism, has been the root cause for most of this century's struggles. One can disagree with Prof. Lukacs but one must respect his view. He hints in some fifteen year old essays that Europe would de-Americanize; as the age of the Euro nears, Prof. Lukacs was prescient. His theory on mountains and romanticism is fascinating. Before the English initiated Romanticism in the early 1800s, mountains were considered horrible. Today, Prof. Lukacs says we love mountains and their beauty; we are all romantics now. My favorite vignette was Prof. Lukacs's touring of Hitler's birthplace of Braunau on the 100th anniversary of Hitler's birth. The good professor made a side-trip from Braunau to a small Austrian village where a heroic peasant by the name, I believe, of Jagrstatter stood up to the Nazis and refused to be drafted. He was guillotined in 1943. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK.

Biographies of 700+ individuals who have contributed significantly to the development of the state of Missouri with many achieving national fame as well. The book draws from all fields of activities--politics, business, science, religion, art, etc. without regard to race, gender, etc. Although the book seems a little pricy at first glance, I wasn't disappointed--the thoroughness and quality makes it well worth the price.

I am extremely impressed with Taylor's book, which explores the real and imagined consequences of the Civil War on families in border states, where the question of secession was the most complicated and the most fraught. This book not only documents (in writing that rises to the level of great literary writing -- a rarity in young historians) the actual occurrence of split families and what they had to say for themselves, but also the psychological, moral, and political implications of families at odds with each other. That is, this book gets beyond the idea of "the brother's war" as merely a curiosity or a sentimental metaphor, and shows how the state of the society -- the relations between men and women, white and black -- itself is revealed in the experience of these families, observed in extremis.

The writing, again, is extraordinary. Fans of Doris Kearn Goodwin or David McCullough will love this book, and will be pleased to know that Taylor is of the new generation of historians and likely to be around and writing for a very long time.

This is a big book, running to 484 pages, including the index. This volume, together with Volume 32, is where the editors put materials that don't fit anywhere else. Some of the things included here:

1. CONVERSATIONS WITH ERIC VOEGELIN, from 1967, 1970, and 1975
at the Thomas More Institute in Montreal. It has been
circulating all these years in photocopy or photo offset
versions. It contains some of Voegelin's choicest comments, such
as his remarks on teaching evolution in the schools:

"You get some funny situations. In California now there is a
fight between literalists or providentialists, and biological
theorists. And you get in the textbooks both Genesis and
Darwinian evolutionism as two "theories" of evolution. You see
what that really means? The fundamentalist theologians in
California (fundamentalism was well established there at the
beginning of the century) don't know what a myth is. They
believe it is a theory. They're in ignorance.

"And the biological theorists don't know that Kant has analysed
why one cannot have an immanentist theory of evolution. One can
have empirical observation but no general theory of evolution
because the sequence of forms is a mystery; it just is there and
you cannot explain it by any theory. The world cannot be
explained. It is a mythical problem, so you have a strong
element of myth in the theory of evolution.

"So both the theoretical evolutionists and the fundamentalist
theologians are illiterate. That level of illiteracy is taught
in the text books as "two theories"-neither one of which is a
theory. "
Myth as Environment p 307, 335

The publication of these three conversations was something of an
afterthought. There were four conversations originally and
the first was published in Volume 11 of the CW as "In
Search of the Ground." One can hope that all four conversations
will be reunited in a paperback version in the not-too-distant
future-perhaps with some other informal exchanges.

2. Then there is the question and answer period from the Boston
College conference from 1983 entitled THE BEGINNING AND THE
BEYOND, chaired by Frederick Lawrence. It is here that Voegelin
makes his comment on the Eucharist:

"Parousia means presence, and you remember this presence by
speaking it out: Where the name of Christ is pronounced, there he
is present. But you have to be reminded you are in Christ, and
pronounce it right. It is quite possible that the formulation of
the Eucharist as 'in my remembrance' (which is anamnesis) of
which Paul speaks always evokes the double-meaning of the
remembering of recollection and of remembering in the sense of
establishing what the reality is to be."

Responses at the Panel Discussion of
"The Beginning of the Beginning", p 415, 427.

3. There there are the exchanges between Voegelin and "father of
the atom bomb" J. Robert Oppenheimer at the 1959 Swiss conference
directed by Raymond Aron, "Colloques de Rheinfelden." Also
present: Michael Polanyi and Bertrand de Jounvenel. The chapter
is entitled "The West and the Meaning of Industrial Society:
Excerpts from the Discussion." What is not clear from these
excerpts is that it is pretty much Voegelin "contra mundum" 'though
Aron leans heavily his way. The paper Voegelin delivered at the
conference is found in Vol 11 CW under the title "Industrial
Society in Search of Reason."

4. The transcript of Voegelin's lecture, "Structures of
Consciousness," from the 1978 York University conference is
included. The lecture was videotaped and some have seen it in
this form.

5. In "Natural Law in Political Theory" (1963) we have exchanges
between Voegelin and his Doctor-Father Hans Kelsen. To
put it plainly, they disagree more than once.

6. In "Man in Political Institutions" we have Voegelin and a
distinguished group of colleagues exchanging views, including Alois Dempf and Jürgen Gebhardt.

7. For the literary-minded there are Voegelin's notes on T.S.
Eliot's "Four Quartets."

8. The book concludes with the much-admired "Autobiographical
Statement at Age Eighty-two."

And there is more, but you will have to read the book. It is
one of the most inviting of the the Voegelin volumes. A genuine
delight.

I have put up on the web the table of contents:
http://www.fritzwagner.com/ev/cw/cw_33_contents.html

And the index, beautifully done as always by Linda Webster:
http://www.fritzwagner.com/ev/eric_voegelin_volume_index_list.html#33