University of Missouri Books

The late Don E. Fehrenbacher, probably the greatest historian of American Law, Politics, and sectionalism in the 19th century, presents a thin volume of two series of lectures he gave in the late 1970s.

The first of these 'The South and Three Sectional Crises', details the Missouri controversy, the 1846-1850 arguments about the Wilmot Provido, and the Kansas-Nebraska fights. The second, 'Constitutions and Constitutionalism in the Slaveholding South' deals with constitutions in Southern states, the South's views of the US constitution, and finally, the Confederate constitution and its applications during the short life span of the Confederacy.

Both essays, and especially the second, suffer from the shortness of the lecture format. Fehrenbacher can only barely touch upon the issues he raise here, particularly in the second essay, which deals with three separate issues.

Although Fehrenbacher has written often about the sectional crises, he always manages to look at the issues from a new perspective. Here, Fehrenbacher focuses on the South's perspective. He shows that the Missouri crisis was not a secession crisis, but that it played a large part in developing Southern strategies for dealing with future conflicts. The South has learned that the North could be pressured with threats of secession, and used the threat to have its way in the following crisis. After winning the first two sectional crisis, the South lost the third. Unlike the previous secession crisis, the South finally seceded because of an occurrence in the executive rather then the legislative branch of government. Unlike Congress, where negotiations led naturally to some form of compromise or at least the appearance of compromise, the election of an anti-Slavery president was a clear signal, a black or white issue, and the most logical and natural basis for secession.

The second essay, less coherent, is nonetheless interesting. The Southern state constitutions, because they reflected little conflict with antislavery feelings, proved to be remarkably similar to Northern state constitution. In the relationship with the constitution, the South engaged on two parallel, somewhat contradictory strategies. On the One hand, it advocated a form of a weak Union, unable to coerce its will on States. One the other hand, the South used the lesser unity of the Northern states to form Southern dominated bi-sectional parties - both the Jeffersonian Republicans and later the Democrats in the 1840s and 50s - which led the South to be the dominating section in the union.

After secession, the Confederate constitution formed was very similar to the US one, although it reflected the South's commitment to Slavery, and its distrust of Politics. So similar was the Southern legal framework to the Federal one, that Confederate prosecutors, judges and juries continued legal proceedings from before secession, as if it has never occurred.

In an interesting and perceptive introduction. Fehrenbacher notices that all Post-CW histories of the South are also histories of secession. Although brief, this, like all of Fehrenbacher's writings, is a significant contribution to the effort to understand the roots of the American Civil War.

Since few books have been written about Henry Warner Slocum this edition is a good start. It is evident there are not many primary sources or extant information to draw on when writing about this general because the book glosses over details of his life, I assume because there was no information available. Because of this the book does not provide as detailed a glimps of the generals life and personality as one would wish for. I found the book interesting but was constantly hoping for more detail.

I first read this book for a graduate class in education, and I am now purchasing it for the second time. St. Louis is in the process of dismantling its voluntary desegregation program, and leaders are finding themselves asking the same questions they were at the program's inception. They are finding there are no clear solutions to the problem of race and equality in American society and schools, as evidenced in this excellently researched book.

TS Eliot said it better than I ever could: "And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." Through this book Wells and Crain provide us with maps for our journey of understanding the dynamics of race in the U.S. Our paths, their work illustrates time and again, are left up to us.

Shalhope's balanced, thoughtful, and impressively researched tome is a must-read for Civil War scholars and buffs alike. Whereas historian Albert Castel focuses on Price's military campaigns in "General Sterling Price and the Civil War in the West," Shalhope takes a closer look at Sterling as man, commander, and Missouri legend. Shalhope clearly did his research, but in my estimation might have better explained why Price was so admired -- indeed, beloved -- by his troops and large sections of Missouri. (This adulation went beyond mere rank and cause, and seemed to point to some unexplained X factor about Price himself.) In addition, Shalhope depicts Price as a rather mediocre general, though other historians are somewhat more generous in their appraisals. And while his book purports to be a "Portrait of a Southerner," the reader is left wanting a bit more portraiture of Price the man. For instance, Shalhope tells us that Jefferson Davis grew to despise Price, but we do not learn the many reasons why. We are told that many saw Price as terribly vain and arrogant, but we are told this rather than shown this. Had the author been able to take us behind the scenes and get into the heads of the major players, this treatment would have benefited. On balance however, Shalhope's book is a classic and fills the voids of Castel's earlier work.

"Theodore H. White and Journalism as Illusion" is a fascinating in-depth study of the life and times of Theodore H. White. Using the vast resources of the T. H. White archives at Harvard University, Joyce Hoffmann sets up White as the prime example of what she feels was wrong with journalism in the early Cold War era. She alternately uses the phrases "journalism of illusion" and "insider journalism" to describe White's writings. "Journalism of illusion" refers to the writings of those who, like White, were American patriots first and journalists second.

The best examples Hoffmann has of White as a "journalist of illusion" come from the early part of White's career when he was in China, writing about Chiang Kai-shek for Time magazine. White would routinely downplay his observations of Chiang's corruption and brutality, believing it was more important to portray Chiang as a hero, lest America's support for China should wane and China would fall to the Japanese or the communists. It was only after repeated exposure to the Chiang regime's brutality that White's illusions about Chiang began to change. By that time, however, the heroic image he and other journalists had created had already taken hold in America, and White found himself under extreme pressure to follow the line. Editors at Time censored his work, feeling that the change in White's opinion was due to his encounters with the Chinese communists. "Journalism of illusion" meant being an American patriot first, and telling the truth second. It also meant following the teachings of Time's Henry Luce, who believed in "enlightened journalism", and told White to report events not as they were, but as they should be. Hoffmann's critique of White as an "insider journalist" comes from various periods of White's life, but the best examples are from his time in France, and from the Kennedy years. White was a journalist who loved associating with those in power, which Hoffmann associates to White's upbringing in Boston's poor Jewish ghetto. Never surrounded by prosperity as a child, White seemed to gravitate toward the prosperous as an adult. Hoffmann believes that White's admiration for the rich and powerful, and his desire to be one, seriously colored his writings. White repeated engaged in journalistic practices that would be considered inappropriate by today's standards of integrity. In France, for example, White was commissioned to write a profile of diplomat David Bruce. When White was finished, he showed a copy of the write-up to Bruce, presumably for fact-checking purposes, but also to make sure that nothing White wrote would be considered insulting to Bruce or his wife. White would follow the same practice in his write-ups of the Kennedy administration. Most famously, he showed Bobby Kennedy copies of "Making of the President -- 1960" before its publication in order to get Kennedy's feedback. As an insider journalist, White loved having the ear of those in power, and being part of the decision-making process. He was careful that none of his writings insulted those he admired.

Hoffmann's book is a valuable resource for what it unveils about White's life. The examples of correspondence with administration figures, such as Robert F. Kennedy, illustrate how deeply White was allowed into the corridors of power. Several flaws, however, mar this book. One, for example, is that the reader is never quite sure why White was chosen to be the exemplar of "journalism of illusion" and "insider journalism." Hoffmann provides examples of many journalists of the time who engaged in myth making about the Kennedys. Walter Lippmann, for example, comes across as a virtual spokesman for the administration. Hoffmann also describes journalists who knew about the U-2 flights, or the activity in Vietnam, and decided to help the government cover-up these stories because of patriotism. Any number of them could have been chosen as examples of "journalism of illusion" or "insider journalism." Also, in China, why White was chosen to represent journalists making myths for Chiang is never elaborated. This is questionable, because White eventually repudiated Chiang while other journalists were still writing favorable pieces.

I must echo the reviewer in the journal "Reviews in American History" who was troubled by Hoffmann's seeming lack of definitions for journalistic "truth" and "integrity." Hoffmann was obviously troubled by the style of journalism exemplified by White, but she never gives her own impressions of what journalism is or should be. If her contention is that modern journalism has finally latched on to the absolute truth, then I must disagree with the entire premise of this book. Certainly "insider journalists" and "journalists of illusion" exist today as they did back then. That is probably not her contention. We, however, are left to speculate on Hoffmann's views of the "truth" and modern journalism, because they are simply not there. This is highly unfortunate.

Hoffmann's faults, however large, cannot totally discredit this book. It is an interesting look at one of America's most influential journalists. Her use of the White archives is exemplary. Her devotion to journalistic fact and fiction, or rather "truth" and "illusion," is unfortunately dubious. Camelot cannot be read as totally "truth" or "illusion." It had elements of both. Theodore H. White, consequently, may be forgiven of some of the charges Hoffmann levels against him. His work, while not completely true, is not the total mythical illusion that Hoffmann believes it to be.

The dust jacket notes for "Too Good to Be True" call the book a combination of biography, critical analysis and cultural history. What this means, in practical effect, is that Mark Winchell's biography of the late Leslie Fiedler (1917-2003), has left itself plenty of room for authorial opinion. Winchell is not reluctant to pass critical judgement, and he permits himself -- in true Fiedler-esque spirit -- to pass irreverent observations about any number of things, from the limitations of the New Criticism to the state of (post)modern Academe.

Winchell's book is generally well distributed. That is to say, Winchell has recognized the multi-faceted dynamics of both Fiedler's life and his work. He (Winchell) allocates sufficient space to each of the several major phases of Fiedler's life -- Newark, East Asia, Montana, Europe, Buffalo. This is true about Fiedler's work, as well; Winchell thankfully goes well beyond de rigeur discussion of Fiedler's incendiary essay "Come Back to the Raft Ag'in, Huck Honey!" (1948), his groundbreaking magnum opus "Love and Death in the American Novel" (1966), or his largely misread "Freaks" (1978).

One of the achievements of Winchell's book is his revisitation Fiedler's underread fiction, which has tended to get lost amid all the academic furor and legal turmoil of Fiedler's life. One example is Fiedler's 1974 novel "The Messengers Will Come No More," about a 26th Century dystopia ruled by black women. In what Winchell finds one of its most effective scenes, the ancient temple in Jerusalem has been destroyed, and is marred by such graffitti as "Kilroy was here," "We did so kill him," "Hands off the moon," and (Winchells's avowed favorite) "Mars sucks." But a wizened old man, standing at the wall, sneers at the novel's awestruck protagonist in tones of contempt that "would have made it comprehensible to a child of three, whatever his native tongue. 'Goy' ..."

Winchell gives personal and literary dimension to the manner in which Fiedler has, as one of his colleagues put it, "managed to piss everyone off at one time or other." He tells us how most academic feminists -- with the notable exception of Camille Paglia -- considered Fiedler a nasty old man, and why the great novelist Saul Bellow once called Fiedler "The worst f***ing thing that ever happened to American literature."

Winchell doesn't flinch at Fiedler's warts. In one passage, he tells of Fiedler's boozy 1988 induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: "At one point, a prominent American poet introduced himself to Leslie and told him how much he had admired his work. As the man departed, Leslie muttered 'There goes the worst poet in America. Somebody ought to shoot him.'" Displays such as this, Winchell notes, earned Fiedler a "considerable reputation for boorishness."

Another passage documents Fiedler's mid-life crisis, when after the collapse of his first marriage and before his second, "[t]he word soon spread among women he would kiss at parties to keep their teeth clenched if they did not wish for the intimacy to extend beyond a perfunctory gesture of greeting."

But Fiedler, like most great literary types, somehow transcended his own bad behavior. It is fascinating to learn the details of Fiedler's friendship with Allan Ginsberg, his unlikely alliance with William Buckley, his distaste for Martin Luther King, Jr's incessant womanizing, the complimentary letter he received from Richard Nixon, or the time he met Golda Meir ("She gave me orange juice when I said I needed a drink.")

"Too Good to Be True" performs the great service of clearing up the urban folklore surrounding Fiedler's 1977 drug bust -- which was, of course, no bust at all. In his discussion of this infamous episode, Winchell has the benefit -- as he does throughout -- of cooperation from the Fiedlers; his book has a goodly number of footnotes citing "interview with author." Surely, it is far easier to lay claim to being a fair and accurate biographer when one's subject is willing to be interviewed!

Winchell handles his inter-disciplinary approach fairly well, all told. He understands enough about literary Academe to be able to make some pithy parenthetical asides ("It has been said many times that academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so low"). He also understands literary scholarship well enough to be able to explain the turf battles involved. Notwithstanding, it ought to be said that while one needn't be a literary scholar to appreciate Winchell's book, it certainly helps.

A couple batches of vintage photographs in the book are a nice treat for readers who knew Fiedler -- and even those who didn't. This includes a photo of Leslie's estranged brother Harold, as a young football player. (I'd like to know if there's any family connection with the professional quarterback Jay Fiedler!)

Fiedler passed away very shortly after Winchell published this book, and so "Too Good to Be True" treats virtually all of Fiedler's long life and his many works. "By opening up American literary criticism to questions of race, gender and sexuality," observes Winchell, "[Fiedler] has become a kind of sorcerer's apprentice -- giving rise to much that is good and a lot that is bad in cultural criticism. Winchell concludes that Fiedler "is one of the few critics of our time who has made a difference."

As literary biography, "Too Good To be True" is good enough -- and true enough -- to stand as the first of what will hopefully be many comprehensive evaluations of a giant of 20th Century American letters.

Joan Gilbert is a fascinatingly realistic writer who thoroughly researches her subjects and knows the history and background. Her book on the Trail of Tears should be recommended reading for all who regret the loss of the Amerindian heritage in this Country. It should also be studied in Social Studies Classes in every school in the land. If you don't know anything about this heart- breaking piece of history, and the MO State Park that marks one of the forced-march stops - it will open your eyes to reality!

This book covers the changing of the guard in American politics, when authority was no longer unquestioned and citizens were learning how to organize and exert their positions. In hindsight, it is amazing that such an ill conceived idea as transporting 800,000 cubic yards of water over 100 miles to irrigate land inherently unsuited to irrigation could have held sway for three decades before being exposed as impractical. The fact that this feat was accomplished by a handful of citizens, against the united desires of the press and business and political leaders, makes it even more interesting reading.

During the period that this drama was being acted out, I served as a Special Assistant to the Governor of South Dakota, and I was impressed by the clear, interesting and straightforward telling of this story. While I would dispute some of the details, to a reader that did not live out this drama, these are of a minor consequence. As the staff member that authorized funding of the study of transporting Missouri River water to Wyoming, I can assure the readers that this study was done solely to determine the impact of providing clean, fresh water to ranches and small communities in western South Dakota and was completely unrelated to the Oahe project. Governor Kneip quickly distanced himself from this study when objections arose from our political base in eastern South Dakota. This study, however, documented the importance of clean water supplies to the public health and the raising of livestock. The rural water systems that were created in the wake of Oahe addressed this need and as the author noted, this was the lasting legacy of the Oahe Project.

There is a natural tendency in books like this to paint the good guys as pure and the establishment as universally bad. In this case as part of the establishment, there were major differences of opinion within the Kneip administration on the feasibility and desirability of the Oahe Project. The decision to "leak" and make public a wide array of documents that were destined to aid the opponents was thoroughly debated and I admire Governor Kneip's tolerance of those that prevailed in providing the public the truth.

The lesson that citizens can overcome incredible odds in fighting proposed developments is a fascinating story that deserved telling.

This book has a wonderful review and information about plants in the Missouri River Region of the United States, and a bunch of information as to how some of the tribes in the local area used them traditionally. My only beef with the book is that the authors did not do another one for at least one other region of the US - wish they would!

Veneer is a collection of nine short stories, eight of which have previously been published in various literary periodicals, and it is another winning effort by Steve Yarbrough. The bulk of his previously published work, two collections of short stories and the fantastic novel Oxygen Man, have been set in Mississippi where Yarbrough grew up. Some of the stories in this collection are set there as well, but he also branches his settings to California.

What he shows us in his writing is that setting only matters in terms of background material. The human condition is the same in Mississippi as it is in California, and one suspects we'd find it the same if Mr. Yarbrough set his next collection in Cuba, Russia, or Canada. We are flawed individuals with needs, wants, and varying levels of the confidences necessary to acquire those needs and wants.

As in his past work, decisions and actions make up a great deal of explanation for results. The title story should have more than one previously published listing, as there couldn't have been more than 10 stories this good whichever year it was originally published. It has the narrator and his friend, Emily, dining in a window seat of a café. He is married with two children, but away from his family as the Fourth of July is approaching as they are visiting his wife's relatives in Prague. There is some great foreshadowing early in the story when Emily asks him if he isn't worried about being seen together, won't people see them as having an affair. He says he only worries about reality, not appearances.

The story has him telling her the story of his worst Fourth of July ever. It involves cooking steaks on a grill for his mom, dad and grandmother. It involves disappointments for each of them. It also gets into the relationship between his mother and father. The story comes alive between the narrator and Emily and he ends the story with a thought that this will be his daughter's worst Fourth of July as reality and appearances are about to converge.

The story does not hit you over the head with the similarities between the various relationships. It also brings fourth small decisions throughout that the reader sees leading to the final results. As is typical in Yarbrough's fiction, the characters are well aware that they are making these decisions at the time they do so.

While this is the best story of the collection, there are at least five others that are just barely a notch below. These could have been mentioned at the back of an anthology the year they were published as just misses to being added to the collections. None of the stories seems unfinished; each has been refined to the best possible version they could be. They are all written with the skill and subtlety of the title story.

Yarbrough doesn't nearly have the readership he deserves. Do yourself a favor and pick up this 4.5 star effort.