University of Missouri Books

An excellent resource for anyone wanting to know about Mark Twain's overseas travels, especially in Bermuda. The author has given us great insight into that country, and for anyone doing research on Woodrow Wilson, it also establishes his presence there, along with his affair with Mary Peck. The pictures are excellent. Well worth the read.

"Quinine and Quarantine: Missouri Medicine through the Years," by Loren Humphrey, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, MO, 2000. This 128 p paperback is another of the Missouri Heritage Reader series, intended for new adult readers, presumably for English as a second language training. As such, Quinine and Quarantine provides 12 articles (plus introductions), most six to eight pages in length, which survey the subject. Most articles are illustrated with black and white photographs from archive collections. The book is indexed, and contains a two page annotated list for additional reading, but no references.

In some ways this volume does an excellent job covering an extensive complex subject, ie the history of medicine, from the Missouri point of view. Hence, we begin in 1799, in the days of the French trappers and early pioneers, when purgatives and bloodletting were the usual treatments for most conditions. Quinine was one of the few effective medicines when used to treat malaria. Most other treatments had little value. Small pox vaccinations were available, but there was little understanding of germs as the cause of wound infection, and most surgery was a death sentence. Coverage ends in 1997, with passage of the state's Managed Care Reform Act, and an item mentioning heart transplants and rumors that celebrities are given preferential access to limited supplies of organs.

The history of medical education is especially well covered. In the early days, the best physicians trained in Europe, but they were rarely found on the frontier. Instead, most physicians trained as apprentices. The book takes us through the early medical schools. St. Louis University chartered in 1832, established a medical school in 1841. Missouri Medical College in St. Louis, started as a branch of Kemper College (founded 1838), affiliated with University of Missouri in 1847. Kansas City Medical College opened in 1869. American School of Osteopathy, Macon Co., was chartered in1884. Licensing of physicians began in Missouri in 1883. As late as 1923, diploma mills would issue medical degrees for a fee. A Kansas City reporter got one that year from Kansas City College of Medicine.

Missouri colleges were founded as follows: Christian College in Columbia, 1851; Culver-Stockton founded as Christian College of Canton, 1853; Westminster College, Fulton, 1853; Washington University, founded as Eliot Seminary, 1851; Stephens College founded as Columbia Female Baptist College, 1857; Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, 1870; Central State Teachers College, Warrensburg, 1871; Southwest State Teachers College, Cape Girardeau, 1873; Lincoln Institute, Jefferson City, 1890. St Louis University purchased Marion-Simms Beaumont Medical School in 1903 for its medical school. Barnes Hospital, teaching hospital for Washington University opened in 1915.

Cholera epidemics are covered quite well. Asian cholera is a highly contagious diarrheal disease spread by drinking contaminated water. It first appeared in the US in about 1820 and spread throughout the country-usually along transportation routes during the steamboat era-as a series of epidemics. During epidemics death rates might rise to as much as 50% of the population. St. Louis was repeatedly devastated, especially in 1849 and again in 1866.

Cholera played a role in the understanding of germs as a cause of disease when John Snow traced an out break in London to a single contaminated well (1854). Improvements in public health-reliable water supplies and sewers-were major factors in stopping the epidemics, but strangely the book mentions the subject of public water supplies only briefly. The role of quarantine and the sanitary societies who helped care for Civil War soldiers in hospitals are noted.

The book introduces the subject of antibiotics and gives some description to Sir Alexander Flemming's discovery of penicillin, but the extensive work at USDAs Peoria, IL laboratory to make it practical during World War II is not mentioned. No mention is made of Missouri's pharmaceutical participants. Most would name Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis, who made ether anesthetic commercially available and operated an "ether lab" to explore safe handling and additional commercial uses for this extremely flammable agent. Mallinckrodt is also one of two licensed producers of morphine in the US, and is a leading manufacturer of the active ingredient in Tylenol. Monsanto, headquartered in St. Louis, became the world's largest producer of bulk aspirin and also invented Celebrex.

The book has done a remarkably good job of covering a complex subject in a compact survey form. Readers will find it a useful introduction, but will want to check other sources for the complete story of penicillin, the development of germ theory (I recommend Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruit, 1926), and measures to improve public health.

Rose Wilder Lane was a brilliant, intelligent journalist who lived life to the full. She was a superb writer and world traveller and these articles provide an insight into twentieth century life as she experienced it: From early reports from a Hollywood silent movie set to features on post war Europe, 'womens magazine' home life articles in the 1930s and 1940s, to travel writing and pieces on 1960s Vietnam, she did it all. She also baked and mended in the great tradition of her pioneer antecedents. Lane had some dark moments - divorce, depression, and an attempted suicide - material that would never have suited the child friendly Little House Series she edited. This book is interesting for revealing that extra layer; however, the volume is a bit slim for the money. It's a pity they didn't add more to the collection.

Amazing perhaps that centuries after his death, monographs are still coming out on Samuel Johnson. Parke compiled a presumably comprehensive list of papers, that span just 15 years. Hundreds of papers. In specialised journals like the Critical Review or Midwest Quarterly.

If you are a Johnson scholar, this book would be invaluable for your research. But these days, one could imagine amassing a similar list via queries to a specialised search engine, that has the text of those journals. Surely the Citation Index offers such a service.

At first glance this book looks like a comparative study of three major evangelistic campaigns in Chicago at the turn of the twentieth century: those of D. L. Moody, J. Wilbur Chapman, and Billy Sunday. In fact, Sin in the City is just a revised 1991 PhD dissertation, a tiresome academic production that rings the changes on race, class, and (especially) gender to the near exclusion of its erstwhile subject, religion. Not surprisingly, the final chapter, which purports to demonstrate a connection between the turn-of-the-century revivals and modern evangelicalism, is especially weak because the author has a limited understanding of modern evangelical religion.

Joiner's writing is not that bad when compared to similar productions of the academy. Still, there are a lot of sentences like, "Revivalism's ritualistic construction and expression of these dichotomies--in a heightened public sphere--provided both the means and the opportunity to encode these cultural assumptions with spiritual or immanent meanings." (16)

Academic authors regularly have difficulty taking the behavior of their historical characters at something approaching face value. So, for instance, when revivalists made profitable use of the notion that mothers' prayers followed their wayward children, they wouldn't consider investigating the possibility that mothers might actually have been doing a lot more long-distance praying for wayward children during this period than would have been the case earlier (when families were less separated geographically) or later (when mothers were less religious and more preoccupied with careers and personal lives). Or, when revivalists claimed that cities were more sinful than rural areas, that they had more than adequate evidence that this was indeed the case.

Some long-suffering graduate students will probably be required to find profundity in Joiner's book, but for the reader interested in investigating turn-of-the-century Chicago, the "Third Great Awakening," or modern evangelicalism, I suggest ignoring the thesis as much as possible and skimming the text for bibliography and occasional nuggets of useful information, especially material about women connected to the Chicago campaigns.

In 1935 there was a violent strike in the lead and zinc fields of southwestern Missouri and northeastern Oklahoma. The owners eventually crushed the strike and low wages and poor conditions continued until the mines began to shut down in the 1950s. These mines were originally not unionized when they operated on a small scale. As large corporations, such as the ancestor of the current mining giant ASARCO, moved in, so did union activity.

Suggs did a good job finding and analyzing primary sources. Many of the participants were still alive when this book was written, and almost all are dead now, so there will be little chance for a similar book on the topic.

One reason this book is not just local history is that it requires that Suggs tell the complex story of the pro-union legislation under the New Deal. One union law was struck down by the Supreme Court, giving the owners the belief they could do whatever they wanted. The next law was eventually upheld, and the companies' actions during the strike were shown to be illegal. The main union involved is the ancestor of the UMW.

Suggs is very pro-union, which is fine with me, but just be aware of that if you're considering buying the book.

Why would anyone buy her book if she is such a racist devil pig?
How does she sleep at night?

Trotta was one of the first female war correspondents on television. This book is a must read for her Vietnam reflections as well as her story of what it was like to be a woman in the network "boys club".

Liz was an awesome reporter in Vietnam; she could get down and dirty in the mud with the troops in an era where talking heads reported from mahogany desks in NYC thousands of miles away. She was honest and conservative in an industry which was devaluing both. Finally she was a woman, one of the first to go into the jungle to get the tough stories. This is a compelling book of a great reporter's life, and the story of an amazing woman.

Liz Trotta is not a person I would trust to give an unpartizan account of any sort of journalism. As a commentator for Fox News she regularly spouts simple minded talking points from whatever politically convenient campaign is nearby at the moment.
There are plenty of books out there that examine the media in a much more enlightening and open light. Skip this one.

Gee, I think Ms. Trotta would like to be given credit for the assassination of an American senator, eh? She would have felt right at home in Nazi Germany, where calling for the death of a political opponent was completely acceptable.

Why are we stuck with these monsters? How can we get them to climb back under their rocks???

This is one case where I should have heeded the advice of this site's reviewers.

I wanted to read a Madison biography, but I wasn't looking for a 500-page book, and since my father had this one at his house, I thought, "How bad could it be?" Well, it's pretty shaky.

First of all, Rutland does not make this easy on the readers because he's all over the place. It's not neat and focused like a good biography generally is, perhaps because he tried to cram so much information into less than 300 pages. He just jumped around too much.

For example, the first chapter is a disaster. Rutland barely mentions Madison's upbringing, and even when he does, it's buried amongst other information. You will not get hooked by the first chapter. The last chapter was supposed to be about Madison's post-presidency life, but Rutland continues to mention parts of the presidency. I also really wanted a more focused description of the events leading up to the War of 1812, and what I got were bits of hard-to-follow details here and there. This is just not smooth story telling.

There was some valuable information, such as the detailed outline of the Republican platform during the early stages of the party. And the book was not painfully sympathetic to its subject, but rather a fair account of the great man's life. Perhaps another 100 pages and a more defined overall direction, with chapters addressing a few specific issues rather than bouncing all around, would have made this a decent book.

For those looking to learn about Madison, I don't know what book you should read, but I would not recommend this one.

The War of 1812 was fought with Great Britain. The British captured Washington, D.C., and burned the White House. Madison fled. He is known as the father of the Constitution and wrote the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is the first 10 Amendments. The first Amendment guarantees free speech.

I did not really care for this book. Rutland makes the premise that Madison was THE founding father implying that he was the most important. He finishes the book with a quote from JFK that Madison was the most under-rated president yet the book dedicates less than 40 pages to the presidency of James Madison. In those 40 pages, I did not gleam anything that Madison did exceptionally well - it all sounded pretty bad to me. I believe the point that Rutland was trying to make is that Madison was not Jefferson's crony and that it was Madison who actually shaped the early Republican party (early version of today's Democratic Party). This was a point well taken and I might accept that Madison was Jefferson's superior. At that same time, I remain unconvinced that he was THE founding father with such peers as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. Important yes but...

The failed argument of Madison's superiority aside, I found the book to brief to be interesting. James Madison was a central figure in the formation of our country, the formation of party politics, and the early days of the republic and to try and tell the story of his entire life in a 250 page book is simply impossible. Many important stories that I have previously enjoyed in book volume detail were reduced to a sentence or two in Rutland's book.

I think this book perfect for a high school student who needs a quick read for a research project but has no real interest in the life and career of James Madison. For a history nut like me, it is a bit too much like reading an encyclopedia.

Read the title: "James Madison: The Founding Father" focuses on Madison's role in the founding of our country. Here we learn little of Madison's youth and upbringing. Although Dolly plays a role in this book, it is a relatively minor part.

This book explains Madison's role in the development and ratification of the Constitution, including his authorship of some of the Federalist Papers. The narration of Madison's leadership in the early Democratic-Republican Party can change the reader's view of history. Whereas we usually think of Thomas Jefferson as founder of the Democratic-Republican Party, Rutland makes a strong case that it was really Madison who united and organized the party from his seat in the House of Representatives. Much as Alexander Hamilton founded the party which elected John Adams, so it can be said that James Madison founded the party which chose Thomas Jefferson as its first standard bearer.

Rutland progresses through Madison's term as Secretary of State and even puts a favorable spin on his two terms as president. This is no easy task, considering that the British burned the White House and Capitol on his watch.

Rutland follows the wind down of Madison's career with his post-White House collaboration in the establishment of the University of Virginia.

I appreciate books which enable me to see things differently. This book meets that test. I had always thought of Madison as, so to speak, Jefferson's underling and less talented successor. Through Robert Rutland's eyes we see him as one of the most influential and talented men of the early Republic. Madison comes across, as a practical political operative, the equal of Hamilton and, in result at least, perhaps his better. In the title, Rutland tells us that James Madison is The Founding Father. In the book he proves it.

not like Jefferson & Hamilton or celebrated like Washington & Franklin. My fellow reviewers seemed disappointed in this as a biography. But it was not Mr. Rutland's purpose to write a personal story of Mr. Madison's life although his later years were covered quite well. I am glad, however, I took the easy way out by listening to the audio version (unedited). It was as if I was in Mr. Rutland's class as he was giving a lecture. The years after The Revolutionary War, The Federalist Papers, The Constitution & The Bill of Rights, are the real meat of this book. Madison's behind the scenes leadership in Congress was consummate. If we do not appreciate how important he was 200 years later, it seems that he contemporaries did. To his sorrow he was, with Jefferson, responsible for creating the two party system we now operate under. That he wanted to heed Washington's advice against the party system is evident. But he found this advice quickly outdated. As a result Washington, & to a lesser extent Adams were the only unaffiliated presidents in our history. Happily, none of this two-party stuff is cluttering up our Consititution. As Secretary of State under Jefferson & President on his own he was unremarkable. Any one could have mucked things up as well as he did. Indeed his best years were his early years. What seemed to me remarkable was the love, respect & friendship that existed between Madison & Jefferson all of their adult lives. It was an alliance of two great men that never wavered & recreated the "republican" type government of ancient Greece. Mr Rutland was obviously impressed by this relationship & alludes to it several times. I appreciate biographies that teach me something about history I didn't know. How great is this book? Hard to say. But it fit the bill.

Like Tim Oliver, I too was mentioned frequently in this book, but the author never contacted me. He got ALL of his information from newspaper articles. And, as mentioned by another reviewer, the newspapers were ALL against concealed carry. That's a big red flag, and inexcusable in a "history" book dealing with events that happened in the last few years.

Tim Oliver's review points out several of the many inaccuracies in this work; I'll add to the main one:

Horner seems to think the NRA spearheaded this effort, and pooh-poohs the idea that it was a "home-grown issue." Here are the facts:

In the mid-'80s, I and other NRA members in Missouri urged then-NRA rep Willis Corbett to get the NRA behind a CCW effort in our state. Corbett said flatly that the NRA had no interest in doing that.

A few days after Christmas in 1991, a friend and I were in my living room, compaining bitterly to each other about the NRA's lack of interest in CCW here. Then we looked at each other and had an epiphany: We were whining about the failure of a national organization to fix a problem in our own back yard. We decided then and there to reach into our own pockets and hire a lobbyist and get a bill guided through the legislature's 1992 session, which started in a week.

The lobbyist cost us $20,000. His name was John Bardgett. His name is not even MENTIONED anywhere in this book.

AFTER we had written a bill and Bardgett got it introduced by Joe Driskill, the NRA sent a liason to Missouri to find out what was going on.

For the next decade, the NRA would occasionally send reps to Missouri, and these people regularly damaged the relationships we had worked so hard to cultivate with our legislators.

NRA involvement LENGTHENED the number of years it took to get concealed carry in Missouri, but Horner seems to think that the Missouri CCW effort was all their doing from day one.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Horner deserves an "F" on this one, because writing a book like this and using only newspaper clippings as source material is being intellectually lazy.

I read this book after taking two of William Horner's courses at the University of Missouri. It is very fair book with many interesting accounts and stories. Highly recommended to anyone interested in this subject. A great read!!!

Showdown in the Show Me State is simply an excellent read. Horner provides a thorough investigation into the history of conceal and carry in Missouri in a clear and engaging writing style. Readers of this book will appreciate Horner's unbiased approach as he conveys both sides of the gun issue to focus on policy in Missouri rather than a one-sided perspective on conceal and carry. Full of fascinating journalistic accounts, this is a must-read not only for Missourians, but for those who are interested in state and local politics and interest groups throughout the United States.

A book can be entertaining without being factual. While some might consider this an entertaining book to read, it is based only on newspaper accounts. No interviews were actually conducted for the writing of this book, although Mr. Horner might make it appear so. Mr. Horner admits in his book that he took his accounts from newspapers, he also admits the newspapers were against concealed carry. This should make the reader suspicious right there. Basically, I thought it was a lazy, sloppy work. There are too many inaccuracies in it, maybe if it were under fiction? A really good work on the subject would have an audience. Book was a disappointment.

As the lead lobbyist for nine of the thirteen years it took to pass the License to Carry law in Missouri, I was excited when this book came out.

I went straight to the publisher and picked up a copy when it was first released and have read most of it. The first things I checked were the passages where I was referred to by name, since I have first hand knowledge of what really happened.

pg 39 para 1. The author starts off ok. He then quotes one of the true heroes of the fight for concealed carry, Sen Caskey.

In debate on the Sen Floor, Sen Caskey said, "The NRA had nothing to do with this piece of homegrown legislation. They sent one guy here three days to lobby, and we ran him out of town.

Sen Caskey knew all the players. He knew who did what. Our first real progress in 1993 was getting Caskey to sponsor out bill.

While the quote is *accurate* to what factually happened, the author's analysis in the closing sentence, *that the NRA did it by long distance,* reflects his lack of in-depth knowledge of what was really going on. This error continues throughout, and is one of the main themes and conclusion of the book.

pg 42-43, Is a recounting of the famous incident where Jet Banks
claimed I or some one of the "Gun Lobbyist" threatened to kill him.

Where I am quoted, the quote is incomplete. I said to the media, in response to JB announcing the death threat on the Senate Floor, "There was no threat! That's a damnable lie told by a damnable lier." In responding to JB's lie, and not wanting to violate the "etiquette" rules of the Senate, I cleared that quote to the media thought Sen Caskey. That's what I said, that's what the Post Dispatched reported and that's what the press told JB when he left the Senate Floor at 7:45 that evening. The author chose to leave some parts out.

When so informed, JB ran up and down the Senate halls saying "where is that little M-F I'm going to kill him!" The press saw it, but failed to report it. The author did not mention it. Wonder why?

The author is then 180 degrees off, when he talks about Sen Caskeys speech killing the bill the next day. The Sen Caskey was very eloquent in pointing out that, lying about a death threat on the Senate Floor would be the action of a dishonorable man, and that since *all* Senators are *men of Honor*, JB must be telling the truth.

To not recognize the height of *ridicule* offered by Sen Caskey, shows the author has no real knowledge of what happened. In fact, there is a video of Caskey's speech around somewhere and it is priceless in the belittling it directs at JB.

The author's analysis says, "Caskey, however, said he believed Banks."

*He could not be more wrong*.

Then in recounting the Supreme Ct case , he says nothing about
recruiting the Intervenor's so we would have a seat at the table, nor the Intervenor causing the Plaintiffs to post a $250,000 Bond or the License To Carry Legal Defense Fund's actions.

It's as if the author only read the Post Dispatch, KC Star, etc and lifted partial quotes and parrot their news reporting to write his book .

For the record, the author *Never* tried to call me or any other of the people who have the real boots on the ground time in the Capitol.

The real problem is, this is written like a modern history book. Those who read it without knowing what really happened will believe it happened the way he recounts it. It *appears* to be an impartial recounting when it in fact is not.

He could not be more wrong.

I admit I have not read the whole book, but I will. In reading passages for accuracy of what I personally witnessed and *know* actually occurred, I am not impressed. This account is what happens when you write based on what your *read* in the newspaper, not what you saw, heard and lived.

Be Safe,
Tim Oliver
LearnToCarry.com

For heaven's sake, the man's name was William Clarke Quantrell. Why buy or bother to read a book who's author doesn't even know the true name of the main character?

A rare look into the lives of quantrills followers. Some information I have not read in other books. A different side from one of Quantrills own.