University of Nebraska Books

Today's thriller writers could take a lesson from Jack Schaeffer. Just like the title character, this novel is lean and quick and frightening.

I mostly bought the critical edition for its cover. Having read the extra material, Shane's historical, literary and cinematic context and a nifty talk with the author, I'm glad I did!

The critical edition of Shane contains the novel, which is good, and severl reveiws, which is so-so. The novel is fascinating to read, and it varies significantly from the movie screenplay. The interview statements by the author, Shaefer, and the reviews are of modest value.

There are four or five interesting ideas, such as: westerns like Shane may reflect American foreign policy in the 50's and 60's, the western heroes like Shane are Christ (with six-gun) figures, sort of old testament-new testament hybrids, the author could not write such an innocent story again, because of his cynicism about what the "homesteaders" eventually did to America (his politics are unclear and he seems to blame Babbitt and not the oil barons), the novel first person is an older son looking back at his childhood with Shane instead of the movie's first person protagonist being the young boy, and, the other really good western is The Gunfighter. The obvious oedipal projection, which no reviewer but me has noted, is vivid in the film and only hinted at in the novel.


It is too bad for those of us who have seen the movie first; we can only compare, and can't see the novel's images free of Alan Ladd and Jack Palance. The movie could have been better (maybe with Randloph Scott after intenstive acting lessons, or Palance instead of Ladd) since Shane was written as a super-humanly lethal and fearsome man. But, Ladd gives the right voice to the character, and with the special effects the movie works.

Shane is "pure" western myth. (It was always a myth, there never were any such characters in the west except in 19th century newspapers and tabloids.) There are only white Nothern European Christian men and few wives and kids; no Mexicans, no African-Americans, no Native Americans, no dance hall girls, not even any cripples. But the novel and the movie try to answer the essential question raised in every good western: what price will you will pay for the most expensive of American luxuries: fairness, justice and honor.

If you are fascinated by the film Shane, as I am, the critical edition of the novel is worth taking a look at.

Three reasons this Critical Edition is superior to the usual trade paperback edition. First, there are dozen of good essays written by book and film critics included within the pages. Second, this edition is true to the original, in the sense that it wasn't edited, and was printed in the original layout format. And finally, the artwork on the front book cover is supreme, it's a very good portrait of Shane; a rugged and mysterious man, not one of those cheesy cowboys as presented on the other editions.

This is a great book from 2 angles: first, it's a great coming-of-age story. Second, as a reader in 2007, it's a wonderful window into the world of 1870-1900s America which was not so long ago, but worlds away.

The language is a little formal and flowery, which is funny in light of the fact that Garland broke ground in American literary circles as a gritty "realist" writer. But even that serves to draw a more complete picture of the era.

This is easily in my top ten list of books. Wonderful account of growing up in the upper Midwest after the War Between the States. Hamlin Garland writes with a great sense of place and a love of the land.

It is exciting to stumble upon this classic work and to ascertain it is absolutely readable and fresh. This work is constantly cited in support of regional factors constituting part of the experience of American writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In 1863 Garland's father made the last payment on the mortgage on his farm and that same day he enlisted as a soldier in the Civil War.

The father was born in Maine. The family moved west via the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes, landing in Milwaukee. The children were told stories of the war and of the prairies of Wisconsin. The farm was near the LaCrosse River in western Wisconsin.

The author's grandfather was an Adventist, believing in the second coming. The McClintocks, maternal relatives, were farmers. The author's Grandfather Garland was a carpenter. Hamlin received his first literary instruction from his paternal, New England, grandfather.

To his father change was alluring. The father was eager to sell the farm in 1868 and push away onward to Iowa. The new farm was right on the edge of Looking Glass Prairie. When the family moved in February the children whined and the mother conveyed worry. His mother was in terror of the ice. At ten Hamlin was plowing at the family's third farm, located in Mitchell County near the Minnesota line. The name of the town was Osage. The schoolhouse was the center of social life on the bare prairie. The family rented land for their crops and broke sod and built a homestead on their new land. In addition to prairie there were hazel thickets. The curriculum pursued in the school was set forth in the McGuffey Readers. A singing school was started in Osage. Social changes were in progress. There were no more quilting bees and barn raisings. The women visited less often. Singing was confined to hymn tunes.

Garland tries to dispel the merry yeoman fantasy. The cowyard smelled of manure. Most farming duties require the lapse of years to seem beautiful. Haying was a season of charm. The author recalls buying his first deck of cards.

Growing up in the West were organizations called the Patrons of Husbandry, the Grange. The Lyceum took the place of the singing schools. Amusements had changed. The father was asked to become the official grain buyer for the country. He was to take charge of the new elevator in Osage. The family changed from farm to village, renting a house on the edge of town.

The family returned to the farm after a year. The wheat harvest was in jeopardy from the chinch bug. Hamlin went to Cedar Valley Seminary for two years. Grain buying had declined with grain growing and the border was moving. Many of the settlers were going to Dakota.

Hamlin and his brother Franklin went to Boston and various places on the East Coast. Broadway in New York seemed to be an abnormal congestion of human souls. Later Hamlin took a job being a school teacher in the Midwest. He was persuaded to go to Boston to study literature and found himself in a school for oratory, and with the passage of time, a teacher of literature himself. Returning West after seven years he saw that every house had its stamp of solid strugge. As to pioneering, the free land was gone. Garland was excited to meet William Dean Howells and to be considered by him a fellow writer.

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.

Robert Whtiing, the author of two classic books on Japanese baseball, writes on the cover blurb that Reaves' book is "an important, groundbreaking work of reserach. It will be the sourcebookon the subject for years to come."

I couldn't agree more. This is an awesome book.

I am a Taiwanese PhD student doing research on Taiwanese amateur baseball in Warwick University, England. I have just received the book yesterday. It is very informative, but the part on Taiwan there are a lot of misconceptions by the author and misinformation provided by Taiwanese authority, who is trying to cover up the dark side of Taiwanese amateur baseball. For instance, Hungyeh played the 'World Champion' Wakayama little leaguers. Acutally they were not the 1967 'world champion' squad that most people believed they were (p141). The Taichung Golden Dragons was no way near Taitung Hungyeh, you have to cross a big mountain to reach Taitung from Taichung. Those two counties were not even connected. Moreover, Golden Dragons only contained two aborigine players. (p142) From the outset the Taiwanese LLB squads has been plagued by irregularities that violated LLB rules every year. Obviously one reporter of New York Times tried to defend Taiwan's wrongdoing by claiming 'Taiwan authorities has the stricest household registrations'. This is not true. From my research, government always turned a blind eye to under-the-table recruitment and even gave a helping hand through which schools could easily lure players from other counties. LLB officials could not discover the wrongdoings because they were not in Taiwan, nor could they speak or understand Mandarin Chinese. (p144-145) Tan Shin-ming was firstly signed by a Japanese professional team and went to SF Giants on an exchange player scheme. (p147) On the same page, the decline of Taiwanese amateur baseball is not the result of charges of cheating from the US. I will argue because of the sedentary culture of Chinese Confucianism, it prompted parents not to send their kids to take up exercise, not only in baseball, but other kinds of sport. On page 150, Sadaharu Oh is not a Taiwanese-born player, actually he was born in Japan and can not speak a word of Mandarin. The only connection with Taiwan is he is still holding a passport of Republic of China, because his Mainland Chinese father was a Chinese and hoped his son could continue holding Chinese passport.

As stated above, I am writing a thesis about Taiwanese amateur baseball under which many appalling conditions occurred, including over-training, fabrication scandals, vicious under-the-table recruitment, lack of education, just to name a few, all of which will subvert the beautifil images held by common people. Some Taiwanese people already accused me of unethical because you do not turn back on your country. But my intention is to expose the dark sides of Taiwanese amateur baseball and let people know it is not right to train and use student players in this way....

I do not have a wonderous,nor knowledgeable background about baseball. But I am learning the sport and I am visiting foreign lands,...This book is very fascinating for me.

...With their closer pitcher, Kim, coming to Arizona from Korea, I became interested in learning how other countries reacted to baseball. This book was very easy reading and I didn't feel left out because of my meager background in baseball.

Any one who wants to learn more about other cultures needs to read this book because sports is very much a part of culture and baseball, the all American sport, is no longer just that.

Thanks for a great, entertaining, yet highly factual and informative book!

The strength of Hervey Allen's "Toward the Flame" as a war memoir lies in its being a first-person narrative, with all the seeming immediacy and honesty that firsthand experience affords. We remember George Santayana's warning against the more academic third-person alternative: "History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there."

Allen allows a "you are there" window into the daily life of WWI combat (Second Battle of the Marne) during six summer weeks in 1918. Missing is the familiar focus on stalemated trench warfare that characterized other battles. For most of the memoir, Allen is actually on the move through once-picturesque hilly regions of France, but usually in the more peaceful wake of front-line units. The end of the memoir finds him in the intense "Flame" of Fismette fighting.

Allen's matter-of-fact tone owes something to the blunting effects of memory (the book was published in 1926) but perhaps also to a healthy skepticism about fighting a war largely within European nations and their colonies. Christendom was attacking itself, with the YMCA standing-in for the ineptness of the church itself, "selling gum drops and cakes when civilization hung in the balance." Allen contemptuously notes that "As a matter of fact, there was little else it could do, and that in itself was a great comment." It is to Allen's credit that he doesn't allow later research and speculation about the larger picture to infiltrate his direct experience account.

There is no mention, for example, of WWI's other (and some would argue more significant) battlefield: the fight against militaristic Islam represented by the Ottoman Turks. After all, the war started in the Balkans. The lasting triumph of WWI was, for some, not the defeat of Germany and its allies, but the Crusader-like retaking of the Holy Lands. Who will forget the photograph of General Allenby victoriously entering Jerusalem?

Then, too, Hervey Allen's biographical fascination with Edgar Allan Poe is partly owing to Poe's having enlisted in the US Army as a private, rising to Sergeant Major of Artillery, and later attending West Point. Poe's preoccupation with phantasmagoria resonated well with the horrific images of Allen's combat experiences late in WWI. Throughout "Toward the Flame," the reader can almost feel the pull-and-tug between the accustomed innocence of comfortable America and lurking realities otherwise neatly purged into peripheral consciousness.

Poe's successful formula continues to work in media today. We see folks, youth particularly, flirting with the scary and violent--but indirectly, through no-risk admitted "fiction" such as horror movies, violent computer games, and monster-type toys. It seems healthy to see children fighting to keep from being smothered by too many well-meaning but sugar-coated animations and holiday fantasies, as well as Disney-style escapes into a peaceful-kingdom falseness, none of which correspond with "the way God made the world."

Passing many German graves in his march toward the front allows Allen to reflect on larger issues otherwise denied in the overweening literalness of combat itself. He notes an epitaph on one such grave (markers in WWI and WWII were crosses, not just tablets as we find today in national cemeteries): "He was a good Christian and fell in France fighting for the Fatherland, `Heir ruht in Gott.'"

Looking further, Allen cannot help but speculate on what seems to be the waning mission of European culture: "Verily, these seemed to be the same Goths and Vandals who left their graves even in Egypt; unchanged since the days of Rome, and still fighting her civilization, the woods-people against the Latins. Only the illuminating literary curiosity of a Tacitus was lacking to make the inward state of man visible by the delineation of the images of outer things."

Hervey Allen's memoir is certainly one of the finest personal narratives of World War One, and perhaps the best American memoir of that war. In my opinion, it is a neglected classic. The narrative covers his unit's march from the area around Chateau Thierry in July 1918 to the Fismes/Fismette area in August. The book begins with Allen's unit on an almost bucolic road march through unspoiled French countryside, and ends with its virtual decimation in Fismette. As the title suggests, the closer Allen and his comrades get to Fismette, the more intense the action, until they are literally facing the fire of a German flamenwerfer attack. The story ends abruptly; in a preface to the second edition, Allen compares the ending to a filmstrip burning out suddenly.

Allen, a novelist and poet, was a keen observer; he gives the reader a vivid picture of what it was like to be an AEF soldier in France. Particularly compelling are his descriptions of the shattered homes, farms, and buildings that his unit occupies as it moves forward, and what they tell him about the original French owners, and the Germans who, in some cases, have left the premises just minutes before.

Hervey Allen is at his finest in this carefully crafted memoir of his time as a soldier in France. While he is best known as author of the sweeping historical fiction Anthony Adverse, which was a best seller in the 1930s(and later a pretty mediocre movie), he proves in Towards the Flame that he is also able to communicate great depth with an economy of words. This book illuminates that far away time in which young men went off the to fight the Last Great War for reasons that now seem so trivial and also gives a wonderful sense of the French countryside from the perespective of a young soldier. I believe that this book is a hidden treasure of American literature that deserves to be rediscovered.

As a great (x3) grandson of Eliza Spalding, I found this book (and "Memoirs of the West", by Eliza's daughter) to be very hard to put down. When I did, all I wanted to do was tell my daughters about the women in their family. I came across this book doing a search of ancestors, and benefitted greatly from the work done by Karen Rico, whose review is above.

This is a story of tough people, who, amazingly, held on to their religious convictions through every test possible, even the threat of ugly death. Once again, truth is more outrageous than fiction.

As a great-great-greatdaughter of eliza hart spalding, I found the book very informative and enlightening. I never realized the perils and problems that being the first white women in a land of natives that could be encountered. Both Narcissa and Eliza had courage and strength even though they seemed to have different personalities. The author was very informative and he backed his findings whenever possible with historical fact and copies of letters and diaries. I found that I was able to visualize the trek across the country and the life that these women had to endure by being missionaries. The author even noted the problems between Catholics and Protestants during that time.

As Eliza Spalding's great-great grandaughter, I was deeply moved by the account given of Eliza and Narcissa's journey into the rugged and primitive Northwest territory in 1836. In our current age of technology, where knowledge of the unknown comes to us in full color without direct experience, it is unimaginable to consider two young women,driven from family and loved ones by their devout spritual quest,brave enough to endure the rigors of exploration. Mr. Drury's words both enlightened me and filled me with pride to be connected to one of these relatively unknown heroines. I will recommend this book to my high school students, to draw on the example of the courageous role modeling illustrated by the lives of both Eliza and Narcissa. In light of their fearless independence and their unparalled commitment to a cause greater than themselves, they teach us much about the human spirit. One may need to rethink the origin of the women's liberation movement as the pages of this book are turned, revealing the strength and enduring power of Eliza and Narcissa.

Roosevelt does quite well to capture the essence of what went on during the period when the colonists began westward. The point made by the editor that it is indeed a wonder that this work was ever created at all is well taken when one considers Roosevelt's involvement with so much else in his life while he produced what, for the time, was a very scholarly opus.

One must be patient with the narrative; it tends to be choppy. One must also be patient with, or at least understanding of, TR's view of the world and especially his notion of upon whom the greater glory of the westward expansion rests.

All in all, it is seemingly a must read (as is the entire series) for anyone having either an interest in the history of this time, or an interest in TR and his works.

Theodore's Roosevelt's "The Winning of The West" volume one is unlike most modern histories. His is a story of the founding of the American Republic West of the Original 13. This volume is of the late Colonial Period. He is unafraid to make very harsh judgements, attacking both the American Indians and the Pioneers, although it is clear who he favours. He does have many prejudices, but, to be honest, most Historians do. President Roosevelt's were just of the less respected, today at least, kind. The whole series is very much worth reading, and is a worthy investment of capital and time. Ryan M.

Before Roosevelt begins sensationalizing in the second volume, he describes the utter wilderness of the region and characterizes both the individual settlers and Indians who would play decisive roles in the settlement and migration of whites westward, and also gives sweeping portraits of the Indian nations encountered during our westward expansion. The hardships of the settlers due to the ruggedness of their new mountain home, their self-reliance, the cold winters, the need to fell forest for pasture and tillage, the daily peril of Indian attacks, and the distant relations with their origins to the east complete this wonderfully written and diversified study of early American frontier life.

I found this book nicely organized..... a good resouce for further research. The thought of one going through thousands of letters and journals is overwhelming to me, but there is no other way to get this overall picture of what it was like to be a woman in this country, during this period. I will keep this book forever and refer to it often. Thank you M.E.M., etc for your gift.

This book does a marvellous job of detailing the effects of the Civil War on almost all classes of women: Northern, Southern, rich, poor, those who actively took part as nurses, spies, and actual combatants, and those who were "only" effected as the battles caused major disruptions in their lives, those whose lives were relatively unaffected, those who were forced to work in factories, those who turned to prostitution, and others. Well-written, well-researched, well-organized. Highly recommended.

Massey's book was a pioneering effort in its time, and we should all be thankful for that. At least it is a welcome point of departure. But the introduction by Jean Berlin is lacking much in the way of insight or understanding. A more experienced scholar might have presented a richer analysis.

"Year in Nam: A Native American Soldier's Story" is a memoir by Leroy TeCube, a Jicarilla Apache from New Mexico. He served as an infantryman in the Vietnam War from January 1968 to January 1969. TeCube fills this book with many details about the daily life of an infantryman in a war zone: being in a firefight, undertaking a combat air assault, walking point, etc. He discusses the weapons they used. The story is told in a straightforward style that is considerate of the general reader. For example, the author stops to define or explain such military terms and acronyms as "MOS," "tracer round," and "concertina wire."

TeCube does not flinch from describing the horrors and loss of war. But he balances out the narrative by discussing some of the humorous and friendly activities of the troops. He discusses the encounters, both positive and negative, he and other troops had with Vietnamese civilians. Along the way he offers many observations on the plants and animals he observed in Vietnam.

An important theme of the book is how TeCube's Native American heritage and identity provided him with an anchor in this dangerous, challenging environment. Particularly interesting are his accounts of how both other U.S. troops and Vietnamese people reacted to his Indian appearance. TeCube discusses his ethnic identity and its impact on his combat tour in a matter-of-fact way. Another important thread that winds through the book involves leadership and soldiering skill; we see TeCube move up the ranks as he gains experience in combat. Overall, this is an interesting memoir that brings a valuable perspective to the rich canon of Vietnam War literature.

Having done a tour myself, I have seen the movies and read several books that have come out about the war in Viet Nam. Nothing, and no one, has been able to authenticate the reality of the day to day operations of search and destroy missions, the monotony, the high levels of alertness, the camaraderie, the tragedies, and the senseless pain and suffering that took place on both sides, until now. Leroy does a superlative job of describing the feelings of the GI and those of the Vietnamese. His description of events are factual yet without sensationalism, a manner that can only be told by a seasoned combat veteran who became immune to the catastrophic events that surrounded him, as a means of survival, both physically and mentally.

This is a must read for anyone who served in I Corp or the Americal. You will again feel yourself walking through the paddies, on the trails, smelling the odors of the villages, or hugging a rice paddy dike as the sniper rounds were in-coming. This book truly describes the reality of the life of a combat infantryman (grunt) during the war in Viet Nam.

In very straightforward, understandable prose, Mr. Tecube has captured the essence of the daily horrors and futility of America's presence in Vietnam. The real heroes of the book are the members of Leroy's platoon. They're a bunch of American kids that really didn't want to be where they were but tried to do make the best of a tragic situation. What's refreshing about Tecube's approach is that he's not out to condemn the soldiers, the politicians, or the enemy. Yet he's able to convey a sense of the absurdity of the situation and still maintain his dignity and objectivity.

I've read a number of books about Vietnam but none conveys the sense of what it was really like the way Tecube does.

What a wonderful compilation! Benemann has done a great job of roping in important historical tidbits with the correspondence and journal entries he includes. It's well-controlled and well-edited, yet expansive (if that makes sense). My only disappointment was not being able to know more about the writers' lives (--no fault of the editor, since such information is unavailable).

What a wealth of information the Bancroft Library must include! (This from a San Francisco native and Berkeley grad--but I must say that one needn't be a "local" to appreciate this). The themes of the Gold Rush era--entrepreneurism, adventure, overcoming obstacles, wonderment--will resonate with everyone. If you are at all interested in California history, this is a must-read.

(Side note to fellow Californians: I first saw this book on a visit to the California history room of the Sacramento Public Library, and was so engaged that when I returned home I immediately ordered it from Amazon. The Sacto library has a wealth of original mss. as well as books like these. I encourage a visit to this treasure-trove)!

There is nothing more enticing than reading someone's diary or letters--especially when you know that the writer is a real person. For this reason alone, Benemann's compilation is mouth-watering. If, on top of this voyeurism, you are intersted in Gold Rush history, then this is the book for you! Benemann does a noteworthy job of roping together accounts of Argonauts and their experiences under common themes so that the individual contributions don't seem disjointed. As a native San Franciscan who was reared constant tidbits of California history (even as a college student with access to the Bancroft Collection), I was neverthless surprised to learn so very many new things about my City.

My only complaint is that I would have liked to know more about the writers themselves. I believe that this is not the fault of Benemann, but rather that more of their personal history is not available.

Side note to fellow Californians: I first came upon this book at the Sacramento Public Library in their beautiful history room; I ordered it from Amazon as soon as I returned home. The library has a positively astounding collection of letters, mss., and maps that kept me enthralled for hours.

Would you like to have seen the Bay Area when it was still wilderness? When Elk and grizzlies roamed the hills of Marin County, and the native wildflowers grew so thick on the slopes of Angel Island that their perfume was almost nauseating? Perhaps you'd just like a chance to have been in San Francisco when you could still buy a lot in the Financial District for $200? In The Year of Mud and Gold, William Benemann gives you the chance to experience all that and more. Through the journals and letters of California's first American settlers, we are able to re-live California's glory days. Like Benemann's editorial commentary, most of the letters are extraodrdinarily well-written, and paint a vivid picture not only of the Paradise that was the Bay Area, but also of daily life in the frenzied early years of the Gold Rush when were trying to create a new society and civilization in a wild land where the only law was that of supply and demand.