Wisconsin Books

If someone asked me to recommend a single book to read on Elizabethan England, this might well be the one I'd suggest. When I wanted to know about the workings of local government or the role of churchwardens or how the concerns of city and country people differed or how the religious settlement reverberated at different levels of society or any of a dozen other details of the workings of Elizabethan society, this was the source where I found the information I needed. I enjoy Rowse's writing style too--it is approachable and not stuffy in the least. He was a very opinionated historian (he loathed the Puritans, for example), but he was also quite open about his biases--and this openness, I find, just adds to the enjoyment of reading his work. (He was not, however, terribly sensitive to or sensible about women's issues--his "identification" elsewhere of the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's sonnets being a prime example--but that doesn't really enter in here, except for the fact that he, like most historians of his generation, doesn't much consider women's contributions to and roles in society.)

Larry Widen's "Entertainment in Early Milwaukee" is a photographic journey through Milwaukee, Wisconsin from the mid-1880s through about 1950. The book focuses upon the opportunites for leisure and entertainment the city offered and upon how Milwaukeans made use of them. Widen is an amateur historian who owns a movie theatre in Milwaukee. This book is part of the series called "Images of America" by Arcadia Publishing which preseves in books of photographs the legacy of neighborhoods and communities throughout the United States. In its 128 pages the book includes over 200 photographs together with annotations by Widen.

Most readers will want to approach the "Images of America" series through reading about communities with meaning to them. Thus, I was raised in Milwaukee and lived in the city through college and my early twenties too many years ago. Although most the period covered by this book is before my time, it still brought back memories by connecting me to places I once knew well. In my late teens, I spent much time walking through the city.

Quite separately from the subject matter of this book, I enjoyed seeing places and scenes from Milwaukee. I particuarly liked the many photographs which show the streetcars that served the city until they were displaced in full in 1958. The book brought me back to many places I knew such as downtown Milwaukee with its department stores and movie theatres, and the public library, where I spent a good many hours, together with the city museum and recently renovated city auditorium. I also enjoyed the photos of the State Fair grounds which, as Widen points out,looked much the same 100 years ago as they did when I visited the fair over 30 years ago and as they do today. There were also many photographs in the book of places close to my home, including Washington Park (unfortunately there are no photographs of the old Washington Park zoo), the Uptown movie theatre, which I went to for many a Saturday matinee, and the Times theatre, which is still in Milwaukee and owned by Widen. I went to the Times when I was in high school in the 1960s. During that time it showed art and foreign films. Besides these community landmarks, the book includes a photograph of the beginning stages of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, my alma mater, and photos of Marquette University near downtown.

Besides raising many memories, this book taught me a great deal about my former city. Widen's written introduction offers a good overview of the history of leisure activities in Milwaukee. He points out, for example, that Houdini got his start in Milwaukee and performed in the city several times after he became famous. I was pleased to read Widen's account of George Webb, who served inexpensive hamburgers in Milwaukee well before the advent of McDonalds, but there are no photos of Webb's hamburger parlors in the book.

The six chapters in Widen's book document the early nickolodeons and dime theatres from the turn of the century. There is also a rare photo of a cyclorama, "Grant and the Assault on Vicksburg" (p.19)Many readers will be familiar with the Philipoteaux cyclorama of the battle of Gettysburg, on display at Gettysburg Park, and it was good to be reminded that these panoramas were a popular entertainment form at the close of the 19th Century. There are many old pictures of Milwaukee's lakefront on Lake Michigan and of the vessels which once carried passengers to Chicago and other lake destinations.

Widen describes the amusement parks that were a preeminent feature of the city long before my time. I never knew they had been in the city before reading this book. I also didn't know about the extensive high-class brothels in Milwaukee during the latter part of the Nineteenth Century, but they have their deserved place in the book. Widen emphasizes the role of the brewing companies in branching out into leisure activities in Milwaukee, such as amusement parks, beer gardens, hotels, and restaurants. Some of Widen's photographs capture quiet domestic scenes, such as families having dinner together, couples taking walks through the park, and children playing with the family dog. With the advent of the automobile, people took Sunday drives to many of the lakes within a short distance of the city. I recall this, of course, from my own childhood before the price of gas, perhaps, has affected these excursions.

Many famous people visited Milwaukee. Considerable space is given in this book to photographs of dignitaries such as President's Eisenhower and Truman and of the many movie actors who, I was unaware, passed through Milwaukee for promotional tours. More than these photographs, however, I enjoyed the pictures of the residents of the city carrying on with their daily lives: shopping, working, listening to music,dancing, and learning. It brought a feel to me of the city I knew.

Widen's book will bring pleasure to anyone who knows Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Broader than its subject of entertainment during Milwaukee's early years, the book captures a good deal of life in the city.

Robin Friedman

Two decades ago, it occurred to me that the history of medieval Europe was singularly fascinating. From a very broad and rough perspective, it seems to me, the "ancient" world and the "modern", with their bureaucratically centralized states and relatively stable geographic configurations, have much more in common with each other than either of them have with the medieval European milieu, with its tangled tapestry of intersecting levels of power (the Church, the aristocracies, the royal dynasties, the towns, the monastic orders) and quixotically shifting political and ethnic borders. In this sense, it is a complicated fulcrum, pivoting civilization from the ancient empire to the modern nation state and world economy, and much of my reading has been an attempt to understand how this transition from ancient to modern worked. I should have started with this book. Reynold's provides an astonishingly complete picture of western Europe from the seventh to the eighteenth centuries, from the evolution of its basic geographic and ethnographic constraints and opportunities, to the transformations of power, technology and wealth that convulsed its patchwork of societies. In addition, he attempts a somewhat lower resolution, but just as ambitious inventory of conditions of the rest of the planet as it stood during Europe's breakout to transoceanic hegemony. Written forty years ago, it is striking to see just how nearly up-to-date he is on so many details of world history. Even more masterful is that he manages all this precocious breadth and accuracy in a work clearly directed to undergrads with little knowledge of history (there are no footnotes or references, centuries are referred to as, e.g., the "fifteen hundreds" rather than the "sixteenth century", etc.). Indeed, the writing style is breezy--almost conversational--and very often humorous. Eschewing theory for description, Reynolds nonetheless makes clear the various connections among phenomena such as trade fairs, the growth of towns, the spread of literacy, the power of the church--and a host of others. Unapologetically "eurocentric" (the subject, after all, is Europe), his treatment of non-European spheres is tantalizingly cursory and directed purely towards how they hindered or accommodated European expansion. In view of this, I was nevertheless struck by how closely his treatment of the rest of the world resembled other, much more recent, works explicitly designed as curatives to eurocentric approaches (such as Eric Wolf's brilliant "Europe and the People Without History"). If you are striving to grasp the "big picture" of medieval and early modern Europe, this book, despite its age, is an absolute--and immediate--requirement.

I knew little about poetry before reading this book. When I was done, I knew much more and was inspired to read more. Halpern is insightful and thorough here. His sections of analysis are well structured AND exciting. I finished the book wishing he had written more.

Wisconsin's river systems have been critical to the state's developmental history and continue to provide irreplaceable economic and recreational resources fundamentally necessary to insure the prosperity of the Badger State. Ranging from minor tributaries to major thoroughfares, Wisconsin's reviewers were the produce of glaciation and geologic conditions that helped to shape the landscape as we know it today. They served as transport Native American systems that were readily adopted and exploited by European settlers. They served as energy, food, commerce, and recreational sources and today offer memorable recreation experiences and essential ecological supports. In "Wisconsin Underground" Wisconsin author and academician Doris Green explored Wisconsin's caves and cave systems. Now in "Explore Wisconsin Rivers" she turns her expert attention to the beauty and history of Wisconsin's rivers and rivers systems in terms of both their history and their beauty. Personally traveling hundreds of miles of Badger State rivers, exploring their natural and cultural aspects, Doris Green (with the assistance of Michael H. Knight) has produced an informed and informative travel guide perfect for planning a recreational itinerary for enjoying what Wisconsin rivers have to offer. The format is the grouping of rivers according to which body of water they ultimately pour into. Section one offers four rivers emptying into Lake Superior; Section two showcases six rivers emptying into Lake Michigan; Section tree describes nine rivers running to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. Enhanced with occasional black-and-white photography, "Explore Wisconsin Rivers" is enthusiastically recommended as an essential guide for anyone interested in Wisconsin's river systems and is a core addition to both academic and community library Wisconsin Studies & History reference collections.

Compiled and written by Brett Barker, Exploring Civil War Wisconsin: A Survival Guide For Researchers is a practical, step-by-step guide presented especially for Civil War enthusiasts, genealogists, students, and other researchers. Offering tips, tricks, and techniques for taking maximum advantage of resources in the libraries, military and census records, published primary sources, newspapers, and the useful yet sometimes unreliable wealth of information to be found on the Internet, Exploring Civil War Wisconsin is enhanced with black-and-white illustrations combined with down-to-earth, practical advice, making it a "must-read" for dedicated Civil War enthusiasts and Wisconsin History researchers.

Fairlawn was originally a palatial Victorian mansion built by Martin Pattison on the shores of Lake Superior. It became a children's home in later years. Enhanced with dozens of period and contemporary photographs, Fairlawn: Restoring The Splendor documents the challenges, dedication, and demand for perfection that resulted in the restoration of this magnificent historic home from the strains and damage of generations of use and neglect that brought it to the brink of demolition. Fairlawn is strongly recommended reading for anyone with an interest in landmark architecture renovation and preservation -- as well as students of Midwest architectural history.

This is a demanding, scholarly book, but one which anyone interested in the historical causes of the Irish Famine should read. O'Neill focuses on a parish in Co. Cavan which has incredibly complete records, allowing him to portray the true nature of landholding and tenancy in the century before the Famine. In doing so, he counters some of the myths on both sides of the question about who was responsible for a potato blight becoming the killer of millions. The statistical information can be daunting, but the use O'Neill makes of it is eye-opening.

The new book "Famous Wisconsin Musicians" is consistently upbeat and historically informative. Madison music journalist and disc jockey Susan Masino impressively researches and documents the career stories of 32 state musicians, singers and groups, and provides more than 100 thumbnail sketches of other notable Badger music-makers. The profiles include Liberace, Steve Miller, Richard Davis, Ben Sidran, Al Jarreau, Eric Benet, Woody Herman, Hildegarde, Adrian Belew, Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads, Butch Vig of Garbage and Bobby Hatfield of the Righteous Brothers.
Masino gets the good story down better in her piece on legendary guitarist and instrument innovator Les Paul. She establishes a homespun tone with the tale of this gifted musical tinkerer who created one of the most popular electric guitars in history and devised the first electric amplified guitar.
With a full index, the book is an interesting read and valuable reference for anyone who cares about the local and national impact of our native musicians.

Kevin Lynch is an arts writer for The Capital Times.

This book is extremely well written and the illustrations are beautiful. I teach American History and would recommend this to anyone who loves the land.
Allman travels all over the Great Lakes region and the reader learns a lot about how the region took shape and the present state ot its ecosystem.
I gave it as a gift.