Virginia Union Books

I bought this book as reference material on the advice of an architect friend. He told me "If you need help figuring out the style of a house then buy this book" and he showed me his copy. He was right. The book is well organized which helps compare styles quickly and the many black and white pictures of houses that the author uses as examples are great because the b&w contrast helps your eye focus on details. This a great book to have in any architectural office. Its great for novices and experienced alike.

As a writer, you need lots of details to keep the reader interested, and this book has details on houses most people wouldn't know. Of course, if you give no details the story is not interesting, and if you give wrong details, some reader will know it and be disapointed. A book like this can be invaluable.

Great book!!! I'm using for my company to get a true representation of many styles for many of the house I'm designing. A great resource for any firm!!!

great at housing history
great describe for the house component
good picture to show handy book to show at real estate

After some introductory chapters on the history and theory of homebuilding, the McAlesters commence with descriptions of the different styles. Each major style is described with a large stylized diagram with its identifying features labeled, a description of the major subtypes, descriptions of the style's unique elements, a paragraph on the frequency and locations of its occurrence, some historical comments, and then dozens of black and white photographs. The styles are ordered roughly chronologically, from native dwellings and colonial houses in 1600 to the neoeclectric houses of the 1970s and 1980s. (Even my 2006 printing ended with the 1980s.)

I read the field guide cover to cover - something I never before done with a field guide. By the end, it seemed repetitive, but overall I was impressed with almost everything about this book from the introductions to the last diagrams. Every time I travel though a historical neighborhood, I am glad that I read this book.

At first glance, one might get the impression that the focus of this book and the immense amount of detail that's gone into it would make it more of interest to the historian or researcher than to the casual reader. That's not the case, however. Bradley Gottfried has written such compelling accounts of each of the brigades present at Gettysburg that anyone with any sort of interest in the battle will find the book not only informative but fascinating reading as well. In fact, the more I read, the more engrossed I became. The book is not just about logistics and tactics but very much about the soldiers doing the fighting; the human element is strongly felt throughout the book. Not only are the official records consulted, but newspaper reports, letters, memoirs, and diaries are also cited. Nearly 20 maps are also included depicting all aspects of the 3-day battle. So many books have been written about Gettysburg, but this one is so fresh yet authoritative and comprehensive that it ranks among the very best among them all. Highly recommended. (Hopefully a paperback edition is published, too.)

My library contains a number of Gettysburg books but this is the one most used. In very clear writing, each brigade's history including losses is summarized. Summarized is not the best word for this concise brigade history. The book is organized by army, corps, division and brigade. This groups units together and allows us to easily follow the higher-level unit too.

An excellent book that while very useful as a reference is an enjoyable read too. Well worth having but be prepared for requests to loan it out.

Maybe one of the best accounts of tactical and unit action available on this important epic American battle. I recently used it to visit Gettysburg and walked the terrain that Kershaw's brigade charged across. With the book the terrain came alive and accounts clear. A must buy for the very serious American Civil War reader.

The last half dozen books on Civil War subjects that I've bought have been published by Da Capo press, and I'm impressed with their work. From a company who used to specialize in reprints only, they have come along nicely.

This particular book is an amazing piece of work. When you page through this one in a bookstore as I did recently, the feeling of "I've got to have this one" comes quickly through your mind.

Of recent time, I've been reading more and more on the battle of Gettysburg, and when a chance arises to have a book that lists and discusses both Union and Confederate Brigades at the battle of Gettysburg it is amazing.

Dr. Gottfried has apparently spent much of his learned life dwelling on this battle, and this book comes on the heels of a couple others of his concerning this battle.

I would posit that anyone having more than just a passing interest in Gettysburg must have this book. By buying this one you move from a position of mere interest to one of in depth knowledge.

Several members of my family fought and died for the Union in Ohio Volunteer (OVI) units, and with this book I can track down their action with ease.

Recommended.

Bradley Gottfried's book, Brigades of Gettysburg, would be a nice addition to a person's Civil War Library. This would be especially interesting for those who want to know about key battles in more detail than one would get in a standard rendering of the battle. This book is kin to Larry Tagg's The Generals of Gettysburg, a volume that discusses the role of general officers at Gettysburg, including Army leaders down to generals/colonels heading the Brigade level. As a result, there is much brigade level information.

However, Gottfried's book provides more detail (it is almost twice as long as Tagg's useful volume). While some brigade level histories exist and spell out actions of units at Gettysburg in some detail (e.g., Wert's A Brotherhood of Valor, Nolan's The Iron Brigade, Parsons' Put the Vermonters Ahead), coverage of many brigades is very brief in the standard works on Gettysburg (Coddington, Sears, Trudeau, for example).

Thus, this volume provides useful coverage of the various brigades involved at the battle, even those not heavily engaged. For instance, Sedgwick's large VIth Corps was much less hotly engaged than the other Union Corps. Nonetheless, this volume lays out what the components of this Corps actually did during the battle.

The coverage of both Confederate and Union units is nicely done and the interested reader will be well rewarded for perusing this book.

We hear from all of the writers who wish the South won in the Civil War and lionize those who sided with their states against the Constitution, but finally we hear about a solid, capable, Virginian who stayed with the United States. General Thomas was greatly chastised by his friends and family because of his choice to remain in the service of the United States, very much like Admiral David G. Farragut, USN. His excellent service was underrated by General Grant but does in no way diminish his service to this country. His high point had to be in the victory at Chickamauga. Politics were as bad then as they are now in the senior ranks of the armed forces and once labelled as "overly-cautious" by General Grant, he was side-lined. Of note in the book was a comment made by General Thomas as the middle south's Occupation Commander as he worked to protect and bring citizenship to the Freedmen. He stated that he was bewildered as to why "southeners tended to violence rather than obey the law", and was sickened as he witnessed the rise of Jim Crow.

A very interesting book that shows the life of and the difficult career of General Thomas, a Virginian, who was a keystone to the success of the Union in the western campaigns.

General George H. Thomas was a Southern born Union officer who commanded the outstanding Army of the Cumberland and he was one of the great generals of the American Civil War. In military circles he will forever be known as "The Rock of Chickamauga". However today, for a number of reasons, he is relatively unknown to the American public.

Any author writing a biography of George Thomas is faced with a major hurdle in that most of Thomas' private papers were burned at his request when he died, and the fact that he died suddenly of a stoke soon after the Civil War which left no chance for a memoir. The author addressed these problems by relentlessly researching every collection of Thomas Papers available and reviewing as many private letters that he could. Other authors may have done this also, and used them to influence their writing, but Mr. Christopher Einolf has done more. He quotes from the Thomas letters giving the reader a glimpse of the real Thomas.

The author uses an understated writing style that I think would have been appreciated by Thomas himself. He lets the facts speak for themselves in many cases and lets his readers draw their own conclusions. However he is not shy about sharing any new understanding of Thomas that he has reached. His description of how Thomas' attitude about blacks changed, from one of a conventional Virginia land owner to a real Civil Rights advocate and that this change came not so much as an evolutionary process but more of a `frame-break' moment after the Battle of Nashville when he saw for himself how well his black troops fought, gives us a new major insight into the man. This view came as a revelation for me as I never agreed with some early Thomas biographers who assumed Thomas had some innate goodness in him that would not allow him to treat blacks unequally. With his aristocratic Virginia upbringing, it did not make any sense. To me Mr. Einolf's analysis rings true.

The author's battle descriptions and analyses are very good with the notable exception of the Battle of Chattanooga. He basically subscribes to the standard `miracle theory' or to luck, as he has the soldiers saying, for the great success at Missionary Ridge. He states that `military historians' say the artillery was badly placed, and that the Union soldiers could scurry up the ravines unseen by enemy soldiers. This may be true, but the author misses the point that the prime factor in winning the battle was the effort of General Joseph Hooker and the fact that Thomas delayed his attack as long as he could to allow Hooker time to flank the ridge from Lookout Mountain. Confederate veterans on high ground and in good defensive positions would ordinarily not have been worried about any Federal charge, but with the added knowledge that a Union Corps was marching across their line of retreat, they decided it was time to skedaddle. That aside, the author's description of Stones River, Chickamauga, Nashville and the other battles is very good and his conclusions are astute.

Mr. Einolf's chapters on Thomas' post war actions and decisions during the occupation and the early reconstruction periods are given the detail they deserve. The author shows how Thomas had a unique perspective on the situation due to his being a Southern gentleman, a Unionist and knowing first hand the qualities of the black men who fought for their freedom. These two chapters really differentiate this book from other Thomas biographies.

In his concluding chapter entitled "Thomas in Historical Memory" Mr. Einolf goes into the reasons for loss of Thomas' place in history. This makes for very interesting reading especially in what he has to say about the Southern Historical Society. While I personally think he is too mild with regard to Generals U. S. Grant and William T. Sherman in their treatment of General Thomas during the war and later in their memoirs which contributed to the loss of George Thomas in history, Mr. Einolf's opinion on this matter has merit.

Overall this biography is excellent and a very creditable addition to the literature on the American Civil War.

Anyone who is mildly interested in history should read this biography. Mr. Einolf has thoroughly researched George Thomas and while providing an extensive account of his life, he has managed to create a work that is entertaining. Civil War buffs should enjoy this work as it shares an interesting and valid view of loyalties to fellow man and country.

In reading about the Civil War, I was intrigued by the story of Union General George Henry Thomas. How fortunate that Christopher J. Einolf recently published George Thomas: Virginian for the Union. This book does much to introduce 21st Century readers to this once famous general who has pretty much dropped off the radar screen.

The background of George Thomas is very similar to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Coming from a prominent Virginia family, Thomas went to West Point, served in the Mexican and Indian Wars, and then taught at West Point. But unlike Lee, when the Civil War began, Thomas placed his oath to the Constitution above his loyalty to his family and his state and sided with the Union. He never saw his homestead or his sisters again.

While both armies had more than a few eccentric characters in key leadership positions (think Grant, Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, McClellan, J.E.B. Stuart, etc.), Thomas proved to be one of the most steady, consistent but understated generals during the Civil War. His friend and West Point roommate, William Tecumseh Sherman said of Thomas that "He was never brilliant, but always cool, reliable, and steady--maybe a little slow." After the war, Sherman praised Thomas as "the second-best general of the war, after Grant, and argued that Thomas was a better general even than Robert E. Lee."
His greatest successes were at the Battle of Chickamauga and the Battle of Nashville. His actions at Chickamauga helped to save the Union army from total annihilation and earned him the nickname, The Rock of Chickamauga. He finished the Civil War as the sixth highest ranking general in the Union army behind Grant, Sherman, Halleck, Mead and Sheridan.

While I found George Thomas: Virginian for the Union to be engrossing, it's very long on military information and short on personal facts. The reasons for this are the same reasons that Thomas is not very well known today. First, he had all his personal papers burned upon his death and he rarely spoke to his colleagues about his personal life. He never published his memoirs, unlike many of the key players from the war. He also was the first general to die after the war at the young age of 53 (in 1870). Three friends wrote biographies of Thomas after his death and respected his wish for privacy. This book doesn't even contain a photograph of his wife, Frances. Frances was also a very private person, and they had no children. While I would have preferred more personal information, I can't hold it against Einolf is very little is available to researchers.
But despite this shortcoming, George Thomas is still an excellent book and one that I would strongly recommend to others.

Volume 13 of the "Campaigns and Commanders" series, George Thomas: Virginian for the Union is the in-depth biography of one of the Union's most prominent and successful generals, who was at one time considered for overall command of the Union Army. Remembered today as the "Rock of Chickamauga", George H. Thomas was a slaveholding Southerner who chose to fight for the North, and his experience with the heroism of black soldiers on the battlefield forever changed his view of African-Americans, transforming him into a defender of civil rights. While George Thomas: Virginian for the Union makes a solid case for Thomas' integrity and competence, neither are Thomas' flaws and ill decisions neglected. Notes, a bibliography, and an index enhance this evenhanded appraisal of a truly remarkable commander.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Scruggs' book. It is written in such a manner that it draws the reader into the family circle while providing an amazing amount of detail into the history of the Legion and the personal recollections of Jud, the author's great grandfather.

I enjoyed reading Grandpa Scruggs' account of his experiences in Company K, Holcombe Legion of South Carolinians fighting for their state's freedom from the tyranny of the Union. The format of night time stories told by Grandpa Scruggs to his grandchildren kept a dramatic tension in the book that helped keep me reading. We learn about the courage and commitment of Judd and other soldiers to their cause. We learn of the hardships, boredom,and horror of life as a foot soldier. The ways captured soldiers were treated changed as the war progressed. Judd experienced both ways. Because of the personal focus of this book, we also learn how the war caught up extended families and effected them. We also get glimpses of life back at home while the men were at war. I highly recommend Eugene Scruggs' book.

Eugene Scruggs has made a valuable contribution to the history of the War Between the States with his account of the exploits of his great grandfather, Judson Puryear Scruggs, as an enlisted man in the Holcombe Legion, South Carolina Volunteers. To be sure, Scrugg's book is another in the "Johnny Reb and Billy Yank" tradition of oral history accounts from the point of view of the ordinary foot soldier. However, it is given context by a body of historical research, and a truly insightful introduction to some of this conflict's enduring themes. For many readers, the most interesting parts of the narrative will be those about life under horrible conditions in the POW camp at Elmira, NY, Judson's resourceful escape therefrom, and his traverse through enemy territory to Virginia.
In my opinion, however, as an avid student of the conflict rather than a professional historian, Scrugg's finest achievement was in his reconstruction of Judson's narrative within a quasi-fictional framework, in which he recreates not only the voice of his great-grandfather, but also that of the grandchildren who are auditors of the story. This teachnique not only creates a sense of immediacy in the flow of the narrative, but instills a kind of novelistic suspense which makes it enjoyable for the reader. This approach also permits Scruggs to render narrative as a truly "oral history," in that he has recreated the language of the period --- the regional dialect of 19th century Southerner. His handling of the artistic problem of the use of "eye dialect," moreover, is deftly handled: instead of generating pages of mangled orthography, Scruggs includes only occasional phonetic spellings, opting instead for the dialectal phrase, the idiom, and the speech rhythmns of his people. Professional historians may take issue with Scrugg's decision to treat his material in this way; other readers may enjoy it as thoroughly as I did.

Roger Cole
January 29, 2007

With the help of his older relatives, Gene Scruggs has gathered together the oral history left by his great grandfather, Sergeant Judson Scruggs, who served in South Carolina's Holcombe Legion during most of the Civil War.

Almost nothing has been written about this effective fighting unit which was organized early in the war by Peter F. Stevens, a former superintendent of The Citadel. 'Shanks' Evans, whose brigade included the infantry regiment of the Holcombe Legion, regarded it as his best fighting unit. During Lee's 1862 campaign, the accomplished Stevens often led Evans' entire brigade on the many occasions when Evans was posted to the divisional level.

In his stories, Judson recalls training camps around Charleston, the battles of Malvern Hill, Rappahannock Station, Second Manassas, Lee's First Maryland Campaign, Kinston (NC), and Jackson (MS). In the summer of 1864, the Holcombe Legion was detailed to guard the Petersburg & Weldon Railroad and (luckily) was not with Evans' Brigade at the Battle of the Crater. However, Judson was captured while guarding the Stoney Creek (VA) station and bridge and sent to the infamous Elmyra (NY) Prison. Perhaps Judson's most interesting stories recount his tunnelling out of prison in October 1864 and his experiences of running, hiding, and working his way home by late May of 1865.

Gene Scruggs includes glimpses of the daily lives of his Spartanburg District ancestors as he fashions the war stories as if his great-grandfather was telling them to his grandchildren in nightly installations. This is a "good read" for anyone interested in this troubled time in American history.

The Shot from the Mountain covers the tribulations and quests of an Appalachian miner struggling to improve his life and the life of his family. A world of which I knew little, peopled with characters I grew to care about. Realistic, memorable.

A great novel by a Ph.D.? You bet! And a good one at that. A shot rings out from the hills in a coal minning town in West Virginia killing the local big shot, Avery Murphy, by the protaganist, Clyde Fuller, whose best friend has just been murdered by Murphy. A borrowed gun, an ambush above the town, and only one person- though not a witness- knew who the killer was (he remained mum through the years).

These events set off a train of actions that takes you through the beginning of the great depression and including the beginning of the Roosevelt administration.

Claude S. Phillips who knew them thar hills as a native whose father was a miner, writes with a commanding authority in flawless grammar rarely found in a novel these days...and that without pedantry.

Meticulous in detail, the novel has all the prime elements of a great narrative: exposition, complication, climax, resolution, and conclusion.

At the start the setting is "Appalachia" before and during the Great Depression and the early days before John L. Louis and his United Mine Workers of America came on the seen. Early attempts to organize were met with violence from the coal companies, the violence of which Clyde is intimately involved. The suspense is gripping. The fear in the back of Clyde's mind that his crime will be found out dominates this young man's mind, giving the novel a thrust that grips the reader's attention through a divorce, two marrages, and the restless obsession of a man driven by an ambition to get ahead in life.

The characters are real and the reader is aware of a struggle for the very existance in the West Virginian coal mining town.

The ending has an ironic twist and an O'Henry-like ending.

The novel ends where it begins...but happily.

A Novel Set in the Appalachian Coal Fields of the 1920s and 1930s

Entitled The Shot from the Mountain: An Appalachian Odyssey, the novel was written by Claude S. Phillips, who was raised in the coal mine regions of West Virginia and is now a retired professor from Western Michigan University. The protagonist of the story is a fictional character named Clyde Fuller, but the setting is real: a time of bitter conflict between mine operators and miners over the latter's attempt to form a union in the southern part of the state. The story includes Fuller's role in two violent events, known historically as the Massacre at Matewan (where he thinks he killed a mine "detective" with a shot from the mountain) and the Battle of Blair Mountain. Other events include his heroic act connected with a mine explosion, his two marriages, his determined attempt to rise to a high position in the mines, and his confrontation with the brother of the man he thinks he killed.

Earl J. Hess's new "Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign" is as good a piece of Civil War scholarship as I have read in years. It is at the most fundamental level a narrative history of military operations in the Overland Campaign of May and June, 1864: the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, and Cold Harbor, but it is a narrative history that focuses particularly on how field fortifications evolved over the course of those six weeks of heavy combat and it details how the use of field fortifications influenced the course of that campaign. In his earlier volume, "Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War," Hess dispelled the old myths that such entrenchments were a direct consequence of the power of rifled-muskets or that their use suddenly sprang into being in the spring of 1864 (he documented three years of field fortifications, although not on such a scale as became standard by the end of the Overland Campaign) and that these entrenchments were somehow merely the fruit of the teaching of Dennis Hart Mahan at West Point. Or to quote the author: "The use of field fortifications evolved during the Civil War not due to some irrational fear, but due to a real and potent threat: the continued presence of an enemy army within striking distance. Their use was a rational and logical response to that threat."

Hess reserves most of the technical details of entrenchment and breastwork design for an appendix, leaving his main narrative fast-moving and compelling. "Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee" is an important contribution to Civil War literature and should find a ready spot on the bookshelves of any serious student of the era. I look forward to his planned third volume, to examine field fortifications during the Petersburg campaign.

Inevitably, it must be asked how Hess views the Overland Campaign in balance. Was it a Union or a Confederate success? Although Hess does not absolve Grant of errors in too hastily ordering attacks or in failing to recognize the power of impromptu fieldworks, Hess concludes: "Grant's most significant achievement in the Overland campaign was not in capturing territory, or in positioning his army close to Richmond, or in reducing the fighting strength of the Army of Northern Virginia by 50 percent; rather it lay in robbing Lee of the opportunity to launch large-scale offensives against the Army of the Potomac. In laying claim to the strategic initiative, Grant won an important physical and emotional victory over Lee, and he did it with fewer losses than his predecessors had suffered in attempting the same goal ... Most important, he did not give up the strategic initiative and thereby brought the war to an end. The Overland campaign was as much a watershed in the strategic course of the Civil War as the Seven Days."

By the time of the Overland Campaign, the star of Earl Hess's second volume on Civil War fortifications, the idea of bravery that most soldiers had when hostilities began had just about fizzled out. In that more innocent time, soldiers and officers thought it cowardly to hide behiind entrenchments, or anything else for that matter. Battles were about sticking out your chest and, in plain view of the enemy, marching and shooting. (For a good account of this transition, see Linderman's Embattled Courage.)

Three years of the harsh reality of war changed all that, and by the time of the Overland Campaign, troops on both sides were digging in fast and furiously whenever they got the chance. Aside from the Vicksburg and Petersburg campaigns, nowhere was the entrenchment so obvious as in the Overland one. Most Civil War buffs know about the entrenchments at Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. But many will probably be surprised (as was I) that entrenchments were also dug in The Wilderness and at the Bermuda Hundred.

Hess' account of the evolution of fortifications in this stage of the war is well-written and entirely accessible to the nonspecialist. He tends to protect Grant from the general's worst critics, arguing (much as does James McPherson) that the huge cost of federal lives in the Overland in fact did succeed in strategically defeating Lee.

The photographs are priceless. I've actually never seen most of them before. Moreover, the line drawings of fortifications and entrenchments are brilliant. All in all, highly recommended.

This is the second book in a series on fortifications in the eastern theater during the Civil War. The first book covers the war up to this point, while reading the first book is not required; it is worth taking the time to do so. 1864 produced a major revision in how digging in and fighting behind entrenchments is viewed by both armies. Open field battle gives way to fighting from behind entrenchments as both sides maintain close contact for months. The war is no longer open fields with a mile between the armies. Both sides dug into the earth often closer than skirmish lines were in 1862. The book details this change and the impact on the commanders and men.

The author continues working fortifications into the overall campaign giving the reader an excellent history of the Overland Campaign in the process. This presentation keeps the subject fresh while presenting the nuanced tactical differences in a logical sequential manner. This is very much a battle history but the emphasis is on how fortifications changed the campaign even as the campaign changed fortifications.

Earl Hess is one of our best authors. In this series and this book, he manages to give the reader a rich learning experience coupled with an enjoyable read. This is not a beginner's book but can be enjoyed by anyone with some knowledge of the Civil War.

This book represents an exhaustive and outstanding treatise in Pauline studies by J. Gresham Machen. Even after the better part of a century after these lectures were given, the book represents a monumental feat and is still one of the best studies of Paul in print.

Machen's lectures that are presented in this book were given at a time when Biblical criticism that rejected supernaturalism, Bible inspiration, and Biblical historicity was in full blossom. Many competing schemes had been developed to naturalize the musings of the Apostle Paul and to separate the Pauline epistles in every possible way from the alleged 'historical Jesus' of the naturalistic scholarship fad that prevailed in Biblical criticism at that time. This book represents a comprehensive rebuttal to many of these theories. Machen's critiques are complete; and they are devastating. By so thoroughly destroying the naturalistic theories that were forced onto Christianity in an effort to discredit it, Machen not only discredits these theories, he strongly affirms the orthodox tenets of the historic Christian faith in a very scholarly manner.

Machen, with relentless logic, systematically tackles several main thrusts of criticism and finds each of them wanting to the extreme. In the process, Machen discredits efforts to separate the religion of Paul from the religion of Peter, and thereby discrediting the view that the Christianity of Jerusalem and the Christianity of the dispersion were somehow different. This section was simply masterful, in my opinion. Machen then discredits theories that tried to contrast Paul and Jesus. These theories suggested that the Jesus of Paulinism was different than the real Jesus of Palestine. Again, Machen is relentless in discrediting this argument. Machen moves on to perhaps his best section, which is discussing the alleged pagan influences and/or origins of Paul's thought. Two complete chapters, and a portion of a third, are devoted to tackling this subject. In the process, the theories of Bousset, Bruckner, Reitzenstein and others are demonstrated to be an embarassment. Machen's treatment of the pagan influence issue here was probably the most resounding rebuke written until Nash's 'Gospel and the Greeks' was written in the late '80s. At a number of points, Nash draws significantly from Machen here, and put together, the two works represent a devastating case against pagan influences upon early Christianity.

Throughout this book, I was simply amazed at how thorough Machen was in considering so many objections and nuances that impact on the central question of the origin of Paulinism. I was also amazed that even though these lectures were given so long ago, they are extraordinarily relevant today. Yesterday's Boussets, Bruckners, and Reitzensteins are today's Crossans, Funks, and Borgs. The arguments are strikingly similar, and fueled by similar motivations - ie: to find a way to desupernaturalize Jesus Christ, the words of the Bible, and the Christian experience. This book by Machen, therefore, is truly timeless because it thoroughly discredited such arguments when they were in fashion 100 years ago, and can likewise be used by believers today to discredit the Jesus Seminar and other like minded contemporary 'scholars'.

This is not a book that the reader will be able to rush through. I found each chapter so engaging and so deep in its analysis that I needed to stop after each chapter because Machen had given my brain a serious workout. This is Reformed scholarship at its finest. Machen brilliantly shows that in an effort to 'demythologize' the Bible, naturalistic scholars are engaging in a great deal of myth-building themselves. The orthodox Christianity of the Apostle Paul is demonstrated to be in comprehensive harmony with the other apostles, the Old Testament writings, and the sayings of Christ Himself. An outstanding example of solid scholarship!

I have never seen a secondary source reference to this, but years ago I read an English translation of Bultmann's German review of this Machen book. Bultmann generally ignored works written in English, especially by Americans, and he despised the theology that people like Machen stood for. And yet he gave a long review where he acknowledged this to be the best book of its kind to appear thus far.

Extremely insightful and thorough. And the balanced and fair tone will surprise those unfamiliar with Machen's more scholarly writings.

A real classi c still well worth reading.

A very educational, historic book. After having visited Mount Vernon in VA, my kids and I were excited to find a kid's book about it. The book depicted George Washington's estate wonderfully and kept everyone's attention through the antics of "Liberty", George Washington's cat.

A charming glimpse of 18th century Mount Vernon through the eyes of a fictitious cat named Liberty. Captivating for children and adults.

I read this book ten or more years ago and honestly can't remember the details. What I do remember is the hope and encouragement I felt reading about brave people who cared deeply and passionately about their faith, yet felt compelled to follow a liberal path. As Americans of faith seem to slip farther and farther to the right, it encouraged me to continue to stand firm, both in my faith and in my liberal ideals.

Part of Oral Traditions Project-Covers broad spectrum of topics by 12 authorities including quilt historians,folklorists & social historians Virginia Gunn, Nancy Roanm Patricia Herr, Tandy Hersh, Jeanette Lasansky, Patricia Keller, Kathy Sullivan, Laurel Horton, Cuesta Benberry, Barbara Brackman, Mary Cross, Rachel Maines. Book Explores & chapters include Late 19th century dress fabrics & period quilts, Fabrics used by Penn-German Farm Families, Small piece, Appliqued, and Quilted Objects in Penn-German Household, Penn-German Pillowcase, Dowry Quilts, Lancaster County Marriage Quilts, German Quiltmaking, S. Carolina's Dutch Fork Textile Traditions, Penn-Dutch Patterns nationalisation in 1940s-1960s, Influence by Fairs & Expostions, Oregon Quilt Contest, Needlework Technology in Industrial Era - This is a serious scholarly study with full Bibliography for each chapter - good large examples of dress fabrics are pictured, rare objects like Amish birds from Mufflin County, Penn, Quiltmakers bios, quilt provonance are documented.