South America Books

An interesting biography of a man dedicated to the agricultural independence of the West. I also enjoyed reading about the details of dam building coupled with the sacrifice of the workers to acomplish these magnificent feats of engineering. Reading about the life and hardships of the workers on Hoover Dam, during the Great Depression, was very educational. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a good biography or learn about the engineering challenges of dam building.

This beautiful book was published in conjunction with the exhibit of the same name which was on view at the Bavarian State Library in Munich, Germany, from 10 April to 27 June 1992. It has 92 full color illustrations, 96 duotone illustrations, along with text by some of the world's foremost scholars of 16th century cartography.

Included is the oldest surviving map of America, drawn by Juan de la Cosa in 1500; Gerardus Mercator's 1569 world map, which was the first to use parallel lines of latitude and longitude, plus dozens of others. Indexed and bibliographed.

Whereas, Alexis de Tocqueville offers his perspective on America as an outside observer, the literary genius James Fenimore Cooper offers his assessment of culture, politics and society in 19th century America. He doesn't hold democracy to be sacrosanct like we do today, but rather like any other system of government with its advantages and disadvantages. His look at the nature of liberty and its relation with equality is particularly intriguing.

He is cognizant of the dangers posed to American self-government, which values legal equality. Equality, is a virtue, only insofar as it pertains to equal rights and equality before the law. Any effort at establishing equality of outcome is tantamount to tyranny and opposed to liberty. Cooper illustrates the precarious relationship between liberty and equality. Unless, tradition, custom, the rule of law and the Constitution are revered and upheld- the American Polity could easily collapse into majoritarian tyranny under a demagogue.

One gains an appreciation of the system of government established by the American founding fathers after reading this book... They established a constitutionally-limited federal republic, with limits not only on the power of government, but with limits placed on the power of majority rule, so as to limit the fundamental role of government to protecting the rights of its citizens. This constitutional republic sought to balance out monarchial, democratic, and aristocratic elements...

José E. Limón explores what he calls the "conflicted yet enamoured" relations between Greater Mexico and the United States through a series of encounters - real and imagined - between Mexicans, including Mexican Americans, and Anglos.

Limón sets the scene with a surprising, original comparison of Mexico and the U.S. South. Both were based on agricultural economies, slow to industrialize, poor, and defeated in major wars. The winners stigmatized the losers as culturally inferior. But the artists and intellectuals of both the U.S. South and Greater Mexico reversed the negative stereotypes assigned them. The "losers" didn't see themselves as degraded, but rather "projected a profoundly eroticized and affirming vision of their cultures as more bodily intense, inherently `artistic,' and sensuously spiritual." How these images change over time, who is doing the changing and for what purposes, are themes of this complicated, rewarding book.

Going to the movies with Dr. Limón suggests that, at least on the big screen, we've come a long way. In 1953, High Noon presented a strong, ethical and morally superior Helen Ramirez, a woman loved and desired by the sheriff Will Kane, but to whom he lacks the moral courage to commit himself. Helen Ramirez, as town madam, is politically and economically a step above the sexy "señoritas" Anglo cowboys lusted after in popular culture, but still marginalized, stigmatized, and relegated to what we now call "the sex industry." The 1956 movie Giant gave us the serious Juana, who is not defined by her sexuality, but by her work and seriousness of purpose. Juana does not suffer from forbidden love, but marries Jordy Benedict, son of the wealthy ranchowners Leslie and Bick Benedict. Juana and Jordy have a son who will be a leader in the emerging, more equal Texas. By 1995, Lone Star showed the smart, well-educated and sexy schoolteacher Pilar and her Mexican-American community politically ascendant in their community. Pilar romantically encounters her old flame, Sam, the soon-to-be-former Anglo sheriff, as his complete equal.

"We do our best political work," asserts writer Anne Finger, "at the place where hurt and questioning come together." We could hardly find better proof than in Limón's discussion of Katherine Anne Porter's short story "Noon Wine." Porter, a writer who Limón clearly admires, grew up in Central Texas and was drawn throughout her life to Mexico and Mexicans. But in her fiction set in Central Texas, she completely ignored her Mexican American neighbors. Why?

The easiest answer is that Katherine Anne Porter, while a great writer, was poisoned by the racism of her time and place. Limón takes this possibility seriously, but is not a man who ever settles for the obvious. Pushing beyond the surface, he wrestles to find another solution to Porter's painful omission. Limón's struggle, while poignant, yields an answer that may or may not convince you. What is admirable is Limón's almost overwhelming generosity of spirit. He wants to give Porter every benefit of the doubt. Applying the same quality of devotion with which he restored the unpublished fiction of Jovita Gonzalez, Limón now attempts to restore Porter's actual, but unrealized (perhaps unconscious) intentions to portray Mexican Americans sympathetically and respectfully. The world would be a much different place if we gave one another a thimbleful of such attention: listening for the best, trying to understand (though not to excuse) even the most hurtful failings.

Gustavo Perez Firmat (on the book's back cover) promises that "Limón writes with passion and precision." That promise is more than fulfilled in Limón's discussion of Manuel Gamio. Limón defends Gamio, a Mexican anthropologist, intellectual and activist, against recent rather blunt charges of "racism," charges which are either thinly substantiated or not substantiated at all, depending on whom you believe. With great care, Limón insists on getting the facts right, particularly since someone else's moral and intellectual reputation -- someone else's honor -- is at stake.

So what are we Texas Mexicans and Anglos to each other? Family? Partners? Enemies? Friends? John Sayles, whose film Lone Star Limón so much appreciates, mixes metaphors: we are family, at least half-siblings, but we are also once-thwarted lovers who are going to try to make things work out this time, in a landscape of political and cultural equality.

Limón, through most of the book, tends towards the metaphor of marriage, or at least romantic or sexual pairings. He undercuts the marriage metaphor in his last chapter, however, pointing towards a wider range of possibilities for equal, creative, formative, non-repressive and erotically charged relationships. It is not only particular individual Anglos and Mexicans, but our cultures and nations, that Limón hopes will "encounter" one another in equality, respect and pleasure.

Reading American Encounters, I often felt like an inexperienced trailrider following a skilled horseman. The beginning was rough. Our guide seemed to have forgotten that not every rider can make her way through thickets (of literary criticism, psychoanalytic theory and cultural studies) that he negotiates gracefully. My head almost got lopped off a few times by low-hanging branches with names like Russell Jacoby, Herbert Marcuse, and Raymond Williams. Other moments provided a lovely, comfortable gallop across familiar territory made intriguingly new by Limón's observations. Then he picked up speed again. Irrationally, I crouched lower; dangerously, I dropped the reins. All I could do was hang on for dear life, grabbing fistfulls of mane. I yelled to our guide -- Slow down! Come back, Dr. Limón! Help! -- but he was much too far ahead to hear. I survived. Exhilarated by the end of the ride, which took me further and faster than I would have dared go on my own, I'm left with plenty of questions. The most pressing is: When can we ride again?

Like many worthy relationships, this book is complicated and a tad on the high-maintenance side. But it's worth the effort. Limón is never predictable and always provocative. This eloquent, vulnerable, passionate and brilliant book is a delight even when (perhaps especially when) you find yourself arguing with its author. Enjoy.

AMINEW1C - ARBA - May08
[...]

Mathews, Sandra K. American Indians in the Early West. Santa Barbara, Calif., ABCCLIO, 2008. 327p. illus. index. (Cultures in the American West). $65.00. ISBN 13: 9781-85109-823-1.

The American West has a special allure for students of all ages. Without adequate background reading, we can easily buy into the mythology of the West, which has been successfully neutralized by the "New Western History" scholars, like Richard White. With the Cultures in the American West series, ABC-CLIO adds to the new west history movement, introducing titles such as Hispanics in the American West (see ARBA 2006, entry 353) and Women in the American West (2008) that highlight minorities and their unique contributions to the history of the land between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean.

Each of the titles in the series, according to the series editor, is written by an expert in the subject, and American Indians in the Early West is evidence of that. In a thorough preface, Sandra K. Mathews outlines her academic credentials, including a Ph.D. from University of New Mexico; a dissertation on Pueblo Indian land rights; books, chapters, and articles on Native Americans of the West; and an associate professorship at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Although the author was schooled in the southwest and spent her formative academic years researching the native populations of that region, she has recently published a monograph on a life in Alaska, which helped develop her interest in the indigenous population there.

American Indians in the Early West is ideal for the student who needs a chapter-length introduction to indigenous populations and their interactions with non-Indian populations in each of four broad geographic regions: Rio Grande Valley and beyond, from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Saint Lawrence to the Rockies, and from the Aleutians to northern California. In addition, the author has included an informative and lengthy (one-third of the book) chapter that outlines origination and migration theories for all of the distinct regions of the West and a short concluding chapter on historiography. Each chapter includes interesting insets (e.g. "Childhood as a Crow Indian," "The Tlingit Social Structure," "Environmental Consequences of the Fur Trade"), a bibliographic essay, and images. As with the other titles in this series, American Indians in the Early West includes maps, a chronology, a selected bibliography, a glossary, and an index.

The main question facing the bibliographer is not whether or not to buy this title, but where they should put it. Because it is text-rich, many selectors will want to add it to the circulating collection, but it also clearly has reference value and will help supplement a student's textbook reading. Since the price is reasonable, libraries serving strong Native American history programs may want to buy two copies.--John P. Stierman

This volume by Hollinger and Capper is the first of two in their ambitious goal to "round up" and compile a representative sampling of documents in American Intellectual History. They succeed brilliantly.

Volume I logically starts with the Pilgrims and ends with the Civil War and is divided neatly into component chapters with contributions from John Winthrop, Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards ("Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is just breathtaking...), Ben Franklin, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams (the founding fathers section), on through Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson (Transcendentalism), to Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody to John C. Calhoun, George Fitzhugh, Martin Delaney, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.

The editors provide a small biographical sketch of each author that precedes the selection and the selections track a wide range of issues including race relations, relations between the North and the South, the enfranchisement of women, American exceptionalism (Winthrop's "City on a Hill"), the formation of the United States, transcendentalism (the seedling for America's first original philosophy, Pragmatism). These issues are picked up later and expanded (or concluded) in Volume II of the work.

Volume II of Hollinger and Capper's work is as excellent as the first.

Volume II contains contributions from American writers such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Susan Sontag, Malcolm X, Rienhold Niebuhr, Noam Chomsky, John Crowe Ransom, Betty Friedan, John Dewey, W.E.B. DuBois, H.L. Mencken, Jane Addams, Woodrow Wilson, Samuel Huntington, etc.

Volume II traces the developments of race relations in America, the advancement of minorities and women in America, American foreign relations, insight into the state of the South after the Civil War, the effect of transportation revolutions on interstate travel as well as traces the development of Pragmatism, America's contribution to the world of Philosophy from Charles Sanders Peirce to William James to Thomas Kuhn to Richard Rorty.

Simply put, the topical treatment of this work is first rate and the collection of these various works is a creditable contribution to the field of American Intellectual History.

Discussing many American issues often not thought about. A well written explanation of the functions behind them and the players involved.

"The American Revolution"

Dr. Joseph C. Morton, Professor of History, Emeritus, at Northeastern Illinois University, has written a concise and thorough book entitled The American Revolution. This volume is one in a series of books in the "Greenwood Guides to Historic Events, 1500-1900" published by Greenwood Press.
Although this book is relatively small in volume at 218 pages, as opposed to texts such as The Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff at 700 pages, its small statute will not deter the reader from delving into a meticulous and truthful account of events that ushered in an "age of democratic revolutions."1
Morton's book commences with a marvelously detailed historical narrative overview permitting the reader to comprehend the political upheaval and disparity that led to the colonies actions prior to the dramatic military events of the Revolutionary War that ultimately gave America freedom from its English motherland.
What the book lacks is the details of the battles and skirmishes of the war. However, this is not a negative assessment of the book. It is obvious that the intent of the author was not to construct an all-encompassing volume on military tactics and battle particulars on the Revolutionary War. Dr. Morton's focus was to create a "survey" volume on the subject, which he has accomplished successfully. If a reader is seeking a detailed version of a battle, volumes on the market such as Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill by Richard M. Ketchum or The World Turned Upside Down: George Washington and the Battle of Yorktown by Richard Ferrie should be their focus.
In many books on the American Revolution and its aftermath, each author presents accurate historical events in his or her own light. Dr. Morton bestows to the reader a detail of the Boston Massacre, "... the famous, but misnamed..."2 This volume is one in a few that depict the truth of the "massacre" accurately with a small number of fatalities. One only needs to look at the engraving by Paul Revere in 1770 entitled "The Bloody Massacre" to understand how the entire event was blown out of proportion. Even in the American Heritage History of the American Revolution the detail and reality of the "Massacre" is not depicted in its authenticity. It is acknowledged only as a brief mention that the event was locally isolated and "...might have been buried except for...Samuel Adams..."3
A unique feature to Morton's book is the inclusion of a biographies section offering to the reader "a snapshot biography" on some of the main individuals in the revolutionary period. The inclusion of these biographies encourages further reading and research into this pivotal period of American history.
At the end of the book, (which would be an appendix) is a section that includes copies of many of the significant documents from the revolutionary period, each containing a small introduction on the document and its significance in the rebellion. For example, the Proclamation of Rebellion of August 23, 1775 demonstrates the colonies loyalty to the British crown by closing the document "God save the King"4 even after the incidents at Lexington Concord and Breeds Hill.
Conclusion
There is really nothing to criticize in The American Revolution. It is, in nearly every respect, an outstanding work of history. It is comprehensive in its' scope; thorough in its approach, obviously well researched and imbued with careful, thoughtful, and incisive historical analysis as noted in Morton's concluding interpretive essay.
With a plethora of excellent books written on the Revolutionary period, as historians, each book produces the authors view and story telling technique in a unique and varied way. I feel the only way to experience history is to read, analyze each volume on its own merit, and determine authenticity and content to meet our needs.
The American Revolution is a book that will delight the "hobbyist historian," students of history, both in the undergraduate and graduate level, and professional historian alike.
I must say in closing that Professor Morton's volume on the "necessary war"5 is by far one of the best complete and concise volumes of the topic that I have read. He truly is an expert in his craft of allowing us to enter "his world" of colonial America in its struggle for independence without bias and superfluous information.
The retelling of history is the art of enlightening and engaging the reader with stories that continue past our lifetimes. As William H. Hallahan states, "History is written not by the historians but by the people who lived it."6

The American Revolution: An Eyewitness History written by David F. Burg is a volume from the Facts on File Library of American History series and it is a beautiful volume indeed.

If a person wants a one volume history about the American Revolution complete with dramatis personae this is your book. This book has hundreds of first hand accounts of the period from letters, newspaper articles, speeches and diary entries from the people that lived through the period leading upto and including the was itself.

Everyyone should know the the American Revolution began at Lexington, Massachusetts, in April 1775, but did you know that if cooler head had prevailed and no bloodshed was to happen, things would probably have been different as the rift between colony and mother country would have been resolved. But, things were brewing in the colonies way before April 1775 as this fine book points out the Seven Years' War started in 1756 ended in 1763 was by its own right effectively decided the future of North America. Next, France and Great Britain, in May 1756 offically declared war and the rest is history as the saying goes.

Not only are there excellent firsthand accounts, but this book provides the reader an introductory essay preceding each chapter, thus, getting the reader up to speed. This book is written in chronological order and includes excerpts of some of the most dear documents in American History.

"The American Revolution" is well illustrated, well written, has capsule biographies of 90 key figures. There is a bibliography for more reading materials and an indea that helps the reader find many of the important references. All in all, you can't go wrong with this book in your personal library.