Average customer rating:
- A mind in time
- A disappointing book
- Text Book for Queer Theory
- More Leftist Rewriting of History
- You might as well just buy a tabloid...
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The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln
C. A. Tripp
Manufacturer: Thunder's Mouth Press
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1560259272 |
Book Description
For four years in the 1830s, in Springfield, Illinois, a young state legislator shared a bed with his best friend, Joshua Speed. The legislator was Abraham Lincoln. When Speed moved home to Kentucky in 1841 and Lincoln's engagement to Mary Todd was broken off, Lincoln suffered an emotional crisis.
An underground campaign has been accumulating about Abahram Lincoln for years, focusing on his intimate relationships. He was famously awkward around single women. Before Mary Todd, he was engaged to another woman, but his fiancée called off the marriage on the grounds that he was “lacking smaller attentions.” His marriage to Mary was troubled. Meanwhile, throughout his adult life, he enjoyed close relationships with a number of men — disclosed here for the first time, including an affair with an army captain when Mrs. Lincoln was away.
This extensive study by renowned psychologist, therapist, and sex researcher C.A. Tripp, examines not only Lincoln's sexuality, but aims to make sense of the whole man. It includes an introduction by Jean Baker, biographer of Mary Todd Lincoln and an afterword containing reactions by two Lincoln scholars and one clinical psychologist. This timely book finally allows the true Lincoln to be fully understood.
Customer Reviews:
A mind in time.......2007-09-30
Let me state the obvious. Each of us is a product of our time - of all the people and events we encounter, and the values of the societies we live in. So was Lincoln. So was Tripp. Current Gay and Queer identities are 20th cent constructs and could not have been embraced by Lincoln, nor does Tripp claim this to have been the case. Nor does Tripp present a view that all Gay people will see as politically acceptable - his work helped build the current identity but he was, himself, a product of another era. However, as Robert Aldrich and others have demonstrated, homosexuality is as ancient as humanity and exists in many forms across societies. Tripp gives a good portrait of a remarkable man coping with homosexual urges in an emerging nation. Tenuous though some of his arguments may be, his critics are, in many cases subject to the academic biases of reliance on surviving documentation (often ignoring context and the nature of covert behaviour), lack understanding of the experience of being in a hidden minority and even, in a few cases, rely on arguments that make Tripp's weakest sound strong. The truth is that here is meticulously well researched book that presents a convincing arguement but shows evidence of the author not having survived to do the last few re-writes that would have bought it up to his usual high standard.
A disappointing book.......2007-08-23
The world of Lincoln scholarship can be highly contentious, but controversy about this book relates to Tripp's use of evidence, not the topic he examines. My own specialty is Lincoln's pre-presidential life. Determining what happened in those years can involve surmise and supposition. I don't fault Tripp for lacking unobtainable proof. Even outright speculation can freshen thought.
I am concerned, however, by Tripp seizing a kernel of evidence, extrapolating from it, and pronouncing the resultant structure to be proof of his contention. For example, he finds a unique statement from Bill Greene noting that Lincoln had well-developed thighs. Tripp then turns to the Duncan and Nichols biography of Mentor Graham, a source I consider so unreliable that I have never dared cite it as authority for anything. Relying on an undependable source and a single comment from Greene, Tripp claims to prove a homosexual relationship between Greene and Lincoln.
Tripp extrapolates further and argues that because Greene became embarrassed when Lincoln introduced him to Secretary of State Seward as Lincoln's grammar teacher, that meant Greene was uneasy about his old homosexual relationship with Lincoln. Tripp considers and rejects the possibility that Greene said little during the meeting because he didn't want to reveal his poor grasp of grammar to Seward, thereby belying Lincoln's praise and humiliating himself. I find the possibility that Tripp rejects to be more plausible than the one he embraces.
Another type of reasoning is illustrated by Tripp arguing for a homosexual relationship between Lincoln and Joshua Speed because (in part) when Lincoln moved into their sleeping quarters, Speed failed to say anything about his admiration of a Lincoln speech. Tripp here assumes that because Speed failed to mention this in his account of his conversation with Lincoln, that absence means no conversation about the speech occurred. Lincoln and Speed may have talked about many things that Speed didn't mention (weather, crops, politics). Tripp seems to think that if an account doesn't say something happened, then it didn't happen. That's invalid reasoning.
Regarding Lincoln and Speed being bed mates, neither man was secretive about the arrangement, and some men Lincoln slept with had definite heterosexual orientation. Public comment about a politician's sex life was rare in that era, but I have seen examples in Illinois newspapers. If anyone had thought the Lincoln-Speed sleeping arrangement could be portrayed as homosexual, I think political opponents would have raised the issue regardless of whether they believed it.
We can speculate all day about Lincoln's place on the sexual continuum between heterosexual and homosexual, and speculate reasonably, but speculation isn't proof. Still, the topic is worthy. For me, the big disappointment in Tripp's book was in finding him wrong again and again about things I know about. If it had been the other way around I would probably have found the book exciting rather than frustrating.
Text Book for Queer Theory.......2006-12-11
Most art, literature and history is studied from the straight, white, male perspective. If a famous man professed his undying devotion to a woman and slept with her for years, SWM academic theory would presume the couple was sexually involved and use that as proof of heterosexuality. C.A. Tripp simply looks at the facts of Lincoln's intimate life from the position of a queer theory scholar. Interpreting findings from a queer point of view takes this book beyond the genre of biography and helps us understand how all historical theory about any minority has been skewed to fit a mainstream mold, disregarding history as it most probably was.
More Leftist Rewriting of History.......2006-02-21
What is it that propels peopel to reinterpret history? This book is so chock full of speculative flim flam. It is written by a person who is applying 21st century culture to 19th century culture. It was not uncommon for men to share quarters 200 years ago and ...GUESS WHAT? Not be gay.
The irrational claim this author makes is based on this one single premise:
"OOOH two men shared a room...they MUST have had gay sex!"
In the military I slept in very close quarters to other men, and NOT ONCE did I have any inclination of homosexual conduct. What is wrong with leftists? Why must everything be centered around sex? Is there anything else to life for them, than fleshly gratification? Good grief.
Lincoln had a close friend and shared a bedroom with him. AND? Does that AUTOMATICALLY mean he was gay? Cmon people!
Can you not see the obvious fallacy? It is a false conclusion. It is a desperate attempt by the left to twist history into something that suits them. Its taking a *REPUBLICAN* president and trying to make him into a liberal!
Hows this for the left? Lincoln advocated PRAYER in school. Next thing you know, the left will be trying to twist that around.
You might as well just buy a tabloid..........2006-01-27
...because that's all this erroneous piece of trash is. I'm not homophobic. I am against people trying to cash in on the name of a legendary historic figure simply to cause controversy, and thereby gain some extra dollars.
Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Tom Cruise and others can sue the tabloids when they twist stories. Lincoln's dead. He can't.
Just remember that.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Weekly Standard, published by News America Incorporated on January 17, 2005. The length of the article is 6022 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Honest, Abe? A dishonest book claims Lincoln as the first Log Cabin Republican.(Books & Arts)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Author: Philip Nobile
Publication:
The Weekly Standard (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 17, 2005
Publisher: News America Incorporated
Volume: 10
Issue: 17
Page: 31(8)
Article Type: Brief Article, Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Weekly Standard, published by News America Incorporated on January 31, 2005. The length of the article is 586 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: 'A rigorous scholar who cannot defend himself'.(Scrapbook)(Clarence Arthur Tripp)
Publication:
The Weekly Standard (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 31, 2005
Publisher: News America Incorporated
Volume: 10
Issue: 19
Page: 2(1)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Customer Reviews:
Good for What is Is, but Limited.......2007-02-26
The Images of America series is great for what it is, which is collections of historical photos you'd have a hard time finding collected anywhere, much less in print. Since Fort Ord is such a prominent part of the landscape over Monterey Bay -- literally and figuratively -- and the future disposition of much of it still very much an open-ended question in many ways -- this is a great book to have as a partial guide to the rich history of the place.
However, sometimes pictures tell a whole story, and sometimes they don't. In this case, I think the volume suffers from several major gaps. One is the lack of photographic coverage from the initial opening of the camp up through the mobilization period of 1940. To be sure, the bulk of the history of the Army in terms of raw numbers really starts about 1940. But there were ranches and farms in the area, the dunes had been inhabited by natives (seasonally, at least), the area had been used for maneuvers for years before that, and in general the "whole story" of the Fort is missing a lot of pieces. Further, a few more photographs of the aftermath of the base closing -- contrasting the neatly-kept base with the ruins it has become in recent years -- might have been an interesting addition.
Further, there's a social history to Fort Ord that remains untouched: the important role of Stilwell/Soldier's hall in base life, the lives of the families in base housing, the "off base" life in the surrounding towns. The filter of this particular volume omits all but a hint of this social history.
The author was the official Army historian of the place, and that's what this ends up reading like: the official history of the Army. Nothing at all wrong with that, but I would've wanted a bit more.
I live _on_ Fort Ord, for what it's worth, (among all the ghosts) and know many people who served here, and there just seems to be something missing. There's a sort of before-and-after-and-after that story to the place, and while this book covers the middle part of the base's life quite admirably, the rest of the story is given short shrift.
I still recommend this warmly as an introduction to Fort Ord, especially since there's precious little else available as yet focussing exclusively on the life and death of the base.
Experts Agree: Outstanding Book.......2006-08-12
Fort Ord:
-#4, Local Nonfiction Paperback Bestsellers List, Monterey County Herald,
25 April 2004, F4. . . . .
-#9, Top Ten Local Bestsellers List, Monterey County Herald,
26 September 2004, F4. . . . .
"New book tells Fort Ord story in pictures . . . . Author Raugh has selected about 200 vintage photographs from military archives and elsewhere and added detailed captions to them. This fascinating pictorial history tells the story of Fort Ord and of men and women who passed through its gates."
-DLIFLC and Presidio of Monterey Community News, May 14, 2004. . . . .
"Fort Ord history lives on in new book . . . . By training so many soldiers, [Fort Ord] made a huge contribution to America's security. Raugh's book gives a sense of all that."
-Dave Nordstrand, Salinas Californian, May 15, 2004. . . . .
"A newly published book, Images of America - Fort Ord, has more than 200 rare photographs which tell the unique story of the military site that became part of the CSUMB campus. . . Through photos, the book unveils the decades of history at Fort Ord."
-California State University Monterey Bay Campus Connection, June 2004. . . . .
"Fort Ord images make this a must-have book . . . . Without a question, this is a `must' purchase for not only anyone who might have trained or served a tour of duty at Fort Ord but also local residents who want a record of the base's past."
-Silas Spaeth, Salinas Californian, June 12, 2004. . . . .
"Enjoy a pictorial perspective of the history of Fort Ord . . . . Raugh, a retired Lieutenant Colonel, served two tours of duty at Fort Ord. Wanting to preserve as much of Fort Ord's past as possible, Raugh took on this task as `a labor of love.'"
-Bob Walch, Watsonville (CA) Register-Pajaronian, July 3, 2004. . . . .
"But Raugh's early military history also includes two tours of duty as an infantryman stationed at Fort Ord, and he has combined his military experience and historian's meticulous attention to detail in a new book released in Arcadia Publishing's series, Images of America: Fort Ord."
-Bob Walch, Monterey County Weekly, August 5-11, 2004. . . . .
"Raugh also treats us to a detailed look at one of America's most significant U.S. Army bases in Fort Ord . . . . From its humble beginnings as Camp Gigling in 1917, until its closing in September of 1994, the history of the installation is carefully laid out with detailed captions, maps, and insights on this historic military base."
-C.R. D'Amore, Military Heritage, June 2005.
Fabulous book.......2005-04-22
The former Fort Ord, located off Highway 1 near Monterey, California, is a ghost town of abandoned, run-down buildings. It is sad to see it now. This wonderful book shows through mesmerizing photographs that Fort Ord was once a lively and important military installation. Divided into five chronological chapters, the 200 photographs in this fabulous volume show soldiers training and in tent encampments before World War II, then the construction of the post as World War II began. It shows buildings, soldiers, vehicles, weapons, and training activities from World War II until the 7th Infantry Division "Lightfighters" deployed to Panama in 1989 and the post was closed in 1994. I was spellbound by every excellent photograph and the detailed captions. This outstanding book pays tribute to the thousands of soldiers who trained and served at Fort Ord, and puts a human face on military service. I recommend this superb book unhesitatingly and in the strongest terms. It is great! Buy it and cherish it now.
Fantastic Book of History and Memories.......2005-04-16
This pictorial history of Fort Ord, California -- a major army post closed a decade ago -- transports the reader back in time. In tells the story of Fort Ord and the thousands of soldiers who served there through fascinating, inspiring photographs, from the World War I era through the end of the Cold War. There is a magnetic quality to these photographs, reflecting a nostalgic and poignant attraction to a time of relative moral clarity, with its shared experiences and sacrifices, and to a world of seeming innocence gone by that lives only in the memories of those who experienced it. It is a saga of patriotism, devotion, duty, and sacrifice, brought to life on its pages. The photographs are beyond compare, with detailed and interesting captions. Every American should have this wonderful book, in which every photograph (of about 200) is worth more than a thousand words. History at its best!
Also recommended: Presidio of Monterey
Average customer rating:
- Soldier Factory not fantasy
- The Soldier Factory - A Window
- FTA all the way........
- Soldier Factory by Ed Salven-A piece of garbage
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The Soldier Factory: A Window
Ed Salven
Manufacturer: George Braziller
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0807615722 |
Book Description
A former soldier's poignant search for meaning in the American military experience.
When Ed Salven returned after thirty years to Fort Ord, where he was stationed in the late 1960s, he found a ghost town. The once bustling Sixth Army Infantry Processing Center in northern California sat in silent decay, and he was overwhelmed by recollections of his time there as a young draftee. Those memories became the basis for The Soldier Factory, a moving collection of meditations on being a part of the U.S. military machine at the height of the Vietnam War and on the essential questions Salven and his fellow soldiers confronted dealing with violence, authority, self-worth, honor, loss, and love.
Salven's reflections are accompanied by a series of paintings—vivid, anonymous portraits of soldiers. Fort Ord, once a community of more than 30,000 soldiers, was closed in the late 1990s; these paintings are now being used as window covers on several abandoned barracks. Also included are color photographs of the fort and the surrounding landscape in its strangely beautiful state today.
Veterans and soldiers alike will find this book particularly meaningful, as will anyone seeking to better understand this important period in U.S. history and its impact on those who lived through it. By turns amusing and heartbreaking, The Soldier Factory has the quiet, reverent quality of a memorial. Color illustrations throughout.
Customer Reviews:
Soldier Factory not fantasy.......2007-09-20
Unlike Mr. Cagel I enjoyed Mr. Salven's book. Though not in the Army at the time, I was serving in Southeast Asia with the Air Force. I cannot vouch for any accuracy of Army terms, rank, nor history, but I can state that I found the book thought provoking and in its way an insight into the military at the time. There was a fracture in society which was also evident in the services over what was happening in SEA, what our true purpose was there, and how that endeavor was to be achieved. Mr. Salven brings this to light as well as hurmous thoughts of his service at Fort Ord. Personally, I am glad Mr. Salven has his memories published along with poetry and photos in a presentation which reflects both his past and present. Thank you Ed Salven!
The Soldier Factory - A Window.......2007-09-17
I read this book and enjoyed it. It was refreshing to read something on this subject that doesn't push a particular political agenda but transcends our various points of view. This is not so much an anti-war book per se but rather a reflection, an observation of the reality of war and the machine that runs it. It's written in lines and verse, recollections of one who was taken from the bubble of adolescent existence and placed with others from all walks of life into the midst of the machine during the Vietnam War. The book shows us the impersonal nature (albeit necessary as that perhaps may be) of the machine and how the man devoid of any creative instinct whatsoever is often the one who excels within the machine and ends up giving orders. With a sense of irony and humor, Mr. Salven points to how the young soldiers, the pawns - most of them still boys, use their own creative (and survival) instincts in order to adjust and cope with the culture shock of military life. Recommended.
FTA all the way...............2007-09-14
I served in the US Army from 1966 to 1968 and spent my final 9 months in South Vietnam. Early morning on November 7, 1966 I boarded a crowded bus in Los Angeles and settled in for the long, silent drive up the coast to Monterey. Final distination, Fort Ord. When we arrived well after dark a drill sargeant hopped on board and started screaming loudly for everyone to get off the bus. The screaming didn't stop for the next 8 to 10 weeks. Basic training, I was told, is 8 weeks but they have this time period they call "ZERO WEEK" which is supposed to be one week of testing, getting your uniforms, getting screamed at, etc. Mr. Salven's book was spot on and hit the mark on what a lot of people were thinking at that time. It brought back good and some bad memories. Most of all it made me laugh out loud. Stillwell Hall was a great place to gather and drink beer and the East Garrison was, and I hope still is, an extremly beautiful place. His discriptions and mind set of those crazy times are thought provoking beyond compare. The Lt. Chito chapter was histerical!! Another book by Mr. Salven, please....
Soldier Factory by Ed Salven-A piece of garbage.......2006-08-29
This book is garbage. I served at Fort Ord in 1970-71, and though it was not my most pleasant experience, it was nothing like this book's description. In the first place, if I were writing a pseudo-history, I would at least get my facts right. Book-MOS 109B-Light Weapons Infantry-no it is 11B10/20/30/40. Book-Stillwell hall for a WW I general. He was in WWI, but made his name, and built the hall in WWII.
Book-a captain with "scrambled eggs" on his hat. That is a field grade officer-major and above.
Book-Dead animals on the range from lead poision. I served on Range 3 on the Beach for 6 months and never saw one dead animal. He might have seen it, but I did not.
My impress is this is typical soldier gossip, rumour, and bitching all put down as fact in a pseudo verse poetry (and not even good poetry). And the publishers seeing an opportunity to put out a anti-war book because we are in another Vietnam (aka Iraqi), jumped right in. I would not trust this book as far as I could throw it. And there I put it, in the recycle bin. I would not even donate it to a library or used book store, it is that bad. If Mr Salven wishes to discuss this with me, he has my email.
Product Description
Album for Company B 63rd Infantry Regiment. 18 january--17 March 1954.
Includes Roster with pictures
Amazon.com
Historian Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore examines an unfamiliar world in this groundbreaking study, the world of middle-class, educated black women at a time that was one of the nadirs of black-white relations in America. With the Supreme Court's affirmation of legal segregation, Southern black men found themselves disfranchised and excluded from politics. Black women filled that vacuum, Gilmore argues, making a place for themselves as ambassadors to the white community, and as activists on behalf of blacks, and bequeathing to their descendants a heritage of resistance that culminated in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s.
Book Description
Glenda Gilmore recovers the rich nuances of southern political history by placing black women at its center. She explores the pivotal and interconnected roles played by gender and race in North Carolina politics from the period immediately preceding the disfranchisement of black men in 1900 to the time black and white women gained the vote in 1920. Gender and Jim Crow argues that the ideology of white supremacy embodied in the Jim Crow laws of the turn of the century profoundly reordered society and that within this environment, black women crafted an enduring tradition of political activism.
According to Gilmore, a generation of educated African American women emerged in the 1890s to become, in effect, diplomats to the white community after the disfranchisement of their husbands, brothers, and fathers. Using the lives of African American women to tell the larger story, Gilmore chronicles black women's political strategies, their feminism, and their efforts to forge political ties with white women. Her analysis highlights the active role played by women of both races in the political process and in the emergence of southern progressivism. In addition, Gilmore illuminates the manipulation of concepts of gender by white supremacists and shows how this rhetoric changed once women, black and white, gained the vote.
Customer Reviews:
Political and Economic Shaping of Gender.......2004-10-28
The influence of sex on gender is often mistakenly emphasized to the extent where sex and gender are seen as synonyms. Historian Glenda Gilmore challenges this aberration by re-examining the formative years of Jim Crow in North Carolina through the lens of middle-class African American Women. Her reconstruction of this assumed history demonstrates acute gender construction divergences based on race, class, and political circumstance. Gilmore discloses the dynamics of marriage, education, and above all hope in shaping the differences between gender construction between African Americans and whites.
The racial progressive momentum of Reconstruction shaped educated African American women to uplift their race in an effort to improve living standards for their families, to open up opportunities for their sex for both races, and to change white attitudes toward African Americans. By accenting the life of Sarah Dudley Petty, Gilmore reveals that her activism as a "feminist" and as an African American was in contrast to white women because black women were responding not just to patriarchy but to racial oppression as well.
A famous example of how African American women hoped to uplift their race was through their work in the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). This organization provided North Carolina's black women "their best hope for building strong communities and securing interracial cooperation" (32). The WCTU became a point of mutually for both whites and blacks to improve community and gender equality. When black men voted, white women welcomed and sought out the activism of black women. Political circumstance for both groups of women afforded a glimmer of hope that racial equality was possible, however, as the political circumstance changed under the swagger of Jim Crow, white WCTU members got behind white supremacist leaders.
Gilmore explains the gender construction of whites was molded by the downturn of the economy. As hard times hit the North Carolina agrarian economy, a reconsideration of racial parity was in quick demand and an explicit white supremacy movement formed to deny blacks all their gains from Reconstruction. The "New White Men" sought to reconstruct racial interaction, and in particular sexual interaction between the "races." Gilmore reveals that the White New Man effectively created a social norm where it was no longer a demonstration of strength to have sex with a black woman but a sign of weakness. New White Men now expected white women, across class boundaries, to be wholesome and chaste in order to maintain racial purity. In turn, white women began to hold the White New Men culpable for the previous generation that allowed for racial miscegenation transgressions. Such feminine pressure as expressed by the Waddell women, Gilmore argues, supplied the once ineffectual Alfred Waddell to lead the Wilmington slaughter and take the office of mayor of Wilmington.
In the dismal days after the successful drive of disenfranchisement, when black men were pushed out of the political and civic circles, Gilmore fruitfully uncovers how black women advanced the condition of African Americans. African American women took charge amidst the Progressive Era in women's missionary societies and volunteer organizations. Gilmore demonstrates how Black women were instrumental in the rise of the welfare state and how they shrewdly created political ties with white women in un-seemingly apolitical fashion.
Gilmore's reconstruction of a microcosm of race relations in North Carolina has revealed the larger aggregate on America's shameful history of racism and misogyny. Her emphasis on social influences of gender construction affords an effective analysis of the vibrancy of agency within the seemingly impregnable shadow of structure.
An innovative look at post-Reconstruction race relations.......2002-03-02
As Gilmore writes (p. 1) in Gender and Jim Crow, "since historians enter a story at its end, they sometimes forget that what is past to them was future to their subjects." And with regard to black optimism, potential and opportunities during Reconstruction, African American "subjects" looked forward to a future of encouraging possibilities, as African American males had real political power and influence within the Republican and populist parties, which courted their votes. These men and women believed that race as a social classification would decline in importance in favor of class. Yet just as the hopes of Agrarian radicals were thwarted by the harsh the realities of the two-party system, so too were the dreams of Reconstruction-era blacks crushed by the resurgence of white supremacy and the systematic attempts by whites to disenfranchise the Negro. Gilmore presents this tale of high hopes and shattered dreams in her first chapter, "Place and Possibility."
Gilmore's story is one of perseverance among the increasingly subjugated blacks of North Carolina after Reconstruction ended, in particular, the struggle of middle class black women to maintain power, dignity and to some degree control over their lives and communities. By the 1890s, the ugly image of white supremacy showed its face, as white men fought a successful battle to disenfranchise black men through the instrument of fear, that is to say, fear for the safety of white women from the ravenous clutches of Negro rapists. As Gilmore details, this sexually based contrivance branded black men as beasts and drove them from the political realm. Articulate black women, she argues, stepped in to this cultural and political vacuum to coordinate with whites (especially white women and Northern reformers) to get social services and to work for "racial uplift," especially through church and voluntary associations such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Gilmore notes that these types of activities were not as exposed to white restrictions or ire as overt political action, and thus helped to assure some success by these middle-class black females. It seems that black women could travel within certain community and political circles that were no longer open to their male counterparts.
Gender and Jim Crow is an innovative look at post-Reconstruction race relations, in that the chief actors in Gilmore's tale are women. It nicely dovetails with Kantrowitz's Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy, in that we see similar examples of the creation of Jim Crow and the use of sexual fears to bolster notions of white supremacy as well as white political solidarity. While Kantrowitz shows that Ben Tillman was representative of many of white Southerners of his day, I am unconvinced that Gilmore's subjects are as representative. Her geographic realm is limited to one state of the Upper South, North Carolina; did black women carve out a similar role for themselves in the Deep South as well? Additionally, her cast of characters is quite small, and perhaps we are drawn to these women and their story because of its very exceptionalsim and not its typicality. Nevertheless, Gilmore's new and nuance perspective is groundbreaking and valuable in that we see the era of Jim Crow from a viewpoint previously unexplored.
Original, important, a tad romantic.......1999-05-27
Gilmore breaks new ground on many fronts that will interest social historians of race and political historians. She uncovers the myriad arenas in which black women and white women pursued "politics" outside the formal arenas of electoral institutions. She also reveals the surprising coalitions formed across racial lines and the mindset of an upper-South State on the eve of disenfranchisement. Gilmore's writing flows smoothly, as other reviewers have noted, but at times becomes overwrought and sentimentalized in a way that makes it sometimes tedious and sometimes aggravating to stay with the text. She's become captured a bit by her characters and sources. But this is a small criticism in the context of an overwise pathbreaking study that's well worth the read.
Best of Genre.......1999-03-09
This book is a mind-blower. It reveals the history of white supremacy as an overt political campaign in the South in the early 20th century, and more importantly the roles that middle-class black women self-consciously assumed in this very dangerous cultural arena. Historins talks a lot about ideology and race and agency, but this is the most skillful and convincing account that I've read: by examining how people - men, women, poor, rich, black, white - understood and tried to shape their worlds, Gilmore recasts a significant portion of American history, and made me re-examine my assumptions about racism and gender and politics. I'm working towards my graduate degree in history, so I've had to read scores of books that cover similar ground - and this is the by far the best treatment that I've read. Also very important: Gilmore is an excellent writer - this text reads as smoothly and as compellingly as a novel. Can't recommend it highly enough.
A revelation of extraordinary African American women........1998-09-04
Gilmore gives a voice to an otherwise obscure - not to mention forgotten- group that set the pace for the civil rights movements of the 1950's and 1960's. Countless women contributed tirelessly in the struggle against racism, illiteracy, disease and most notably, suffrage. Gilmore does justice to those who have gone unrecognized.
Customer Reviews:
Wilderness and the American Mind .......2007-10-13
This book is about the origins of the wilderness preservation movement. Apparently it began as a doctoral dissertation and has been layered over and revised in subsequent publications since 1967. Whatever its original focus was, the bulk of the current version is concerned with the politics of wilderness preservation in America. This is hardly a book about how Americans have explored, experienced, or lived adventurously in the wilderness. Nor is it chiefly about the tension between civilization and nature. There is some of all of that in the early chapters, but the discussion there is more of an overview and so lacks detail and depth. In later chapters the writing often descends into journalistic reporting of tedious minutia. This will delight some readers and tire others.
When I read this in 1974, I wish I had had it in 1969/70.......2006-07-22
While not a perfect book, this is one of the few books I know which I would call "required reading" for people in the environmental movement and ecology. It's not a science book, which is one of my minor problems with it, but I titled this review comment with my opinion prior to taking the first of 2 classes (1974) by one of Nash's student colleagues and then Nash himself. I, and a slew of my colleagues in 1970 really needed to have read this during the organization and preparation for what was then termed "The First Environmental Teach-In" now called ridiculously "Earth Day."
I felt this way in 1974, because I could see that we had retrod ground done by Brower 2 decades earlier and Muir seven decades. And then I learned of names I had never heard before like G. Pinchot and the roles of people like John Wesley Powell independent of the Grand Canyon survey and Stephen Mather and the Natl. Park PR machine (not all bad). This book is part of why students are supposed to take history classes.
The 2nd ed (pub. 1973)., which I had and still have, covered events I lived and can confirmed happened. That's toward the end of the book. The beginning of the book are about pre-American precursors in Europe such as the Romantic movement and various humanist issues like painting and writing. Some of these parts were were a little slow for me (I did read Rousseau), but it did put the Black Forest in perspective more than a type of cake. And that helps with understanding forestry schools.
Nash is good in showing the development of the conservation movement (incl. soil reclamation and forestry [and why hunters and fishers are conservationists]) to the shortcoming of conservation and the start of preservation (Muir, Mather), and the latter shortcomings of "loving wilderness to death" and the rise of environmentalism and ecological biology (Nash likes Leopold, I prefer Rachel Carson, we agree on reading Ed Abbey).
Rod is good at tying together art, literature (here your transcendalists in American Literature come in), popular culture (recreation), religion (See his Rights of Nature book for more depth), and science (barely). He has a good bibliography, one of the finest that I have seen if you want more depth and references, but the field is pretty vast and Nash's text is already thick so his survey is at best described as shallow (supplementary reading like Doug Strong's The Conservationists helps).
Alaska in the 3rd ed. is important to the future. I have been given by Rod in the past "seed" copies, and I purchase "Wilderness" as gifts. I stopped doing that until recently when I was surprised a bio prof friend was unaware. I know he will enjoy reading "Would you flood the Sistine Chapel to get closer to the ceiling?"
I wish that Gaylord Nelson (then Sen., Wisc.) had had us read this book. I think that we would have gone further on that day in 1970. The book is just a shadow of the class experience, I leave lots of book detail out in this review/summary.
Wilderness: One of America's Most Important Ideas .......2005-12-27
Those who have been so quick to pronounce the "death" of environmentalism surely have not taken Roderick Frazier Nash's Wilderness and the American Mind into account. With roots in European Romanticism, and blossoming in mid-19th Century writings of Thoreau and Emerson, the idea of wilderness is one of the most important ideas America has contributed to the world.
The wilderness idea has no abler chronicler than Roderick Nash, whitewater rafting guide, adventurer, descendent of Canadian explorers and professor emeritus of environmental studies, who first published this book in 1967 and has taken it through four editions. His entertaining narrative covers the life of Muir and the early preservation struggles of The Sierra Club. He provides special insight into Aldo Leopold and sets the whole discussion of Leopold's land ethic in its historical context.
While wilderness is everywhere under assault, many still understand the continuing need to preserve our wilderness system, a network of wild areas free from all other human activities. In fact, it's difficult to come away from Nash's book without understanding that wilderness is an intrinsic American value.
The most articulate advocate of wilderness was Theodore Roosevelt, who believed the modern American was in danger of becoming an "overcivilized" man, who has lost strength and higher virtue in a trend toward "slothful ease." Nash gives great credit to Roosevelt and shows how his ideas and experiences contributed to later 20th Century concepts of environmental preservation.
America, according to Roosevelt, needed to preserve the remnants of the pioneer environment because, "no nation facing the unhealthy softening and relaxation of fibre that tends to accompany civilization can afford to neglect anything that will develop hardihood, resolution, and the scorn of discomfort and danger."
Wilderness evokes deep sentiments in the mystic chords of American memory. It is not merely a political movement thought up in the 1960s--a trend that will fade as baby boomers age and our present generation of environmental leaders moves on. Nash shows us how wilderness came to be that way and suggests the wilderness idea is likely to endure at the vital center of our national psyche.
Not perfect but still a classic thanks to regular updating.......2005-07-09
As the other reviews will confirm, this is a classic book on the American concept of wilderness. Nash wrote the first version in the 1960s, originally as his dissertation. The main narrative has held up well. Nash has also put the text through regular revisions, so it lacks any embarrassingly outdated claims that might detract from the book.
The first part of the book is an intellectual history of "wilderness." Wilderness may exist as a state of mind or as the product of an intellectual movement (as in Nash). This kind of analysis is invariably subjective and selective. Nash, like others engaged in this kind of history, draws from a subset of all the people who wrote on the topic at a given moment (and, as he recognizes, necessarily leaves out the views of people who don't write them down). Then, like others, he organizes this material, calling it a "Romantic" view of wilderness or whatever.
I find such exercises interesting but generally unpersuasive by their very nature. For example, Nash interprets the Bible and other foundational texts for Western civilization as embodying a "subdue the wilderness" ethos. Fine. But what of Jesus' reference to the "lilies of the field"? Certainly that implies a valuation of nature as beautiful and worthy in itself - - "Romantic," perhaps. My point is that anyone can always do this, and any intellectual history can always be criticized for leaving things out and thus mischaracterizing what it discusses.
That said, Nash is not too objectionable on that front. In fact, his categorization is helpful, and would be especially good as an introduction to these ideas. This is doubtless why this book is used in so many undergraduate ecology courses.
The second part of the book focuses on various battles over wilderness. Here he moves closer to a straight history. His narrative is forceful and engrossing.
The last chapter, on international issues, is really too superficial to be useful. It leaves the impression that he is trying to be complete with each new edition, without really having fresh insights into the subject.
Overall, the book is very well-written and easy to read - - I classify it as the kind of book that is good to read on an airplane (which is in fact where I read it).
Better for Environmentalists then Others.......2003-12-01
I believed that this book would be an exploration of the concept of "wilderness" as it relates to the American mind. And it is, for about one hundred pages. Since this is a four hundred page bok, that leaves a lot of space to fill.
I found the first two hundred pages to be interesting, the last two hundred to be a slog. Nash spends an interminable amount of time covering "contemporary" environmental struggles. Were it my book, I would have omitted the chapter about Alaska. I imagine that most who read this book have a grasp on the environmental struggles of the recent past.
As I mentioned before, the reason I read this book was to gain a perspecitve on how these struggles came about.
This book is, I suppose, a classic in the field. I guess, ultimately, it's just a field (environmentalism/ecology) that doesn't interest me that much. So I'm glad I read it, but I wouldn't recommend it to others, unless those others consider themselves dedicated environmentalists. Then you HAVE to read this book.
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