ERA Reviews

Engrossing and lucid, Mr. Klingaman has written a superb book on a subject that is given little scrutiny. Filled with anecdotes and witticisms this book should be read by those who are sick of the usual fat best sellers.

Klingaman's book concentrates on President Lincoln's issuance of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation of September 22, 1862, and the Final Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. On a closely-related subject, the book also discusses the Union Army's gradual use of African-American soldiers as a means to winning the Civil War.

Klingaman focuse on the changes in Lincoln's attitude towards emancipation and his gradual assumption of a strong leadership role. He also points out that many of Lincoln's decisions were forced upon him by the political and military circumstances of the War. Thus, Klingaman describes how Lincoln's original goal in the War was the preservation of the Union. He resisted pressure from the Abolitionists and from the Radical Republicans to emancipate the slaves in order to avoid antagonizing the border states and those in the North who would not have fought a war to free the slaves. As political pressures changed, and as the North suffered setbacks in the Virginia theatre of the war, the pressures on Lincoln changed. Although the seeds of the Emancipation had been planted earlier, as Klingaman shows, Lincoln used the end Lee's invasion of the North at Antietam as the fulcrum to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and followed it up with the Proclamation of January 1, 1863. Klingaman explains well how the issuance of the Proclamation helped change the momentum of the War, militarily, politically, and internationally.

This book is not a work of new scholarship but it is valuable and worth reading nonetheless. Klingaman does a good job of emphasizing both the military and political aspects of the War, while many books concentrate on one or the other. I thought the book had particularly good insights to offer on Lincoln's relationship with Union General George McClellan.

Klingaman's Lincoln is primarily a politician and a pragmatist more than a political theorist. Lincoln's backwoods humor comes through well in the book as does his depression and sadness resulting from the heavy weight of his public and private trials. There are effective descriptions of pre-war Washington, D.C. which are followed by further descriptions of the way the city and our nation changed with the industrialization wrought by the War.

There are good textual discussions of both the Prelimary and Final Emancipation Proclamations which emphasize the compromises Lincoln had to make to politics rather than the role of ideas.
Finally, the book briefly discusses Emancipation following the conclusion of the War and points out eloquently how much remained and still remains to be done to bring about racial equality.

This book is a balanced and thoughtful history of the Emancipation for the reader interested in a seminal moment of our Nation's history.

William Klingaman's book, "Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation" traces the personal and social development of emancipation in the the 1860s in a refreshing and enlightening way.

By blending both historical events, with the inner turmoil of Lincoln, Klingaman sheds new light on the processes that lead to the historical proclaimation. The Lincoln in this book is torn between his desire to do what is right vs. what he perceives his Constitutional duties. Klingaman doesn't shy away from the reality that Lincoln initially didn't favor emancipation over saving the union, but embraces his struggle and his eventual turn around. This allows for a more dynamic, interesting Lincoln to shine through. Lincoln would finally do the right thing, which we come to understand the depth and complexity of his decision.

For Lincoln fans, for people with a casual interest, I highly recommend this book for a new view on an incredible man during incredible times.

I purchased this book for my graduate-level independent studies course hoping to find definitive answers to a hunch post-war controversy over reproductve rights actually had a larger tie-in to the era's blatant anti-communism.

After all, the advent of antiseptic surgery and antibiotics meant the driving reason behind 19th century anti-abortion campaigns was effectively negated by the post-war period, so opponents of women's rights had to construct a new justifcation for extending the laws beyond their original intent. Abortion was now dangerous because it increased women's autonomy and freedom.

While May does address reproductive policy, this work suprisingly does not delve heavily into how anti-communism and reproductive bias paralleled eachother.Considering many post-war restrictions (pregnancy-related job firing and school expulsion co-existed with illegality of abortion and contraception) were directly related to women's reproductive potential, a considerable amount of research was missing from her book. The research presented skimmed what I had already discovered from Solinger et al's other works and did not provide the insight I was desperatley seeking.

Because May is able to tie anti-communist objectives into television and other cultural arenas, I remain puzzled by the selective exclusion. However well written structurally, it also seemed as if she were skipping around the same argument, but electing not to explore it for whatever reason.

This book is not a good candidate for work with reproductive policy, but would be an excellent choice for a general study of American women's post-war political agency.

Still working on my independent study project, I bought this book hoping to gain some critical insight on the apparent ties between the era's anti-communisim and renewed interest in enforcing other-wise ignored anti-abortion laws.

Originally passed in the 19th century when all surgery carried a certain degree of risk, abortion had become a fairly safe medical procedure with the advent of antiseptic surgery and antibiotics. Yet, the immediate post-war era saw massive restriction on the number of 'legal' abortions which directly contradicted medical technology's advancement. Paradoxically, when the procedure had attained a fair degree of safety, society was going to go out of it's way to remove women from their own reproductive rights.

This removal had significantly less to do with fetal rights than concern about the woman's real and future 'femininiy'. An informal and unlikely coalition of government experts, and Madison avenue set out to convince the American woman (via comericials, movies, and atrocious sitcoms) THE way to fight the communists was through their unquestioning adoption and adherence to a pre-determined gender role, because only then could she (and the nation) be 'sure' her children would grow up unmarred by communist doctorine.

While there is some information implicating newly rigid gender roles (and the related quest to contain women's sexuality--just like the containment for the communists!)in the sharp increase in abortion prosecutions and legal/cultral restrictions, it did not go in depth as much as I would have prefered. For whatever reason imaginable, May's research into this specific facet abruptly fades in and out of an otherwise solid and engrossing text.

Elaine Tyler May's text "Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era", remains a classic in American Studies-and example of relevant, clear, well-written scholarship utilizing a variety of data to make a interesting and important case. This is not to say that the work has no weaknesses, but it remains in many ways an enduring, if somewhat superceded landmark in American cultural studies.

Tyler May's central thesis of the book is that the foreign policy of the "containment" of communism, summarized and popularized by Secretary John Foster Dulles, paralleled the rise of a domestic politics of containment, where the home space became a way to contain the economic, sexual, and social desires of both women and men. Moreover, the construction of this home space necessitated the casting of gender, sexual, and social roles in rigorous, socially compulsory terms that effectively marginalized many people from ethnic, sexual, and ideological minorities. These roles, constructed through the politics of domestic containment, were held in majority American culture to be necessary to the social survival and maintenance of capitalism in the Cold War struggle against the Soviets. Women in particular, are focused on, as the strong, independent, single role models of the 1930's gave way to increased imagery of the married, safely domesticated woman, who were under heavy societal pressure to give birth and raise children. Men too were constrained by corporate superiors, and looked to home as the one place they could exercise full influence over their wives and children. Not everyone, of course, was happy with this.

A number of surprising arguments are made and defended in this book as sub-theses to the greater point. Birth control achieved social acceptance quickly during this time, albeit "contained" in such a way as to officially promote family expansion and lower the marriage age. Fulfilled eroticism, albeit only in marriage, becomes a central point of majority discourse, to the point that women were counseled to pour more energy into their mates' fulfillment, sexual and otherwise, than the children of the household. (this is not to say those actual sexual attitudes and practices always reflected these images, as she points out on pg. 102) The Cold War demanded that the excesses of capitalism (in promoting huge differentials between rich and poor) had to be checked, lest communism breed and flourish in the nation's slums (147). Fewer African-American women went to college than white, but more of them graduated proportionately. May even shows that the so-called Baby Boom didn't start after the war, but rather in the early part of WWII, thus dispelling the common notion peace and affluence alone created the baby boom (these conditions also existed after WWI, but with no population boom.)

Another excellent aspect of this study, besides nuancing the role of the Cold War, is the inclusion and careful use of quantitative data, the Kelly Longitudinal Studies---these were surveys taken among housewives and husbands (white ones, to be sure) and they reveal a wealth of data. Rather than painting a picture of comfortable domesticity, these surveys reflect a great deal of dissatisfaction among women (and men) coping with these rigid gender roles. Women who worked in industry during the war had mixed feelings at best being relegated back to the home. Sexuality, motherhood, all of these things proved ultimately unfulfilling for many women in the surveys, causing guilt and resentment in the supposedly "placid" generation.

Tyler May leaves important parties out of her study. Black women, for example, are discussed rarely, and the labor and civil rights movements (which start in the 1950's, not the 60's) are not part of this story. Subsequent scholarship ("Not June Cleaver", "Tupperware") has demonstrated that even in this time, women created counternarratives to compulsory domesticity, that allowed many to ameliorate and contest, if not wholly counter, these discourses. But what Tyler May demonstrates is that these majority discourses of political and domestic containment maintained a definitive hegemony over the public discussions of the day, and held wide sway in the larger culture. Especially through media representations of that time period, these operative models of domestic containment and placidness tend to guide, somewhat incorrectly, popular collective memories of that time period. This fact only serves to further underscore their continued influence.

Christopher W. Chase - PhD Fellow, Michigan State Univ.

Part of the author's title is indisputable: the Northern-Southern divide over slavery and all of its attendant subtleties and ramifications was a crisis only waiting to happen in the 1850s. But the author places greater importance on what he sees as the political crisis of that era. Regardless, this book is a fine effort in capturing the richness of the party politics in the two decades leading to the Civil War.

It is the author's essential point that a robust democratic polity requires political parties that compete on a somewhat equal basis, inspire widespread party loyalty and, in essence, control the more fractious issues or interpretations of the times. That is exactly the role that the author suggests that the Second Party system consisting of the Whigs and Democrats played from Andrew Jackson's presidency to the early 1850s. The expansion of slavery into new territories and states was the most contentious issue of the day. The Northern and Southern wings of both the Democrats and the Whigs adopted particular positions on such controversies as the Wilmot Proviso and the Compromise of 1850 that kept the public looking to the political realm for solutions. The author notes that themes of republican virtue, that is, defense of freedom and independence and opposition to tyranny in its various guises, were the basis of the parties' positions.

But that political status quo fell apart as both the slavery issue and nativism could not be contained within the Second Party system. While the author views this development as the beginning of the political crisis of the 1850s, others may see the rise of new political parties as the essence of political responsiveness. The Know Nothing party had a meteoric rise in the mid-1850s but just as quickly the Republicans rose in the late 1850s and elected Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860. The author contends that political elites should be able to manage controversial issues of the day. But the fact is that the adherents of anti-slavery, nativism, and free soil of the 1850s overwhelmed the political alignments formed in the 1830s. The author comes close to suggesting that the Republicans were irresponsible opportunists by forming a party on sectional lines with sectional interests.

The essential question that the author asks is why did slavery become an issue in the 1850s. After all, it had existed for the first sixty years of the nation. But his explanation of Second Party system breakdown seems inadequate. In the first place the Whig Party broke up in the South as a result of the Compromise of 1850. Secondly, a series of slavery-related developments in the 1850s exacerbated the situation. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, the entire state constitution fiasco in Kansas, and the Dread Scott decision all convinced Northerners that an oligarchic Slave Power had gained the upper hand in extending slavery. Those reactions drove political realignment along sectional lines.

However, a salient point of the author's, and in accordance with his political crisis thesis, is that the lack of political competition in the lower southern states permitted the extremism that led to an extra-political solution, or secession. He points out that the upper south retained vigorous opposition parties to the Democrats and confidence in the political system as an avenue for redress. In the author's view, it is not surprising that South Carolina was the first state to secede because a vigorous two party system had never existed there.

The author admits that his book is an "extended dialog" with the earlier work of Eric Foner, author of "Free Soil, Free Labor, ...". Foner emphasizes the essential social and philosophical differences between the South and the North that came to the fore and inevitably led to the Civil War. This author is not entirely dismissive of those sentiments, but chooses to emphasize the possibilities of political containment of those differences and the ramifications of political breakdown. In addition, this book does a far better job of describing the various crises of the era in chronological fashion. Both books are well worth reading.

Footnote: this book does not in any way address the constitutional right to secede as one earlier review suggests.

Volumes of information lend credence to a state's right to secede from the Union. Even the US Supreme Court in 1862 (during the war) ruled that states did, indeed, have the right to secede from the Union, but that the question was currently being decided on the battlefield.

Given that even Southerners were starting to 'see' the end of slavery in the South, and not even considering that after Northerners made their fortunes capturing, transporting, and selling Negroes into slavery, then the question comes down to this - did one part of the country have the right to declare war and invade another section of the country (in violation of the Constitution) when that section being invaded (the South) was acting within its Constitutional rights? Does might make right? Do two wrongs make a right? If slavery was bound to die out anyway, was the loss of life worth it ending 10 or 20 years sooner - given that it had existed for 100 of years - and not even mentioning that the north wanted to free the slaves, but offered no constuctive alternative except "you're free, there's the highway'. (which, in my opinion, is why the black community and youth are still suffering to this day).

Serious students of the Civil War have to address three important questions regarding its origins. First, one must account for the timing of the conflict. Slavery was a national political issue since at least the Missouri Compromise of 1820. What made 1861 different from other flashpoints in the slavery debate such as the annexation of Texas, the 1850 Compromise, the Dred Scott decision, and the recognition of Lecompton? Second, one must account for rise of the Republicans over the Free Soilers and Know Nothings after the demise of the Whig party in the early 1850s. All three were against the expansion of slavery so what made the Republicans unique? Finally, one must explain why the lower South seceded first, the middle South seceded second, and the upper South remained with the Union.

This book attempts to provide answers to these questions by examining the American political system at the time. It does NOT 'dismiss' slavery as a cause of the war but rather adds a much needed layer of analysis to address these sophisticated questions. If war is truly an extension of politics, then this book is well justified in its focus.

Film Noir Guide brings forth a compelling compilation of movies from a bygone yet memorable era. This book will serve those of us struggling to reassemble fragments of films viewed long ago as well as those preparing to view them for the first time. At first glance I expected this book to be a bit dry, after all, there are indeed 745 films covered! I was pleasantly surprised to find the book written in the spirit of the subject films, in that it provides not only abundant but amusing appraisals. Each film is presented in the context of a series of factoids (title, date, whodunit), useful categorizations (i.e., greed, wrong man, ambition), a review, familiar faces (i.e., if the actors worked in television), and a memorable noir moment (e.g., "...it's just a flesh wound"). The organization of the book makes it easy to sort through the huge volume of films contained within. It's natural to wonder what could drive someone to sit and watch such a large number of films in a systematic manner, but Keaney's fun-loving cinematic portrayals mirror the fascination shared by so many film-goers, both in their day and to this day.

Being somewhat of a movie buff since working for 20th Century Fox from 1954 through 1964 during the so-called years of the "Giants" of the movie industry like Spyros Skouras and Darryl F. Zanuck I received the Film Noir Guide by Michael F. Keaney as a gift from my wife. She said it was a handsome book that would look good with the rest of my collection of movie memorabilia.
I thumbed through it looking at all the photos and then read the preface. This was enjoyable since I had grown up in Brooklyn, NY and could identify with the time period the author wrote about. I found the book to be easy reading as I would look forward to each "movies memorable quotes" and the fun poked at the politically correct "sensitivity training required".
There were of course many films I did not see but even the tidbits of the TV personalities connected with these old films were interesting. Many of the films that I remembered and loved had uncannily the memorable quoted that were still fresh in my mind.
I never had given Film Noir much thought but this book opened a new source of enjoyment for me.

It was a dark night in the city. The rain had washed away most of the dregs off the street, and I settled in under a lamp post with my latest find, Mike Keaney's FILM NOIR GUIDE. Each entry provided what I needed, a short concise review of any title in my favorite genre. If you have some time to kill, you might want to sneak a read of this volume. It will treat you better than a double-crossing dame or a sneaking two bit hood trying to muscle in on your turf.

From the eyes/connections of a senior veteran Microsoftie you can learn for yourself how business is done and has been changed by technology. A great communicator, Mr. McDowell clears the eyes of the foggy headed, old thinking business manager to the wonders and money savings of tech. A must read for any modernizing or future thinking executive looking for success. This is one of those books that are a cheap investment in the future profitability of your company. Your employees should read it too!

Excellent book for those in industry, as well as anyone who wants to better understand how profoundly technology can impact business success.

I have a clear understanding in my mind of all the things my company can do to help businesses evolve strategy with our IT products and why that is important, but I have had what I believe to be a somewhat difficult time articulating the "whys and wherefores." This book provides lucid, clearly compelling explanations and examples that crystallize the message of the power of information technolgy.

McDowell and Simon make strong cases for how information technology should not be used simply to do things better than you have done them before, but instead to use it to do things you have never been able to do before. If you don't fully understand technology and want some non-technical explanations of why you should be using it, this book was written for you.

This book is good for someone who has just started the
exploration of the Star Wars Universe.If you read all
books and internet SW-pages you will find Rebellion Era
Sourcebook very boring and poor.Many details from Expanded
Universe were just ignored .Also the quality of photographs
is terryfying.Hard SW fans should avoid this book.Only
the cover is good in that product.

This is a great buy if you plan on gamemastering Star Wars, great info, great ideas for plot and very nice visuals, but people who do not plan on gamemastering wont benefit as much, since the era notes and information on the star wars universe is so readily available from other sources, unless you live out of the U.S. and such information is scarce to begin with, but still i think it is a gamemaster tool.

This book eplains so many things about the classic trilogy, even little details and other things that I couldn't even imagine existed inside star wars world. You can read lots of pages and there's only pure information instead of thousands of rules. I would like this title even if I wasn't a RPG player, just because of the amout of information this book brings to it's owner's hand. Long live to the Rebellion!

The best book for every serious reseacher. But not for the beginners.

The best book on arms and armour for every serious researcher. But not for the beginners.

If you want to have your armor be as authentic as possible, backup your kit with archeological evidence! This book has meticulous records and line-art drawings of everything. If there was a church drawing of a knight, this book has it in there. Don't be Farby, this book makes kit research easy and documentable.

Even though this book is limited to a particular group of Depression Era kitchen shakers (milk glass with lithographs and I am biased to these!!), it is an EXCELLENT reference guide for those of you who collect them! And if you do collect them, the check-off boxes are a handy item. GREAT SIZE for taking to those flea markets and auctions to see what you need to have! The prices listed are a good start to bargain with! BEAUTIFUL color photos of the shakers. It sits on my coffee table! Thanks, Barbara!

For the collector of kitchen shakers, especially shakers manufactured by Tipp City, Barbara has successfully captured a diversified collection of patterns and colors which have been wonderfully photographed so that you can see each shaker clearly and precisely. Yes Gene Florence has wonderful depression glass books but Barbara has the best pictures available at a reasonable price, especially to the beginner. A lot of designs have never even been found in a kitchen depression glassware book previously. The GUIDE is arranged to be used as a check off for collectors. Prices are much more realistic than in the latest book by Gene Florence. Nothing against Gene Florence, I have all of his books, but many of the pages are exact repeats of previous editions. Let's give Barbara a chance and a hand for taking on the job of presenting a colorful and informative book on kitchen shakers with realistic prices. I hope she will be motivated enough to come out with a second edition when additional shakers are found for inclusion. I have bought and sold hard-to-find kitchen shakers for over twenty years and I certainly wish this book had happened on the scene a long time ago when prices were $5.00 a shaker. Kitchen depression shakers are very much in demand and a lot of the new collectors need as much information and reference material as possible. Thank you Barbara for your time and effort in this book. This is one dealer that really appreciates it.

GO BUY IT NOW! This book is an excellent and virtually complete book of shakers. The pictures are beautiful and the prices are great, too! I would highly recommend this book to shaker collectors as it is much better than any book Gene Florence has ever put out! All I can say is: Go buy it now!

Gordon divides her book into parts: the "facts" and the narrative. The narrative reads much like a novel (at least partially because Gordon doesn't have a lot of concrete research to draw upon so she can fill in the blanks in an... entertaining manner) while the rest of the book is filled with (often dry) research. It seems as if Gordon is torn between writing an academic work or a popular work and ends up not quite hitting the mark with either. If I hadn't been reading the book for class, I would probably just skim through the book for the story (there's a section of each chapter devoted just to the orphans' story) and then check with the rest of the book is I was very curious about a specific detail.

Ms. Gordon has told in a compelling, exciting manner the tragic story of how 40 orphans became a pawn, first in New York's reform movement, and then in the southwest labor struggles.

However, her book goes far beyond this simple story, by using it as a springboard for an examination of the evolving concept of "race" in american history, and how the concept of race was used in different ways, at different times--tied to economic, religious and gender issuses which prevailed at diiferent times in different places.

The central "action" in Ms. Gordon's narrative is not, as several reviewers seemed to think, the abduction of the orphans. It is the transformation of the orphans from "Irish"--a despised minority in New York--into "White"--a powerful minority in Arizona, as they took their 2,000 mile train ride to their new adopted homes.

The only reason that I did not rate this book five stars is because Ms. Gordon first does a very good job explaining the paucity of evidence for the actual abduction--poor people tend not to leave historical records. However, she periodically leaps beyond this limited records into wild speculation (which may well be correct, but certainly is not supported by her evidence), all without acknowledging the contradiction.

All in all, well worth the read for anyone who is interested in the role race has played in american history--which ought to be all of us.

Linda Gordon has done a fabulous job using a small incident to illustrate many aspects of US (& Mexican) social history at the turn of the (1900) century. It isn't the orphan abduction that this book is about, something that one of the previous reviewers showed that she had the wrong expectations about. This is straight slice-of-history work. I felt Gordon did a nice, if sometimes mechanical-feeling job, moving from the framework of social history in one chapter to the details of the orphan abduction in the next. And her chapters about the orphan thing in particular were interspersed with some of the most interesting observations about life 100-125 years ago. I thought the book was a very good read, not boring at all. I felt a drive to finish it more to see what new gems of historical trivia would appear than to hear the sorry ending to the orphan tale itself. After all, the sorry ending was known from the start, not the gems of history that Gordon teased out of the story.

I am a sucker for diners, diner food and those great 1940's-1950's color postcards of diners all over the USA.

Part 1 of "Where Have You Gone...?" collects some of the best of those postcards in full page, full color reproductions and then explains the history of each place and its current(if still standing) location, staff, specialties, etc. Parts 2 and 3 examine, in photographs and text, the diners of today and the final entry celebrates the re-opening and re-vitalization of the Palace Diner in Biddeford, Maine, a 70 year-old dining landmark.

The text is colorful, but verges on the mundane. However, the photographs and reproductions are first rate: We'll unfortunately never again see the beauty of the Art Deco design for the Court Cafe in Albuquerque, New Mexico or the main dining room/gas station and smaller cottages that made up the Dutch Mill Village of South Glasgow, Kentucky---They were all shaped like perfect, tiny windmills. Where but at Hick's Drive In on the Dixie Highway in Louisville, Kentucky would you find a circular building, a horseshoe shaped counter and an interior constructed entirely of glass?

My personal favorite postcard is of the Victory Cafe in Mattoon, Illinois--not that it is the most glamorous, but simply because it reminds me of my childhood, Saturday lunches at Baumgart's in Hackensack, New Jersey.

When/If you go antiquing, do you wander over to the bins of yellowing postcards? Then this book is for you.

The first thing I saw in this book was Hicks Drive Inn Restaurant in surburban Louisville, Kentucky. I grew up near this restaurant have many fond memories of it. It was as wonderful as the book indicates. Next I spotted Stebbins Grill in downtown Louisville on Chestnut Street (before it was Mohammed Ali Boulevard). The author refers to it as the most upscale restaurant in the book. So upscale that I recall being able to afford only to look longingly at it from the outside! On the front cover is Pete's Cafe in Boonville, Mo, which I remember from a family vacation--one of those places advertised for miles in advance along the highway. And the pork chops were wonderful!

However, I want to tell the author that he missed the REAL Starlight Cafe--still operating, and under that name--in Terlingua, Texas (in the Big Bend area). Wonderful food--the shrimp-kabob tacos and cold beer are gifts from heaven in this beautiful remote hot and arid area. The decor is that of an ancient theatre--the original function; but it really more closely resembles a funky cave!

No, there's no fiction in this lovely book. Many of the illustrations are from old post card, very nicely reproduced. The Pete's Cafe illustration was from an earlier, destroyed incarnation of Pete's Cafe.