ERA Reviews

Touching Base is a well-researched account of the sport of baseball during its formative years. This book explains how and why baseball became our favorite pastime and how the sport paralleled the life and challenges of the American people during the first of the twentieth century. Great comparisons between the myths and the realities of the game.

Although the title implies that this might be a collection of short stories, it is more a series of chapters describing historical events. Written in a journalistic style that would hold your interest in a magazine, this book is not fiction but history that is slightly colored by the author's opinions. (Perhaps the word "tales" is used to avoid an obligation to be totally objective.) Still, the chapters are short and entertaining. You can finish a chapter and come back to the book a month later if you want because the chapters are independent of each other.

You will meet a wide range of characters in this book, from Harriet Beecher Stowe to Jubal Early and Abe Lincoln. Political background is covered without sounding dry, and some of the incidental stories (such as the background of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic") are quite fascinating. Garrison ends the book with some criticism of Abe Lincoln, who he felt prolonged the war. Notes about the author state that he lives in North Carolina.

My copy was published in 1990.

This book provides an excellent introduction to the basic historiographical problem involved in studying the early modern Catholic Church: what should we call the period? The author reviews the various solutions, (Counter-Reformation, Catholic Reformation, Catholic Reform, Catholic Confessionalization, Catholic Revival) and the history of the use of those terms. Then he proposes an additional term: "early modern Catholicism," which should be used besides all of the others. This begs the question, of course, of what exactly "early modern" means--a not entirely uncontroversial term in itself. The best part of the book is the reviews of where the current terms came from historically and why they were used. The solution is less compelling, simply because words like Counter-Reformation and Catholic Reformation are not only well-dispersed and easily understood, but they are still meaningful to the people who are using them. Also, the writer intentionally stays out of evidential debates by saying "that's material for a longer book". This is really a book about historiography--if you want info about the Catholic Ref., check out Bireley or Hsia or Mullett. On the other hand, this would be a really great book for graduate students who need a quick update on this info for their exams.

Looking for an exciting book that you can't put down? Anthony Burns would be a great one. A slave who has be accused for stealing and he is on trial, fighting for his life and freedom. It's a sad book because he's in jail with water once a week, food twice a day (which is raw meat, cornbread, and really just scraps of food. The end is shocking and it's a great book that I recommend reading.You will never put it down.

Dragoons were introduced into the US Army for the purpose of patrolling the overland routes to Oregon and later to California. They were the first mounted troops to be raised in many years.
Their lineage can be traced to today's cavalry units.
All of the work done by this author has proven to be well worth having, provided you have an interest. He has spent many years gathering and interpreting his information. One of his specialties is combing various works for narrative commentary. He is especially known for ferreting out contemporaneous images of the clothing and equipment in use.

I had to read this book for a history project I was working on, but came to enjoy the book. I picked up a lot of insight into these women's lives and made me realize their impact and their struggles.

The top five Presidents in American history are called "great" Presidents by historians, and the next five Presidents are usually referred to as "near-great". Woodrow Wilson, our 28th President, is usually placed into the near-great category. "Near-great" Presidents are those leaders who accomplished many of their goals, but fell just short in one area. And "near-great" is also how I would rate this biography by August Heckscher. It is easily the best one-volume biography of Wilson to appear in many years. Heckscher writes eloquently of Wilson's troubled childhood. The first President from the South since the Civil War, Wilson grew up in the shadow of his domineering father, a well-known and intimidating Presbyterian minister in some of the South's largest and wealthiest churches. The elder Wilson expected nothing less than perfection, and his son often had a difficult time meeting those expectations. As a result he often turned to his doting mother for emotional warmth and support, and as Heckscher notes, he would always be extremely dependent upon the support and encouragement of women to boost his self-confidence.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, Wilson still grew up to resemble his father, for good and ill. On the positive side Wilson was strong-willed, extremely intelligent, ambitious, idealistic, and an eloquent orator like his father. But on the negative side he could be narrow-minded and self-righteous, humorless (at least in public), inflexible, and prone to making enemies. His health was also poor, and it can be persuasively argued that he suffered two major strokes before assuming the Presidency - once in 1896 and another in 1908. However, neither Wilson nor anyone else recognized them as strokes, but instead he regarded them as "nervous breakdowns". The first and only President with a Ph.D (in political science) Wilson enjoyed a distinguished academic career, first as a professor at Princeton University and then (from 1902-1910) as the President of Princeton. Wilson transformed the sleepy, laid-back campus into the distinguished university that it still is today, but his domineering leadership style earned him many enemies, and Wilson eventually quit after losing a bitter battle to change the living and social conditions on campus by forcing the wealthier students to live and work with the less well-to-do. In 1910 the corrupt Democratic bosses of New Jersey were looking for a "respectable" candidate to run for Governor - someone who could legitimately run as an "honest" candidate while being weak or naive enough to remain under their control. In Wilson, a nationally known college president and intellectual, they thought they had their man, or rube. Wilson accepted their offer, won the election, and then dramatically turned against the bosses, leading a major effort to clean up New Jersey politics. His about-face won national acclaim and helped make him the Democratic presidential candidate in 1912. In one of the nation's most colorful and historic presidential races, he defeated his two opponents - President Taft, the Republican candidate, and Teddy Roosevelt, the third-party Progressive candidate - and became President. During his two terms he passed major domestic legislation such as giving women the right to vote, ending child labor, and improving safety conditions in factories and mines. He also endured the crushing death of his first wife from kidney disease, quickly remarried a year later, and tried desperately to keep the nation out of World War One. In 1916 he barely won re-election in a race that was so close the winner wasn't announced for several days. In early 1917, after German submarines began sinking unarmed American merchant vessels, Wilson convinced Congress to declare war on Germany and the nation entered World War One. At the end of the war in 1919 came Wilson's greatest failure. Determined to bring about "world peace", Wilson helped create the League of Nations to peacefully settle disputes between countries. He knew, however, that without US membership and leadership the League would be useless. Unfortunately, Wilson's domineering leadership style as President had alienated the Republicans and even some members of his own party in Congress. Led by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, they were determined to defeat Wilson and prevent US entry into the League. To gain public support for his cause, President Wilson went on a nationwide speaking tour by train. But in early 1919 he suffered a massive stroke that nearly killed him. He was not able to return to work for months (his second wife and staff kept the news from the public, and his wife was in many ways the "acting President" during this period). Wilson never regained the full use of his body or speech, and Lodge and his allies were able to easily defeat the League. An invalid, Wilson died in 1924 after predicting that the US would pay a huge price for its' failure to join the League, which was proven true when the League proved to be powerless to stop Hitler's rise to power in the 1930's. Heckscher eloquently lays out the details of Wilson's life. However, the book fails to turn up any original or new insights into Wilson's life and character that previous biographies have not already discussed. Additionally, Heckscher leaves out another dark side of Wilson's life - his strong racist beliefs regarding blacks. Wilson's low opinion of African-Americans has been an ugly blot on his Presidency that many historians chose to ignore until the last 20 years or so, and Heckscher would have been well-advised to at least mention in some detail this flaw in his character. Nevertheless, this is still an excellent and detailed account of a high-minded, well-meaning, but ultimately tragic President. Recommended!

It's been more than twenty years since John Boswell's pioneering work on the history of homosexuality first appeared. Boswell argues that originally homosexuality was tolerated and admired in the urban world of the Roman Empire. Contrary to what one may think it was not Christianity per se that reduced this tolerance. In fact, one cannot show that the New Testament was hostile to homosexuality at all. Instead there was a certain decline of tolerance as the urban civilization of Rome collapsed. Yet for much of what we know as the Dark Ages homosexuality was viewed as at most a venial sin, and legal prohibitions against it were limited and ineffective. Indeed as urban civilization recovered by the eleventh and twelfth centuries a flourishing gay subculture arose, celebrating homosexual love. But over the next few centuries as powerful states seeking to enforce their authority arose, new anti-sodomy laws appeared, demanding death for its violators.

There is much in this book that is interesting and informative, and certainly there was no other work like it at the time. We learn about the weaknesses of much of the "natural law" case against homosexuality. Homosexuality is supposedly unnatural because animals do not do it. But anti-homosexuals also argue that homosexuality is wrong because vile animals like hyenas commit it. Of course, there is considerable evidence of homosexual behaviour among animals. And many undesirable traits, such as incest, are endemic among animals. And why should animals be the criterion of what is natural anyway? Anyway, much of the argument on what is perverted sex was based on considerable ignorance of the animal world, such as the false belief that hyenas were hermaphrodites or that oral sex is wrong because weasels conceive through their mouths. The same Christians who denounced homosexuality also vigorously denounced "Lending at interest, sexual intercourse during the menstrual period, jewellery or dyed fabrics, shaving, regular bathing, wearing wigs," and much else. In the eighth century the penance given for a priest who went hunting was allotted at three years, while some homosexual acts only got a year. We are given many samples of homosexual poetry, many of them written by high ranking clergymen, the more tactful of whom were canonized.

Yet this book has a number of major weaknesses that make Boswell much inferior to such other pioneering works of social history as The Making of the English Working Class or Roll Jordan Roll. His distinction between a more tolerant "urban" and a more intolerant "rural" is hopelessly vague. Not all "rural" societies disliked homosexuals. Moreover, the Roman Empire was overwhelmingly rural anyway, more than 90%, with land being the overwhelming source of wealth. To make things more confusing Boswell suggests that the thirteenth century turn had more to do with increasing state authority (also present in the Roman Empire) and increasing xenophobia as part of the crusades (also present during the Roman Empire, and for the twelfth century as well). Boswell displays a certain tendentiousness throughout the book. At one point Boswell suggests that there was less prejudice against the "passive" position in the Roman Empire because certain emperors indulged in it. But since the emperors in question were Caligula and Nero, one suspects that they were not good examples (Boswell also cites Nero as an example of homosexual marriage). Much of the book depends on the argument from silence, a questionable procedure when most Classical evidence has been lost to us.

But the largest problem with the book is Boswell's discussion of scripture. Boswell was both a homosexual and a Catholic and wanted to find a way to reconcile them. He was not successful. His chapter starts out well by pointing out that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is less about the evils of homosexuality than of abusing strangers. But then Boswell has to deal with the discussion of homosexuality in Leviticus, which pronounces it an abomination and demands the death penalty. Boswell argues that since Paul denounced the law Christians need no longer be bound by it. This is clearly tendentious. 2 Timothy refers to the divine inspiration of scripture and the Sermon on the Mount explicitly says that the Law remains in full force until the end. Moreover, Leviticus and Deuteronomy contain moral rules against bestiality, incest and child sacrifice that are still in force. It is revealing that Boswell does not discuss at all the problem of antinomianism or the role of Leviticus and Deuteronomy in Christians thought. If one is a Christian it would be most logical to argue that the law is still in force except (a) where the New Testament explicitly challenges it, (b) when it deals with matters that are now irrelevant (sacrifice ritual), or (c) when it deals with specifically Jewish matters. Boswell also tries to argue that Paul is criticizing not homosexuals but male heterosexuals who betray their nature by indulging in homosexuality. This makes the questionable assumption that people in the first century CE reified people by the sexual acts they committed. Why would Jews like Jesus and Paul, who are so unenthusiastic about marriage, extend to their followers a whole new realm of fornication? Boswell weakly suggests that because heterosexuals produce children who were commonly abandoned and abused, while homosexuals didn't, Christians viewed homosexuality as a lesser problem. But this is mere suggestion; he gives no evidence of such a well developed moral concern in the book. It is not surprising therefore then that scholars such as Robin Lane Fox, Ramsay Macmullen, and David Wright have been critical of Boswell's thesis.

To call this book historic is not an overstatement. The breadth and depth of the scholarship is staggering and the sheer wealth of the material overwhelming. Never have I read such a detailed argument based on such familiarity and mastery of the material. To remain unconvinced of the argument, when faced with such an extraordinary amount of evidence, reveals a deep seated abhorrence to the idea that the Catholic Church and the basic documents for the Christian faith contain little if any prohibitions against homosexuality greater than that of many rules that have long been discarded. It is only comparatively recently (i.e. after the Twelfth Century) that prejudice against homosexuals have become linked with Christian doctrine. Such abhorrence cannot be dealt with by reason, argument and review of the historical evidence and remains quite literally irrational. Those personally invested in maintaining this prejudice will find reasons to be unconvinced (see some of the comments below). But if approached with an open mind, a mind unwilling to be sidetracked with caveats that miss the grand vista opened by this work, the reader will be persuaded as well.

I shall quote from my web page: If you are gay and Christian, or gay and were Christian, or are Christian and trying not to be gay, get this book. It saved my life. I had huge problems reconciling religion and homosexuality. In chapter 4 (my favorite chapter, entitled "The Scriptures") Boswell shows how New Testament passages are misinterpreted and that for Christians the laws in the Old Testament no longer apply (2 Corinthians 3 is an example). It's interesting to see the change in attitudes through the ages. Actually it's quite amazing and sad. It's fascinating to read about early Church leaders who were gay and how they argued with others who said they were wrong. Definitely get this book; it is amazing. It also has quite interesting poems and letters with homosexual themes.

There have been a lot of books about the crash of the high tech market. This is one of the best. The coverage is thorough if at times tedious. Cassidy makes an excellent case that the lack of a business model and the prevalent "greater fool" theory led to the demise of the Internet bubble. Too many pitched the idea that if their site captured just one percent of a [Hundred] billion-dollar market, than the firm would be a success. Only even one percent was a pipe dream, and perhaps a dozen firms had the same idea. And the "greater fool" theory suggests that even if the originators are wrong, somebody else will be foolish enough to buy them out.

Cassidy concludes his good work with a lengthy table of dot.com failures, a sobering story in itself. Perhaps it is so sobering that the life and exhuberance of the subject drained away. I found the last third of the book to be more of a continuous litany of mistakes and I lost much of my interest.

This book was bound to be controversial as it touched on a subject where many people made and lost massive amounts of money. I agree with a previous reviewer who said all of this has been written before. However, no where has someone provided a good historical of the total Dot.com bubble and this book does it perfectly.

Providing great insights into the stock market as well as management of the Treasury market by Greenspan, the author does a great job of providing an economic overview of the climate that helped create bubble, allowed it to flourish and eventually led to its demise.

This overall perspective now allows an interested reader to see how a bubble could happen. Everyone knew the stocks were overpriced but as long as they continued to go up, money managers could not refuse to hold the stocks as their yield comparsions would look so much worse than their competitors.

In summary, there is no new ground broken here. Just a valid analysis of a fascinating period in our history.

New Yorker financial writer, John Cassidy, says it all in this brilliantly rendered, highly entertaining account of the biggest economic scandal of the last twenty-five years--Enron who?--the crash and burn of the relentlessly hyped dot.com sector. One part historic overview, two parts searing indictman of the financial-technological-media nexus, Dot.Con--as the Wall Street Journal said last week--will be read by generations of Wharton and Harvard B school grads still unborn. Not since John Kenneth Galbraith have we had a popular economist with this kind of reach--or depth. Bravo.

Mr. Frank's thesis is this: many of the consumer goods we buy are purchased not for the intrinsic pleasure they bring, but for the pleasure of keeping up with or surpassing the Joneses. By taxing consumption instead of earnings, people will buy cheaper luxury goods. This will keep all of the pleasure of the consumption race but raise extra tax dollars to spend on things that everyone truly wants for their intrinsic value - like cleaner air.

It will also have the effect of increasing savings (because income is not taxed until spent, the incentive to invest is boosted). This makes us all richer long-term as capital investments grow our standard of living.

The theory is well-explained -- perhaps too well-explained -- but the proposed solution is not. While Mr. Frank spends a couple of hundred pages explaining the problem, his solution - taxing consumption - is presented without question. But will it work? The goal of producing income is to spend it, and whether it's done now or later, the rich want to spend it all before they die. Doesn't it make sense that not taxing saving would simply defer consumption until later in life, and the rich would buy even *more* opulent goods later? The author never discusses this, or any other potential difficulties. Won't the rich just rent everything instead of buying? Won't people who might otherwise save, be instead persuaded to consume now, since they will be taxed more if they save to buy their dream good in a single future year? The point is not that these objections are unanswerable, but that they seem to never even occur to the author.

As for the disdain with which Mr. Frank treats the acquisition of luxury goods, the reader should be made more than a little uneasy. What he says about social pressure may have some merit, but is this the *only* reason someone buys a Ferrari? And what about those of us who do not feel the need to keep up, and buy goods purely because they will enrich our lives in other ways? Again, these shades of grey do not slow down Mr. Frank's thesis. And the reader who is told he is "polluting" by choosing to wear an expensive suit - the author uses the analogy without qualification or irony - would be justified in feeling that Mr. Frank would have done well to temper the observations in his book with an understanding that human motivations are not as black and white as he thinks.

Professor Frank's title for Chaper 10 'smart for one dumb for all' sums up much of the recent business and political behavior in our country.

Jobs are going to China and a flood of imports are drowning our factories because our government and business leaders are practicing "smart for one" while our country slides toward the status of a 3rd world nation.

It is said that a nation's wealth is measured by what it can manufacture - not by what it consumes (who said that?)

Every CEO worth his or her salt these days is moving manufacturing operations overseas as fast as possile to get a piece of the short-term profits under "smart for one". If this continues, the 'dumb for all' effect will doom us to to poverty and China will (again?) rule the world of commerce.

Luxury Fever is a great book which should be read by every person who cares about the USA over the long haul - especially our elected officials. I'd like to see RH Franks (Luxury Fever) team up with Ravi Batra (The Myth of Free Trade) as lobbyists to return sanity to our country's business climate.

Adam Smith has been taken out of context. When he spoke about the "Invisible Hand" (of commerce) there was an ethic in the land that accepted pervasive empathy as a given. Today, our leaders push unbridled avarice and seem to think that empathy is only for the weak 'players'.

As the review title indicates, students & professors of economics, politics, psychology and other social & behavioral sciences will benefit from perusing the pages of Bob Frank's commentary on contemporary American life. Regardless of whether you agree with Professor Frank's solution to our society's "arms race of consumerism", the book makes the reader think about the materialism evident in much of the U.S. Using amusing analogies to describe human behavior related to "buying excess," Frank explains these activities with theories of psychology and economics. His insight provokes thought and entertains the reader throughout the book. Whether explaining why many middle class couples spend $5,000 for the latest Viking model gas grill for their patio, or describing how two millionaires childishly built larger and more lavish yachts just to own the biggest and best cruiser in the world, Frank delivers interesting examples which help provide an understanding for why many people do the things they do.

Read this book if you are a student or teacher of the social or behavioral sciences. Whether you agree with Frank's prescription to correct societal consumerism or you don't believe America has a problem, this book entertains the reader and stimulates ideas for discussion. Well worth the read!