No comments about Journal of Colonel George Washington, Commanding a Detachment of Virginia Troops.

5 comments about Forgotten Fatherland: The Search for Elisabeth Nietzsche.

1. This is one of the most curious books I have ever read: on the one hand, there is the story of a failed 19th C German colony in Paraguay, founded on eugenic principles that would be echoed in Hitler's time; on the other hand, there is the biography of one of the most overlooked figures in 19th C philosophy - Elisabeth Nietzsche, sister of the famed philosopher, and apparently the one who twisted her brother's ideas to conform to her own concept of racial purity (and a woman who Hitler courted in his early years of power).
   The author, Ben Macintyre, does an admirable job of bringing these two stories together: Elizabeth and her husband, "professional anti-semite" Bernhard Forster, attempt the Paraguayan colony as `New Germany' (Nueva Germania); this colony was designed to appeal to `true' Germans who wanted to establish not only an ideological power base, but flee economic problems at home. The colony does not succeed, as Macintyre discovers when he journeys there in 1991: there are a few of the old families around, and the dangers of inbreeding, according to one recent German immigrant doctor, are becoming noticeable, heralding the inevitable decline of what Elisabeth envisioned as her own pure, private kingdom.
   As the parallel story of Nietzsche develops, we see perhaps Elisabeth's real impact on history: her reinterpretation - or even reinvention - of her brother's theories. Macintyre makes an excellent case for Elisabeth's "mythologizing" of her brother and his works to further her own agenda (and help set the stage for Hitler and company's racial programs of the 1930s): although Nietzsche himself was "anti-anti-semitic", during his insanity and after his death, Elisabeth shamelessly made herself the custodian - and editor - of many of his works, linking her brother to an ideology he actually despised. It is no wonder that Nietzsche's named became philosophical "mud", as Macintyre recounts. This part of the book is worth reading for the blatant rewriting of history done by a woman who would not apologize for her views or actions (and whose death in 1935 prevented her from seeing the result of racist views she helped promulgate).
   Macintyre's physical investigation of what happened to New Germany is entertaining, and provides a respite from the depressing - but riveting - narrative of the rest of the book. His concern with becoming a `stud' to a colony of desperate young German colonists is hilarious, as are his equestrian, translating, and lodging adventures. When he finds the remnants of New Germany, the book seems to lack content - until you realize, as Macintyre does -- that the colonists' dreams for a racially `pure' paradise is exactly what will cause them to disappear. The lack if information on the descendents of the original colonists seems to be because they either won't talk, or avoid talking by hiding in the forest. The pictures included in the book provide a great backdrop to what the colony wanted, and what it actually received. The book also relates a brief history of Paraguay and several colorful characters (some not even connected with the events the book is about), that put the whole thing in an understandable historical context.



2. I should get one thing taken care of right off the bat: The author's trip to an Aryan colony in Paraguay is only a pretext for a larger discussion of the rather interesting dynamic between the philosopher Nietzsche, his strong-willed if intellectually mediocre sister, and the rather tumultuous events swirling around fin de siecle Germany. This has its good points and it bad points. The bad first: From the blurbs on the book one expects the author to recount a journey of unremitting horror, fascination and farce as he discovers the depraved Ubermen who still people a failed and fading 19th Century experiment in Aryan race politics gone awry. This isn't what one finds. In fact, the colony of Nueva Germania really acts only as an incidental prop or set-up for the real meat of the story: What happens to Nietzsche the man, the myth and the philosophy under the willing and able hands of his manipulative and single-minded sister. So, like a reviewer below, I would that the author had spent a bit more on the colony and its people and indeed his adventure and misadventures as he made his way to them and lived amongst them for a month. I suspect that the author chose not to do this not only because he had a bigger fish to fry, but also because he is a bit lacking in the skills that the best travel writers possess which allow them to really string an audience along over every rut in the road, sore belly and improbable situation. On the other hand, I believe that the author does an excellent job of describing the political foment that overtook Germany and eventually produced the Holocaust. Before reading this book, for instance, I had no idea how prolonged and widespread was the phenomenon of active, political anti-semitism and what it meant for the likes of people such as these. Furthermore, as I have never actually read the works of Nietzsche, but have been bombarded by incessant and inane references to most of his more quotable nostrums, I felt a definite familiarity with, albeit mixed with a strong dose of repugnance toward, his philosophies. As such, after reading this book, I am definitely open to and perhaps a little eager to read his works and also thanks to the author am forewarned about what to watch out for. This is to say that, and I don't want to ruin the story for you, it is a supreme irony that it appears that much of what is worst about the uses to which Nietzsche's writing have been put may be attributed to his sister's meddling but also that were it not for her monomaniacal quest to bring her brother and, by association, herself to glory, Nietzsche might have gone down in the annals of history as just another mad philosopher. A note about the criticism made by a reviewer below about the author's interpretation and defense of Nietzsche's philosophical intent: I believe that a closer reading of the present text will produce answers to these objections. Of course, this begs the question of defining that shadow line between reality and insanity in the context of Nietzsche's works, but that is for another time and a different essay. I think that you will enjoy this book if you fall into the following categories: You enjoy voyeuristic travel journals/personality characterizations; you are interested in Nietzsche the man; you are interested in Nietsche-Forster the woman; you have an affinity for the cultural history of Paraguay/South America. I don't recommend this to anyone else.



3. I started the book with the expectation to read something about the fate of an Utopia - the fate of the settlers of the New Germany Colony in Paraguay in 1886 and their descendants. However, the book is rather a very nicely and interesting written story about Friedrich Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth. The colony of New Germany in Paraguay - in my opinion - is supposed to be a catching hanger for Elisabeth's story. This is why the books starts to tell about the beginning of the colony and the author's own journey to find the descendants of the early settlers in Paraguay. But then the books starts again with the life story of Elisabeth, the relationship to her brother, her marriage to Bernhard Foerster and move to Paraguay, her return back and the re-interpretation and publication of Friedrich Nietzsches work. Only the last chapter deals with the lost descendants of the colony. Probably the author is not to blamed for this - apparently nothing much can be told about it, i.e. because the descendants do not talk to him.
   
   Elisabeth's story is very intersting and worth reading. The author tells this story in lot of details (sometimes too much detail and to lengthy) and the twist between Elisabeth's life, the colony's fate, and the author's own journey to Paraguay is nicely done. I loved the pictures because the gave the whole story more depth and made it easier for me to picture the characters and the country.
   
   I give only four stars because I expected more about the colony. The story is based on extensive material, i.e. diaries of Elisabeth and other books. However, I had sometimes a hard time to tell what exactly is fiction and what not. I also would have preferred a time table because I was sometimes lost and did not know what year the author was talking about.



4. I was eager to read Forgotten Fatherland because of the fascinating and odd topic. Much of the story of the Nietzsches, the colony, and Paraguay comes through in the book, but in spite of the efforts of Ben MacIntyre. Ben MacIntyre's writing is embarassingly poor. His ideas are disorganized and poorly stated, and some of the metaphors are laughable.



5. An odd little book that defies category but keeps the reader engaged throughout. History intermingled with journalistic memoir works well, in this case. Especially since the history continues to play out. Far too many people still think the real Friedrich Neitzsche inspired the Nazis, rather than the fake Neitzche, proferred by his anti-semitic sister. Ah, but I digress. This tale of Elizabeth Neitzsche's Paraguayan colony, the history that provoked it and stoked it, and the fear and desperation that have kept it alive -- albeit devastatingly inbred -- offers a continuing warning to all of us. The tools and techniques used to propagate and justify bigotry by Elizabeth Neitzsche and her cohort are painfully reminicent of the scapegoating so prevalent in US politics today. With the recent creation of a group of fundamentalist Christians working to secure a state and secede from the Union in order to create their own Christian-only utopia, this story is all-too prescient. History continues to repeat itself, even while we enjoy its well-done iteration in eclectic literature.
   
   I am no writer, as you can tell. However, I am a reader, and this book is worht a look. Enjoy.

3 comments about Did Lincoln Own Slaves?: And Other Frequently Asked Questions about Abraham Lincoln.

1. This is a great book to browse through and pick up fascinating facts about Lincoln. The format is enjoyable, and the author uses clever humor throughout. In addition to facts about Lincoln's life, he gives opinions on the best and worst books and movies about Abe. Highly readable and educational!



2. Did Lincoln Own Slaves? And Other Frequently Asked Questions About Abraham Lincoln,Gerald J. Prokopowicz, Pantheon Books, 311 pp., illustrations, photographs, bibliographic and reference notes, index, 2008, $24.95
   
   Well, when Civil War Librarian received a first notice of the book, a stereotype was placed in a mental pidgeon hole. Probably a slim book published for the middle school-high school library. Probably lots of often published photographs. Maybe a 'Dummy's Guide to Abraham Lincoln'. But, there was the author's name: Gerald J. Prokopowicz. Civil War Librarian is a listener and fan of Civil War Talk Radio and its host and faculty member of East Carolina University. Hmmmm.
   
   Prokopowicz doesn't write/talk down to the reader of Did Lincoln Own Slaves; it is as if the reader is in a seminar on Lincoln and the author is the the discussion leader and instructor. Aristotle and Socrates would be pleased; Prokopowicz employs questions to bring the reader through the implications of the simplest question. What are the assumptions implied in the questions? How has this question been answered previously? What is the current scholarship on the question?
   
   As scholar-in-residence at the Lincoln Museum of Fort Wayne, Indiana for nine years, Prokopowicz probably had to handle this questions. The book is organized somewhat chronologically but also topically. In the sections 'Boy Lincoln,' 'Rail Splitter,' 'Springfield,' 'Politician,' 'Speaker' and seven other chapters, the author organizes the material in chronological fashion but also explores the implications of the questions and stretches outside the confines of the immediate dates.
   
   In the section 'Speaker' an articulate essay on Stephen Douglas brings the reader into the historical context of competitive politics. The answers to such questions as 'What was his greatest speech?' four pages long and contains a note and portions of Lincoln's remarks. Wonderfully, Prokopowicz conditions his answer with the remark "You already know about his presidential speeches, like the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Address . . ." and then presents 11 paragraphs of cogent description and discussion of the October 16, 1854 Peoria, Illinois speech addressing the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
   
   Chapter Six, 'President,' Prokopowicz begins with 'How old was Lincoln when he became president?' He deals with the answer in one declarative sentence and then a remark that Lincoln was the third youngest president up to that time. The chapter builds to longer answers in the middle then wind downs to shorter answers. The author leads the reader into an in depth discussion and out again. At the end of the each chapter, a section 'For Further Reading' not only suggests books in the field but also offers a brief historiographical discussion of the resources.
   
   From first to last, the author is not a sage-on-a-stage but a guide-by-the-side. A clear writing style and a concise delivery of the facts presents the reader with an enjoyable experience. A foundation of facts with citations offers the reader a thoughtful and scholarly return on the time invested. Each of the chapters leads the reader to the next; Civil War Librarian at times could not put it down missed several hours of sleep. Of the many satisfying chapters, 'Legacy' is the most appreciated; Prokopowicz's discussion of the variety of interpretations and the climate of the times in which each interpretation was written, capped 'Did Lincoln Own Slaves?'
   
   With Andrew Ferguson's Land of Lincoln in 2007 and Prokopowicz's 'Did Lincoln Own Slaves?, both the general reader of biography and the dedicated reader of Lincoln books will have a Lincoln book in both their hands.



3. This work is practically an encyclopedia in scope. Propowicz synthesizes, assesses and summarizes, in a well-divided, Q&A format, the latest scholarship and views on Lincoln issues and shows how, when you blend all that we factually know, Lincoln was a true pragmatist; ahead of many in thought but practical in deed, and commited to no idealogue's camp.
   Thanks to the book's division of life and time subjects, it can almost be read like a life sketch. There is also a section that dicusses Lincoln museums, newly-found Lincoln artifacts, and even "fun" stuff, like Lincoln impersonators, movies, etc.
   The book is generously illustrated with a good selection of relevant photos.
   OK, why would I minus half a star? C'mon, LINCOLN OWN A SLAVE? Who ever seriously considered that? A better title should have been chosen so the book isn't mistaken for one of these recent "Lost Cause" racism defenders.

No comments about Indira Gandhi (Mujeres en la historia series).

5 comments about Yale English Monarchs - Richard III (The English Monarchs Series).

1. The bulk of the book is given over to a scholarly, detailed account of Richard's life and administration, which is what interests Ross. What does not interest Ross is whether or not Richard was a murderer. He is interested in Richard-the-man-in-the-context-of-his-times, not Richard, the man. The whole debate over the Princes in the Tower irks Ross extremely, and he begins his chapter on the subject by petulantly pitching into Ricardians for their interest in this subject; they are not even worth responding to, but since their arguments have gotten so much publicity (in scholarly terms) they must be responded to. Grudgingly. With this attitude, it's not surprising that Ross does egregiously stupid things, such as arguing that Richard must be guilty because the king always is guilty in cases of this kind, implicitly dismissing the possibility that anyone might do something differently from his or her forebears; there are, Ross says, no examples of political crimes committed without the king's knowledge--except, of course, he adds, the murder of Thomas a Becket--thus destroying his entire point, which wasn't a good argument in the first place. The rest of the chapter is up to the same standard. The book is worth getting, however, for the rest of the text and because it is considered the standard bio of Richard. The case for Richard's guilt in the disappearance of his nephews has been more convincingly argued by others, but Ricardians will find in appropriate chapter splendid material for a defence of Richard, albeit Ross did not intend it as such.



2. It is always sad when I come across a biography with as many rich possibilities as Richard III and find that the author has destroyed the story by lacking the ability to write a simple story (and yes this includes a conclusion). If what you wish is a simple rendition of Richard III's basic biography please purchase and read this book. If you are looking for a richer context with which to view Richard III then please look elsewhere for satisfaction.



3. Charles Ross, one of the most respected historians of later medieval Britain, has produced a fairly standard biography of Richard III that, though more than adequate for scholars doing research, does not compare to his work on Edward IV in the Yale English Monarchs series. Ross is known to be a "traditionalist"--that is, one who views Richard III's guilt in the disappearance of the princes in the Tower as more than probable. This annoys many who sympathize with Richard III (see some of the other reviews). However, far from attempting to prove his contention, he simply states why he believes the scenario is a likely one. Anyone truly interested in the comparative study of Richard III's reputation should contrast this book with the 1956 biography by Paul Murray Kendall.



4. Richard III is a name that conjures up an image of pure evil on par with Hitler and Jack the Ripper. His image has been shaped by Shakespeare (who was shaped by More among others): the crook-backed schemer, cheerfully murdering all those who stood between him and the throne, inflicting misery upon England until finally being overthrown by the heroic Henry Tudor. As is the case with other historical figures, Richard's extreme image has invited polarized debate, with those supporting the traditional view, and newer Riccardians who insist that Richard was the Second Coming.
   
   Charles Ross takes a more objective position, guaranteed to make neither side happy, but far more valuable to historical discourse. On the whole, Ross concludes, Richard was not the monster of popular imagination, but rather a man who lived in politically unstable times, came to the throne by usurpation for good or for ill, but was never to achieve any substantial measure of support in England, and so never became an effective ruler. In other words, Ross argues, Richard was a man of his times, and his times were not pleasant. If Richard seems a bit of a monster to us, so would most of his contemporaries.
   
   However, this approach cuts both ways, as Ross lays aside some of the more interesting points of contention surrounding Richard. Most specifically, he pays only passing lip service to Richard's part in the death of his two young nephews, the "little princes in the Tower," one of whom, Edward, was the rightful heir to the throne. Ross comes down on the side of tradition, pointing out that Richard probably did have them killed (their exact fate was never really known), arguing that to keep them alive would have been dangerous to his own claim, and that Richard was too pragmatic not to kill them. It's a valid argument, and perhaps the most responsible way of dealing with this issue in a book that Ross admits is not meant to be comprehensive.
   
   Unfortunately, Ross spends so much time discussing which family Richard gave what title to, and what land earned what income, the whole of the book feels very weighed down by minutia. Indeed, Ross becomes so intent on his laundry-list which lord owned what, who had what title, who lived where, and who was loyal to Richard and his family, that he seems to have forgotten just who was the subject of this book. He effectively distances the reader from Richard, engendering indifference. Simply put, one of the more sordid events in Richard's reign would have injected some pep in a surprisingly lifeless book.
   
   There is no doubt that Ross is a scholar. However, he lays out the history in a very bland and unengaging way. He never invites the reader to actively read his work, he simply lectures them and ignores any hands the come up for questions. His work, while intelligent, isn't very interesting.



5. I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was well researched and well written. People can argue until they are blue in the face about Richard's innocence or guilt when it comes to the princes. The fact of the matter is that we will never know. All we can do is form our own independent opinions. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Richard, his life before and during his reign, as well as the culture of the time in which he lived.

No comments about Edward Lansdale's Cold War (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War).

1 comments about Eckhardt: There Once Was a Congressman from Texas (Focus on American History Series, Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin).

1. I was the third Mrs. Bob Eckhardt, and it was the Texas Observer review of Gary Keith's biography of Bob that first set off alarm bells for me. Quoting Keith, Brant Bingamon writes that in the early 1960s, when I saw Bob eating at Scholz's, "cutting his bread with his pocketknife and plunging the bread into his gravy, swirling the bread around, then eating it with a look of immense satisfaction," I was "not amused."
   
   Quite the contrary. At the time I thought it a sign of the gusto with which Bob must live--rather like that wonderful eating scene in Tom Jones that seems to promise spectacular sex to follow. I could only marvel at Keith's being so mistaken. And wonder why.
   
   But I knew he had taken on a huge challenge: he would have to account for a long, vital, and controversial life, a complex political history in Texas and the nation, a wide range of issues, and an enormous cast of characters--all of which present organizational problems of no mean order.
   
   And I understood how tough his work had to be, for I've published four non-fiction books--the first with Harvard, the last with the Texas A&M University Press, and the middle two with distinguished commercial presses--and each time I'd wrestled with the need not only to be accurate, but to weave a number of themes into a clear narrative line. My hard work and obsession with accuracy paid off, however, for the first was co-winner of the Texas Institute of Letters' Carr P. Collins award. And only one correction has ever been brought to my attention: an episode involving John Silber's Introduction to Philosophy class in 1956 turned out to take place in the middle of a session rather than at the end, as I'd described it in my autobiography, Finding Celia's Place.
   
   Since Keith's book was published by the University of Texas Press and includes almost 50 pages of footnotes and a 15-page list of sources--newspaper stories, academic articles, books, and oral interviews--it would naturally inspire the reviewer to remark on Keith's "depth of research." The book would seem to be authoritative. And when I began reading, I found myself grateful to Keith for recording so many of the stories Bob told with such gusto, as well as his clever verses. I was even glad for the genealogy, which I'd never managed to get straight.
   
   Unfortunately, however, the parts of the book that include the years in which I was a front-row witness are riddled with mistakes, special pleading, and misleading comments. To be sure, Bob's private life occupies only a small portion of the whole, and that is a choice any biographer has the right to make. But Keith's commitment to truth regarding it must be no less rigorous than in the parts dealing with public matters.
   
   I don't presume to judge his narrative of the 70 plus years when I was not a part of Bob Eckhardt's life, but I see no reason to think the author's skills and techniques are significantly different in those sections. And a useful comparison might be made with Jan Reid's Texas Monthly piece, done in 1993 when Bob turned 80. Granted that less is required of a magazine article, everything in that piece rang true, and I wrote Reid that he'd not only done a splendid job, he'd made me laugh--despite the fact that the subject has a comic potential that ranks, for me, somewhere between the Holocaust and the Last Judgment. (Several years ago I had the pleasure of saying this in public, at the annual awards banquet of the Texas Institute of Letters, when I presented Reid with an award for the year's best magazine article.)
   
   Three subjects in Keith's book are crucial to my part of the Eckhardt story: Bob's dealings with money, the 1980 campaign, and his stroke in 1987. I wrote about all this in Finding Celia's Place, which Keith cites in his bibliography. In his hour-long interview with me, he did not challenge or comment on anything I'd written. Nor did he ask probing questions. He simply wrote the story differently, as though my account was beside the point.
   
   ****
   
   To begin with the election, the key question is why Bob lost while Jimmy Carter, an unpopular president, won in his district. I hadn't written in detail about the initial failures of the campaign apparatus because I didn't think most readers would be interested. I'd merely said that what Bob was doing during the fateful spring and summer of 1980 wasn't working and wasn't going to work.
   
   Keith, however, says that I had never liked Ann Lower, Bob's administrative assistant who was also responsible for running the campaign, and he writes as though this crippled our efforts. But the charge is flatly untrue, and not only I, but as many as 10 staff people who were available for questioning could easily have disputed it. In my first two and a half years in Washington, Bob and I did many things with Milton and Ann Lower, and they were often in our home.
   
   It was only in the late spring of 1980 that I became anxious about the way Ann was running, or more to the point, failing to run the campaign. A good many well-placed people in Houston were telling me that Bob was in trouble and that the campaign seemed a non-starter. They expected me to tell Bob, which of course I did. But he refused to take these warnings seriously.
   
   With Bob's blessing, however, I gathered well-wishers who were game to sit around making suggestions about what we could do to help Bob win in November. On the plane back to Washington I began telling him about the meeting, and he asked me to write the suggestions down. I did so and asked his executive secretary, Frances Gray, to give copies to him and to Ann.
   
   Ann, it turned out, was furious that she hadn't been invited, and for half an hour she sat in Bob's office yelling at me on the telephone--an act that in itself would have doomed a staff person in most congressional offices on the Hill. I said I hadn't invited my husband either: I'd wanted people to feel free to come up with a range of ideas--away from those who had the power to squelch or change them. She was not mollified.
   
   This stunning eruption of Ann's revealed the choke hold she had on the campaign: she wanted to run it entirely from the top, discouraging others from initiatives that might have the cumulative effect that makes for a successful campaign. When I called Congressman Mickey Leland, and said If you and the African-American community don't help Bob, he's going to lose, Mickey said I thought Ann Lower didn't want me there.
   
   Keith writes, further, that I "implored [Bob] to dismiss Ann Lower." Along with a number of other people, I tried to persuade him to shift her into another job so that she couldn't thwart the work of the campaign. Eventually he did this, but much too late.
   
   Curious about Keith's one-sided view of that campaign, I checked his sources and discovered that he repeatedly cites the Ann and Milton Lower Personal Papers, never suspecting, apparently, that these might represent special pleading. But any number of people would have told the story quite differently, as I had in Finding Celia's Place.
   
   Four members of Bob's congressional committee staff, for instance, took vacation leave to go to Houston and work in the campaign. Keith includes only one of them, Kathy Seddon, in his list of people interviewed, but Ms. Seddon says that she, along with several others, merely had lunch with Keith. They talked about Bob, but she didn't consider this an interview and at any rate he didn't ask her about the 1980 election.
   
   What Ms. Seddon found when she got to Houston on the Columbus Day weekend, in fact, was a basically empty campaign headquarters, and she fundamentally disagrees with Keith's characterizations of the volunteer effort. Two other staff people, Dick Frandsen and David Nelson, who came for the last three weeks, found that nobody had even prepared the necessary list of talking points for volunteers who'd walk the neighborhoods and rally people to the Eckhardt cause. According to Nelson, "The campaign was in shambles until the Steelworkers freed up Sam Dawson from his East side office to run the campaign from headquarters." * (*Milton Lower was the fourth committee aide to come. Keith doesn't list him among those he interviewed, but he uses his papers extensively.)
   
   Keith also failed to interview Ted Johnson, the talented media guy who was persuaded by Mark Raabe, staff director of Bob's oversight subcommittee, to fly down belatedly and cut TV ads for the campaign. So traumatized was Johnson by the disorder he found there that Raabe attributed this experience, only partly in jest, to the fact that he shortly thereafter dropped out of politics altogether and enrolled in an Episcopal seminary.
   
   These four were all talented, bright, hard-working people, two of them lawyers, who had an inside view of the 1980 campaign and no axes to grind, but they weren't called upon to give their insights and information for the record about this critical campaign.
   
   The truth is that at least a score of people warned Bob repeatedly as early as late spring, 1980, that his campaign wasn't working, but he did nothing to change that. Powerful forces were arrayed against him, and Keith describes those ably, but after Dawson took over the direction of the campaign a little more than two weeks before election day, it became clear that Bob could win it. So many people pitched in during those last two weeks that he came very close, but his loss was ultimately his own doing--a fact the reader is unlikely to carry away from Gary Keith's biography. Bob asked huge sacrifices of many others but failed to do the timely, necessary work to keep his side of the bargain.
   
   The campaign Keith describes was for the most part a campaign on paper. The reality was something altogether different.
   
   ****
   
   All through the book Keith scatters comments about Bob's convoluted attitude to money and the financial messes he left for others to resolve. He notes, for instance, that J. Edwin Smith, Bob's old friend and campaign treasurer, resigned after two years of imploring Bob to work with him to cancel the 1980 campaign debt. On the one hand Bob was notoriously mingy--witness the famously shabby clothes--and on the other he was extravagant: for all the years of our marriage he kept three horses and 18 acres of land in Houston, while his debt billowed and he refused to know even what it was.
   
   I wrote that Bob had an aristocrat's disdain for tradesman's bills, but this was little more than a footnote in a sustained description in Finding Celia's Place of the financial trouble that hung ominously over my marriage to Bob. Keith invariably refers to this trouble by pointing out that I was angry and quarrelsome on the subject. He never fully explains the context, and in some instances doesn't explain it at all.
   
   Bob and I were to be married in Washington in the fall of 1977 and had committed ourselves to buying the house he wanted there. I had already sold my New York apartment and sent my furniture down when I heard the terms of Bob's divorce decree from Nadine: he had given her two houses, which left him without the Houston residence he needed as the congressman from the 8th district. He'd committed himself to an amount of child support so much higher than I had gotten in New York, a far more expensive city, that it constituted alimony. And he had taken on the whole of their debt, which was about two-thirds of his annual congressional salary. (To replace the necessary residence he'd given Nadine, he would move a log cabin from East Texas that he insisted would cost only $12- to $13,000. By the time of our divorce, it had cost roughly $55,000 and still had no bathroom, no electricity, and no running water.)
   
   Having been raised by parents scarred by the Great Depression, I was terrified by what I'd gotten myself into. I had owned my New York apartment free and clear--one that within a few years would be worth nearly a million dollars--and would put the money I got from the sale into our Washington house, which we would own jointly.
   
   No reader could come away from my book without some understanding of the daily fear I lived with from then on for 10 years because of Bob's indifference to ordinary financial prudence, much less to my feelings. But not every reader will be sympathetic, and Keith's accounts typically read "Celia was disgusted," "Celia demanded," "Celia was irate," "the storms...would not abate." As he never really explains what the debt was at any particular time, or why I was frightened, I inhabit Keith's pages as a shrew.
   
   It was I who finally figured out Bob's debt after his stroke in 1987 made it necessary to close his office and settle such affairs as could be settled. The debt had been secured by the land in Houston, and whenever I'd tried to persuade him to sell enough to cancel it and then to live within his means, he invariably said I'd have a house and a lifetime pension when he died.
   
   After I told him how much he owed, however, he grasped at the notion of borrowing money on the house to address the debt, but as we owned it jointly, he couldn't do that without the permission I refused to give. He had squandered his money, and then squandered our money, and now he wanted to take mine. Hence the divorce suit. He didn't divorce me, as Keith would have it, because he'd wearied of our "nonrelationship." He divorced me for money, charging desertion.
   
   This claim was both false and insulting, as I'd just spent two months of 18-hour days tending him and getting his affairs in order, and his betrayal was the worst thing that ever happened to me. My 10-year marriage to Bob Eckhardt left me far worse off financially than when I married him, forcing me to give up a substantial part of my inheritance to keep my home. And because I'd spent so much of our time together being a politician's loyal wife--a job that doesn't fit on a resume--I was left in a far more precarious place from which to make a living.
   
   ****
   
   Keith's page-long description of Bob's stroke in 1987 (p. 319) is a muddle of times, names, and events that confuses even me, who lived virtually every minute of it. He writes, for example, "Friends, family, and former aides hurried to Washington to his side. Ronnie Dugger came in. Celia, Orissa, and Rosalind were there...." But Keith minimizes my role by throwing in a list of names. In fact, as I wrote in Finding Celia's Place (pp. 243-245), Keith's primary source, the hospital called me at four in the morning, and I raced there to find Bob alert but speaking gibberish. Over the next few hours I called in the extended family, who came and stayed for a few days but were gone by the end of a week. For the next two months, then, with the help of Gloria Cochran, who had been on Bob's office staff from the beginning, I was the one doing the work. Gloria is listed as one of Keith's interviewees, but she doesn't recall his asking anything about this period.
   
   ****
   
   Keith quotes Molly Ivins as saying that Bob was a wonderful man but no woman could live with him, but such a comment belies the seriousness of the question Why? What was it in Bob, who was very much in love with all three women he married, as they were with him, that made it necessary finally for them to leave him? Orissa Stevenson, his first wife, committed suicide, about which speculation is tempting but fruitless. Nadine Brammer, his second, is alive and well in Austin and can speak for herself. The tale I told in Finding Celia's Place was in the end full of pain, though also filled with the love and admiration he eventually killed in me.
   
   In playing down my devotion to Bob, and the thrill for both of us that marked so much of our time together, Keith has evaded one of the biographer's greatest challenges, which is to go deep. His most glaring, and therefore most telling "mistake" involves his substituting one word for another. He writes, "In New York, on the night of the [King] assassination, Celia Morris shoved Willie, screaming, `You southern boys have a lot to be guilty about!'" Keith has substituted the word "screaming" here for "said," which was the word in his source. And he has omitted the context altogether.
   
   Two observations: first, Keith uses much of the time he gives me to highlight what he clearly finds at best unpleasant in my behavior, invariably in the absence of context or real explanation. Second, we are forced to ask: What is this sentence doing in a book about Bob Eckhardt if not, simply, to help minimize Bob's unkindness as well as his folly? But taking Bob's marriages seriously, and asking the tough questions, would have made it ever so much harder to write, as Keith does in the Afterword, "He was a superior person, and his peers knew it."
   
   In his book about my first husband, In Search of Willie Morris, Larry L. King, who loved Willie dearly, told a surprising number of harsh stories about him that I know it pained Larry deeply to have to write. But he did that because his primary commitment was to telling the truth, and most reviewers observed that his was a very sad book. Gary Keith's book verges on hagiography, which is a lower form. Both Bob Eckhardt and the reader deserved better.*
   
   
   
   * I have filed an addendum of further mistakes or misleading statements in Keith's book with my papers at Texas State University. Anyone interested in knowing more can get it by contacting Steve Davis at the Southwestern Writers Collection in the Alkek Library there.

4 comments about Remembering Garrett: One Family's Battle with a Child's Depression.

1. I must admit. I didn't vote for Gordon Smith last time around. As a "dyed-in-the-wool" Democrat, I usually support my party candidates. Yet, he was re-elected, and is currently serving as a Republican senator from Oregon. In 2003, his son Garrett committed suicide, ending a long struggle with depression. Immediately my interest was peaked, as someone who suffering from episodic depression from time to time. With his usual composure, Senator Smith remained quiet about this intensely personal matter. And now, a few years later, Gordon Smith has written a book about his son, a stunning, personal memoir, "Remembering Garrett".
   
   The book is partially a recounting of the amazingly normal life of Garrett Smith, the struggles he had with dyslexia, and the few brief successes he had with his church. Smith writes as lovingly and honestly as any parent could; reflecting upon his son's life with a familial quality that is pleasing to read. What even surprised me more about the book was how Smith wrote about questioning himself after Garrett's suicide. Smith has always appear strong and resolute; this event clearly shook him to the core.
   
   Much too often, it appears that our politicians act without much forethought of the consequences of their actions. Clearly, this has changes Senator Smith's thoughts and actions as he has become a tireless advocate for the prevention of depression. While clearly parents who have suffered the loss of a child will relish every page of this book, most everyone, especially those of us who experience depression, will find some gems of wisdom in this beautiful tribute to Garrett. This book is a must-read.



2. The book was excellent. Very well written. An excellent story and eye opener of where depression and mental illness can lead if unchecked. I thouroughly enjoyed the book and will re-read it many times. cp



3. This was a heartfelt telling of one family's struggle with coping with their feelings of guilt in missing the clues to their son's severe depression, which ultimately lead to his taking his own life. It shows us how easy it is for those closest to someone to not see how much that person is struggling with their depression, and how a family can heal after the loss of that child. Keep the tissues nearby, but no matter your politics, you have compassion for the depth of dispair this family reached in dealing with their loss. For a public figure such as Sen. Gordon Smith , writing this book exposing their heartache, took a great deal of courage, but was a big step in their healing.



4. Senator Smith's book is an easy, well written read about a wonderful son, a close knit family and the joys and heartache of life. The overlay is realizing that ones child is battling mental illness before you the parent fully understands. Senator Smith lovingly talks about Garrett's "angel mother" and his self doubts (and guilt) about what he should have realized; what he could have done better. The book ends with a reach out to encourage others in the same situation to recognize the signs of depression and to get help early. By telling his family's story Senator Smith honors Garrett, travels the road of healing, and brings compassion to the thousands of families that find themselves in the same boat after a precious child's suicide. You really don't want to miss this book!

2 comments about J. Edgar Hoover, Sex, and Crime: An Historical Antidote.

1. Academic debunking of Anthony Summers' scandalous "Official and Confidential" superbly researched and written by a noted critic of J. Edgar Hoover. Summers' bestselling volume used uncorroborated gossip and hearsay to "prove" the late FBI director was a closet homosexual and transvestite blackmailed into submission by organized crime. Theoharis, author of such previous works as "From the Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover" and "The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition", sticks to the facts and uses solid scholarship to dismiss the Summers book as baseless.



2. This book was written to deny the claims of Anthony Summers that Hoover dressed in women's clothes at orgies. Given that the lack of corroboration, that claim is easily refuted (p.41). Curt Gentry's book told that Hoover's real crime was filing false expense reports. Athan Theoharis argues that Hoover's disinterest is organized crime was the result of a "lack of accountability"!! Hoover was not from a wealthy and powerful family, his career depended on pleasing powerful politicians by using his personal skills and talents (p.79). Hoover was first promoted under Wilson, kept his job under Harding, Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and then Franklin Roosevelt (who increased his powers). Hoover curried favor with powerful businessmen (p.40), and also sought information to stay in power (p.72). Hoover didn't investigate syndicated crime as long as the ruling Power Elite wanted that. Congressmen controlled the FBI budget, and Hoover got along by going along. [After the US Secret Service investigation sent a Senator and Congressman to jail, their budget was cut.] Naval Intelligence worked with organized crime during WW 2. Hoover's statement "no single individual or coalition of racketeers dominates organized crime across the nation" (p.17) is still true today; read that closely. Hoover collected scandalous news a necessary self-protection in the political jungle of Washington (p.72). If Hoover concentrated on left-wing groups rather than La Cosa Nostra he was just following orders (p.139).
   
   Chapter One discusses the personal character of Hoover, but not his family background. The charge of homosexuality was often "used by persons who wanted to smear someone" (p.27). One example concerns three high-level aides of Nixon (pp.30-31)! Hoover wanted "sworn statements" from them denying their homosexuality; did he get them? [Any chance to forge them?] Hoover quickly suppressed such rumors (pp.34-38). Could a "sex photograph" have existed in 1946 (p.47)?[Composite photographs are possible, and actors with make-up to double for real people.] Chapter Two tells about the collecting of personal information of a sexual nature and how it was used for political purposes. [That went on with the Founding Fathers!] Prominent personalities could be controlled and political agendas could be promoted with the possession of this knowledge. [Remember one of the "Honeymooner" shows where Ralph tells Alice she is a "Mrs. J. Edgar Hoover"? What did Jackie Gleason mean?]
   
   Chapter Three discusses the expanded Federal powers of the New Deal. [Actually, that started earlier with Prohibition.] The purpose of the New Deal was to save the Power Elite by triage of malfunctioning units (p.120). The failing economy was followed by a rising crime rate (p.121). The expansion of federal powers was presented as a moral conflict between good and evil, divorced from economic reality. Hollywood produced is melodramas (p.125). [No connection here between the end of a "well-regulated militia" and the rise of organized crime.] FDR re-assigned counter-intelligence from the US Secret Service to the FBI (pp.127-128). The FBI took an interest in politicians (p.135). FBI wiretaps immunized crime bosses from prosecution (p.141)! The justification for secret, illegal bugging practices is on page 150. The protection of organized crime by the Attorney General is on pages 151-152. Read it for yourself!
   
   Presidents, attorneys-general, Congressmen, and others cooperated with and benefitted from J. Edgar Hoover (p.160). Was the ACLU then controlled by the FBI (p.163)? The summary on page 164 only underlines Hoover's role as an enforcer for the Power Elite.

4 comments about Jackson's Way: Andrew Jackson and the People of the Western Waters.

1. Jack Buchanan is a great writer! I was enthralled by this book from the moment 15 year-old Andrew Jackson swept onto the page. Buchanan brings to life the saga of the Old Southwest and the American pioneers. The most interesting element of the book is the portrait you get of Andrew Jackson, who was so loved men voted for him fifty years after his death. Anyone interested in the Presidents or the history of the Old Southwest will want to read this book.



2. The reader gets two stories for the price of one in "Jackson's Way." The first 150 pages tell the story of America's expansion West to the Mississippi River with objective and rich detail about the conflict and trials of both settlers and Indians, but little about Andrew Jackson. The book is also a good balance between modern apologists and proponents of manifest destiny. The second story describes Andrew Jackson the soldier and general, mostly Andrew Jackson the consummate leader. I can list with the fingers on one hand the really good books about leadership, this book fits in that count. If you're tired of sniveling and self serving politicians and generals driven more by bureaucracy and pomp than fighting skill and tired of selfish chief executive officers raking in million dollar stock options while laying off thousands of workers without adequate severance compensation then meet Andrew Jackson as described by author John Buchanan. If you teach history and want to see students sitting on the edge of their seats instead of falling asleep then this book is for you too. The story describes in detail battles in the Mississippi River watershed during the war of 1812 culminating with the Battle for New Orleans (1814-15) when we whupped the British tail. Buchanan describes Jackson's leadership traits in a way that readers in virtually any profession can relate.



3. John Buchanan has written a most interesting book. Spanning the thirty year period 1780-1810 he covers a time of great uncertainty about just what to do with the existing and projected geographical definition of the fledgling United States. Aaron Burr was not the only person to think in terms of separation. Today, driving on Interstate Highways at 70 MPH through the Appalachian Mountains, it is difficult for us to understand just what an impenetrable barrier these mountains really were. No less a figure than Thomas Jefferson thought "whether we remain one confederacy or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies I believe not very important to the happiness of either part."

   No wonder then that the people of the west, as the west was then defined, drew so closely together and became such an interdependent, insular block. Surrounded by enemies (Great Britain on the North, Spain to the South and West and indifference from their own countrymen to the East), land locked with no natural outlet for their goods and agricultural products and at constant war with Native Americans, this, the fastest growing segment of the US population, was threatened with extinction. Thus, the setting was a tinder box with a truly separate people ready for that particular leader whose interests were not just aligned with but also coincident with their own.

   Andrew Jackson was such a man. This is a story of survival, a story of great personal courage, of a very independent people who hacked their homes and way of life out of a true wilderness. It is a story of how the foundations of the Jacksonian Era were so firmly laid that the 34 year history of the Virginia Dynasty was so completely crushed in American politics that it never resurrected. An oft overlooked, misunderstood or just plain ignored segment of American history, these thirty years in the west were pivotal to the development of early America. Andrew Jackson was truly THE man, a most amazing force to be reckoned with, and an American to the very core of his soul.




4. For someone so supportive of Jackson, his policies and actions (even when Buchanan himself deems them "going too far"), Buchanan fails to support his arguments. Clearly the author is enamored with the former President. Even during his military career when Jackson frequently disobeyed orders or followed his own code of conduct, Buchanan argues that he has sufficient reason for doing so and his actions were justified. But where is the evidence? By arguing that the Monroe administration was acting covertly to takeover the Floridas, he fails to cite from where he gets such information. There are no references to Monroe's history.
   Buchanan has done his homework when discussing Jackson. He cites Jackson's papers and other credible biographies. He gives a well-rounded picture of the life and hardships Jackson endured and how electrifying his personality must have been. However, Buchanan goes a tad too far in arguing that Jackson, even when he broke the law, seized sovereign territory, killed two foreign residents, etc. was acting justly or on behalf of the administration where there is only evidence that he acted on his own accord. If those arguments are to be deemed credible in their own right, Buchanan needs to provide ample evidence that supports Jackson's seemingly arrogant decision-making process. He may have done his homework for Jackson, but the basis of his arguments seem based solely on his admiration for the man and not on historical facts or opinions of those present in that time. In other words, he acknowledges that there are those who call Jackson an Indian-hater or say he wanted to govern as a military dictator (ex. Napoleon), but fails to discredit those notions.