2 comments about The Lincolns in the White House: Four Years That Shattered a Family.

1. I received Mr. Packard's book yesterday, and I could not wait to begin reading it. Although I have little interest in the war aspects of Lincoln's presidency, the personal side of his story has always piqued my interest. I recently purchased books on Lincoln's depression and on his supposed (by the author) sexuality. Mr. Packard's contribution seemed to fit the motif quite well. After reading the back of the book jacket, which states that his book was written "with painstaking research and an eye for historical detail", I was disheartened to see that the first page I opened up to (purely by coincidence), was a photograph of Lincoln purported to be his last. The photograph in question was believed, for many years, to have been taken by Alexander Gardner on April 10, 1865, four days before the assassination. Packard dates the photograph to that session. The problem lies in the fact that many Lincoln scholars, relying on primary sources of the time, including the diary of portrait painter Matthew Wilson, who attended the photo shoot, have long since established that the Gardner photo was taken on February 5, 1865, and that the true last set of photographs were taken of Lincoln on the south portico of the White House on March 6, 1865, two days after the second inaugural, by Henry F. Warren. This will undoubtedly come across as nitpicking to some, but when a book markets itself as one conducted with "painstaking research and an eye for historical detail", it makes one wonder just how much of the content is accurate, ala "A Million Little Pieces." I tried to contact Mr. Packard before writing this review, but naturally his number is unlisted. In any event, the written portion of the book may be incredibly interesting and perhaps even accurate, but the author gets a one for making such an obvious and unnecessary error, in light of what current scholarship has already undercovered through the writings of Lincoln's secretaries, John Hay and John Nicoloy, Lloyd Ostendorf, W. Emerson Reck et. al.



2. Errors appear in even the best edited works. Perhaps the next edition will correct the incorrect information about the "last" photograph. As one of the multitude of Lincoln fans I found this book to contain lots of personal information about Lincoln and his family that I had not read in collected form elsewhere. I value the author's collected research that gives us a brief peek into the life of a very private man with more than his share of family tragedy. The relationship with his sons and wife is much clearer to me now that I have read this work. I consider this a well-written, highly readable account of the A. Lincoln family in the White House and belongs on every Lincoln collector's, if not scholar's bookshelf.

5 comments about An Affair to Remember: The Remarkable Love Story of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.

1. I found An Affair to Remember a truly remarkable portrait of Hepburn and Spencer's lives (before and after they met). The book was interesting and well written. A great pick for anyone interested in either actor.



2. These two screen giants met on the set of Woman of the Year in 1942 and were together until Spencer died of a heart attack, shortly after wrapping up Guess Whose Coming to Dinner in 1967. This book chronicles their remarkable, romantic pairing in an era where a movie star's private life could remain hidden from a prying public. Spencer was married to a devoted Catholic, Louise, and he refused to divorce her. He also felt a tremendous sense of guilty about his deaf son. So marriage was out of the question, but Kate didn't care, she just wanted she be with Spencer, and she was, following him all over the world to sit worshipfully at his feet.

   Andersen dutifully chronicles the nine classic Tracy-Hepburn films and gives some intriguing behind-the-scenes glimpses into each movie. There is also much information about Tracy's legendary bouts with the bottle, his brief fling with Gene Tierney in the early 50's and Kate's affair with Howard Hughes in the 1930's. All the bases are covered, but I wish Andersen would have interviewed more people close to the duo. Still, an engrossing read and essential for anyone enamored with either Spencer or Kate.




3. I have been looking for years for a Spencer Tracy biography and this is about as close as I could find. I have to say I was very pleasantly surpried by this book. First off, it is a quick and easy read and is especially well written for one of these Hollywood tomes. Secondly, rather than just telling the story of the Tracy/Hepburn love affair, it gives you so much background on both stars that I feel as though I have gotten my long sought after Tracy bio. Finally, the book helps the reader to understand that there really is no understanding a love like Tracy and Hepburn shared. Neither could put it into words and neither seemed interested in doing such. Rather than a lot of psycho babble that you usually get in these types of books, the author realizes that there is no accounting for taste and there is no explaining love.



4. I have always thought that Tracy and Hepburn were a Great couple in Movies, but they were amazing in real life too. The book was a very good history of each of their lives and how they became intertwined. I think it is one of the best books that I have ever read.



5. If you like/love Tracy and Hepburn in movies, you'll love this book. It's a true account of their lives and how their affair came about, how it was hidden to the world (insiders in Hollywood knew all about it). In fact, it was so well hidden (Kate used to always slip in the back way at hotels), that Tracy's wife upon meeting Hepburn told her she was shocked, that she thought the affair was only a rumor. A very good read, you won't be disappointed.

2 comments about Meade of Gettysburg.

1. Meade of Gettysburg is one of the few books written about the life of General George G. Meade. From reading other books about the Civil War, I became interested in General Meade. I was surprised to find that there are only a few books written about this soldier. When I purchased the book, I thought it would be about Meade's actions in the Battle of Gettysburg. While most of the book did revolve around his part in the Civil War, I was pleased to find that it was also a complete history of the man's life. The Battle of Gettysburg was just one part of the book. For example, I was surprised to learn that Meade was actively involved in the Topographical Corps and played a large role in the construction of the Brandywine light in the Delaware Bay. Meade of Gettysburg begins with the birth of George G. Meade and takes the reader through his entire life, ending with his funeral procession where his war horse, "Old Baldy" was brought out of retirement to march riderless behind the caisson bearing his master. For anyone interested in the life of General George G. Meade, this is your book.



2. As much interest as there is in the Civil War today it is amazing that there hasn't been a full scale biography done on George Meade since Freeman Cleaves wrote this book some 45 years ago.
   
   While this is an easy book to read, it definately lacks the level of scholarship we would expect from a biography today. Cleaves has a smooth writing style, however after about 100 pages you really start to get the feeling that you are getting much more style than substance.
   
   I don't know if the problem is lack of source information or simply that to Cleaves it was more important to entertain than to inform but it really got frustrating to me when Cleaves would skim over what were important sections of Meade's life.
   
   Case in point is George Meade's wounding on the Peninsula. Cleaves was blending Meade's entire service on the Peninsula so much that I had to backtrack to figure out what battle Meade was even wounded at. His entire section on the Peninsula amounts to only a handful of pages and in the end Cleaves spends only half a page describing how Meade was actually wounded. His description of Meade's arm wound is simply Cleaves telling us that he had a wound in the forearm and nothing more. Next thing we know Meade is back up and around and heading back to his unit after going home to recuperate. His actual time recovering is completely ignored. We see this over and over again in the book.
   
   Another thing missing out is Meade's opinions. Cleaves had full access to Meade's letters written during the war but makes no use of them. What did Meade think of his fellow generals? We don't know because Cleaves doesn't tell us. You would expect Cleaves to quote liberally from Meade's letters but he doesn't.
   
   Unfortunately this book just doesn't live up to today's standards of what a reader expects from a biographical study like this. In this day and age where we have such great Civil War writers like Sears, Beatie, Detzer and Cozzens one expects a high level of scholarship. This book simply doesn't have that.

5 comments about Douglass and Lincoln: How a Revolutionary Black Leader and a Reluctant Liberator Struggled to End Slavery and Save the Union.

1. This is a truly fascinating book and an exciting story.
   The Kendricks' use letters, articles and mountains of other research to bring these men and their struggles to life. I found myself seeing them not as icons, but as people. It is an exciting story to follow Douglass' mission to make the Civil War about freedom, his son's perilous experiences as soldiers and the Kendricks' interesting take on Lincoln's evolution.
   Watching Lincoln through Douglass' gave me a Lincoln I had never seen before. While they do not hold back with aspects of Lincoln on race that may surprise you, he emerges as great because he is not paralyzed by his prejudices as he rises to monumental deeds.
   I cannot recommend this book highly enough. These two have a true gift for making history interesting and inspiring.



2. As a student of history, I found this a compelling look at two towering figures and a cogent study of their rarely-explored relationship through the Civil War. Approaching the subject with subtlety and sensitivity, Kendrick and Kendrick make a case for the mutual influence of their dialogue. It was this force that ultimately cemented Lincoln's conviction to continue the war, not just his aversion to breaking the Union. Through new primary sources--unpublished letters, black abolitionist papers--the book provides critical background which gives abolition new resonance.



3. Having read both Oakes' Radical and the Republican and the Kendrick's new book on Lincoln and Douglass (the Abolishionist, not the rival Senator), it seems to me that this recent book gives a much fuller human dimension to the relationship. Though this is an amazing political story (one Americans should know more about), Douglass and Lincoln offers a more vivid, personal insight into these very complicated, indeed enigmatic, men. All told, I enjoyed the book, and have no hesitancy in giving it the full five star treatment. In the current deluge of Lincoln books leading up to the 200th anniversery, this is one book that truly has a fresh angle on a well-worn topic. To see the struggle of the Civil War through Frederick Douglass' eyes makes it all seem new, even surprising. A wonderful read even for people tired of the Civil War.



4. As the Kendrick's stated at a recent book talk on their new work: 'we often approach this war [Civil War] through the lens of its ending...but it wasn't like this at all at the time.' This book chronicles, in a very enjoyable novel-like way, the constantly shifting dynamics of the War as reflected in the personal relationship of two great men. Not afraid to tackle the folklore that surrounds each man, Paul and Stephen Kendrick provide helpful insight into a profound relationship.



5. Douglass and Lincoln is an exceptionally researched and well-written book on the relationship between these two important men. Most of the book focuses on Douglass rather than Lincoln, perhaps necessarily so. The Kendricks do a superb job of tracing Lincoln's slow transformation from a leader reluctant to press the emancipation issue to one who eventually embraced it, all within the context of Douglass's lifelong struggle not only for emancipation, but for equality. Douglass and Lincoln met only a few times, but it's evident in this book that they held a mutual respect for each other due to each man's struggle against adversity in their early lives. I recommend this book not only because it is well-researched, but because it's well-written. It's quite a page turner. I couldn't put it down.

5 comments about Dorothea Dix: New England Reformer (Harvard Historical Studies).

1. I read all the published Dorothea Dix biographies for a tutorial essay, and this was the worst one. I mean, please, Dix was obviously a massively disturbed woman -- why else would somebody poke into smelly lice-ridden jails and basements looking for maniacs? But Brown writes as if she were Elizabeth Dole. Not!! If you want to get a better idea of how this woman was teetering on the tightrope of her own in/sanity as she became a very influential activist (thus using her own mental instability as a source of extroverted energy), check out "Voice for the Mad," a more sensitive and unsettling biography of Dorothea Dix.



2. The first reviewer here says that the author, Thomas J. Brown, gives Dix too much credit and does not paint her sufficiently as a psychotic; the second reviewer says Brown does not admire Dix enough. These two reviews demonstrate that Brown has written a masterly biography of a complex woman in the midst of a turbulent era. Brown's Dix is a complicated and fascinating figure--not a feminist heroine nor a whipping post for the politically correct. Her career has much to teach us about the aspirations and limitations of 19th century reformers. Brown's book, clearly and elegantly written, thoroughly researched, is the best book on 19th-century reform since Lou Masur's Rites of Execution. Brown has recovered Dorothea Dix, not as a 20th-century reader would have liked to have her, but as she really was. This book is a major achievement, and would be a terrific reading assignment in any college class.



3. These two reviews move me to write. One says that the author gives Dix too much credit and does not paint her sufficiently as a psychotic; the other says the author does not admire Dix enough. These two unbiased readers alone demonstrate that Brown has written a masterly biography of a complex woman in the midst of a turbulent era. Brown's Dix is a complicated and fascinating figure--not a feminist heroine nor a whipping post for the politically correct. Her career has much to teach us about the aspirations and limitations of 19th century reformers. Brown's book, clearly and elegantly written, thoroughly researched, is the best book on 19th-century reform since Lou Masur's Rites of Execution. Brown has recovered Dorothea Dix, not as a 20th-century reader would have liked to have her, but as she really was. This book is a major achievement.



4. Though Brown doesn't over-dramatize it (indeed, he doesn't dramatize it much at all), Dorothea Dix lived one of the most extraordinary lives in the 19th century, one that included the Boston Unitarian intelligentia during the 1820s and 30s, state politics in most state capitols throughout the North and South during the 40s and 50s, Washington, DC, and friendships with senators and presidents, the worst of the Civil War (when she headed up the women nursuing corps for the Union Army) . . . and then there were the insane. Brown is good, if dry and lapidary, on the exterior movement of her career. And he's good at the political context for her career. Yet, as other reviers noticed, his book is really a life and times, with emphasis on "times," not a nuanced and graceful biography. He never gets inside Dix's head, which leaves one feeling disappointed.



5. I've just read through all the available bios of Dorothea Dix for an upcoming film project, and this book really puzzles me. Why? Let me quote from a positive review, written in a professional historical journal: "What Brown presents is a surprisingly intimate portrait that still acknowledges Dix's many shortcomings--her limited view of women's rights, her blindness on the issue of slavery, and her lingering nativism. Despite Dix's personal limitations, however, Brown recognizes her many successes in convincing parsimonious legislatures to build asylums and putting the plight of the mentally ill on a national stage" (Stephan D. Andrews, Journal of the Early Republic). Sounds good, huh? But there's almost nothing original here; nothing that hasn't been written about by previous biographers. Honestly I can't figure out why Harvard Press spent the money to publish it. (The book seems to have been funded by some special endowment -- even the editors must've figured it would never sell.) To me -- What do I know? -- this is a classic example of academic logrolling, getting other historians to write good things about a book nobody will ever read. There's definitely nobody in Brown's book I can see to make a film of.

5 comments about Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady (Modern Library Paperbacks).

1. I read this biography as a companion to "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" and "Theodore Rex" -- partly because I wanted a different perspective, and partly because I wanted to know what happened to Theodore after 1908 and volume III of his biography isn't likely to be out in the near future. In the end I am glad I read the book, and I learned a great deal more about President Roosevelt and his family -- but I think for the serious or dedicated history buff you must also read the aforementioned books to get a more detailed, nuanced view of the Roosevelts' life and the times in which they lived.

   Morris's writing varies markedly from section to section, perhaps due to inconsistent editing rather than her own writing.




2. Her lifelong romance with Theodore Roosevelt is certainly the stuff that films (or at the very least, TV movies) are made of. She never stopped loving the brilliant, bellicose, captivating, exasperating "boy" she had fallen in love with at a very young age. She helped mold him into a man. How two strong-willed persons of such opposing personalities thrived in such a successful marriage is even more reason why their story in film would be interesting. If Edith, certainly one of the most private historical figures in our country's history, had not the burned thousands of letters from her "Teedie"/Theodore (wishing to keep their lifetime of thoughts and passions to themselves), their romance might be up there with John and Abigail. TR also destroyed most of the letters from "Edie"/Edith because of Edith's constant pleading to him to do so.

   What has survived through thousands of letters that friends and relatives did not destory and through Edith's 40+ years of private diaries (left to her daughter Ethel) is a portrait of a iron-willed, intelligent, passionate lady who survived many family crises and lived through enough U.S. political history for a couple of high school textbooks.

   She was often the mother AND the father of her large household of children and pets as TR would often leave to go on hunting trips, safaris, and political campaigns. She ran the household in every area mostly because she had to get control of the family finances. (TR almost had to sell Sagamore Hill before he married Edith because he had lost so much of his inheritance in the Badlands. His older sister helped him get through some lean financial years.)

   But, she knew that he would always return to her bed and to no one else's. She often looked down at her sisters-in-law, nieces, and female friends who had married "safely" and did not have a passionate, romantic partnership such as the one she shared with TR. In many ways she was as contradictory in her beliefs as her husband. She was certainly Victorian in her moral strictures, yet one of her closest confidants and friends in the later White House years was the not-so-in-the-closet homosexual chief military aide to her husband (and this gentleman, Archibald Butt, would later help many of the Titanic's passengers to safety before he perished).

   One of the most poignant chapters in the book deals with the sons getting ready to go off to fight in the Great War. Quentin, her baby, is eighteen and falling in love with the daughter of one of the anti-Roosevelts, the Whitneys. Edith and TR are concerned with their son falling in love with one of the "plutocrat" Whitneys. However, once they meet Flora they fall in love with her and take her into their family as one of their own. Quentin has to leave the safe environs of Sagamore Hill and the Long Island air training centre and be shipped off to Europe. The elder Roosevelts try to get passports for themselves to travel with Flora so that Flora can marry Quentin in Europe. They can't get passports to travel overseas during the war. Quentin is shot down over France, and TR & Edith have to break the news to her at Sagamore Hill. Flora would remain close to some of the family members until she died many years later.

   In short, this is a detailed biography of a great lady, First Lady, wife, world traveler, mother, and grandmother. The vivid detail of the White House during TR's electric eight years at the head of the country is worth the price and time alone. The Kennedys and Camelot had nothing on the intellectual and artisic salon that the Roosevelts inspired and supported during their many years in Washington.




3. During a recent visit to Sagamore Hill on Long Island (the home of the Roosevelts), this book caught my eye because it gave a such a different perspective of Roosevelt history. Though I am now only about 3/4 of the way through, I cannot say that I am at all disappointed. It reads like a novel and is extremely well written. I cannot put it down. While it is true that there are other books which better cover the details of TR's colorful political career (Sylvia J. Morris's husband's books accomplish this) and even TR's earlier family history (try "Mornings on Horseback" by David McCullough for this), this book is must for those interested in the story of Edith and her remarkable family. Also, the story does have a great deal of romance and some poignancy -- particularly in the death of TR's first wife, Alice Lee, and his troubled relationship with his daughter, Alice's namesake. I agree with one of the other reviewer's -- Edith's story would make a marvelous motion picture.



4. Being an admirer of the Roosevelt family (Theodore and his kin), I was amazed at how I much this biography. The insight into her life, the little they know (from diaries and a few letters she did not burn) is amazing and her love for Theodore (and his love for her) is so incredibly romantic, showing intense it became over the years as opposed to just dying out.
   Edith was an amazing woman, probably the epitome of the First Lady, wife, mother and a woman in general. She stood by her husband, helping him along, while still standing for what she believed in and caring for her large family.
   It's an excellent read about an excellent woman.



5. I agree with the other reviews who say there should be a movie about Edith Roosevelt. I didn't know much about her at all but the biography was well written and very informative. Everything about her would make for a great movie. Edith was an intellegent woman and possibly one of the best first ladies we ever had. She seemed very well organized and very efficient whether she was running her family household or the White House staff. I highly recommend reading this biography.

No comments about USKids History: Book of the American Civil War (Brown Paper School).

5 comments about The White Tecumseh: A Biography of General William T. Sherman.

1. Prior to the Civil War there had been a major change in how wars could and would be fought. The Civil War was the first major war to be fought under this new paradigm. (The next big shift would come in WWII).

   I think William Sherman understood how to fight the Civil War better than any other soldier on either side. He was brilliant both in seeing how to win the war and applying that knowledge. And his campaigns were among the most brilliant of the war.

   This book is a well written book that gives a strong picture of William Sherman, concentrating mostly on his time during the Civil War itself. And it is a fascinating story told very well.

   Decent maps provided although they could have been a lot better.




2. A readable book. The author's "hobby horse." i.e. mental illness in the Sherman Family, ergo, Sherman himself, is pretty thin. This is certainly not a "end all" work on the life of this particular general, but it is well worth reading. I was not overly thrilled with the author's transitional techniques at times, nor his speculations as to motivation as he, the author, did not give us enough actual proof. Would recommend the book for your collection, but would not recommend you try passing yourself off as a "Sherman Expert" after you have read it.



3. This is a biography of William Tecumseh Sherman by Stanley P. Hirshson, Professor at Queens College, City University of New York. On the surface, it seems to be an un-biased story of the life of a very complicated man.

   Like so many Civil War generals on the Union side, Sherman was almost a failure in civilian life. He tried his hand at many professions, but never really made enough money to support his growing family. In the army, however, he had moments of brilliance. And brutality, evidenced most clearly in his march to the sea. He could send his men into a town with orders to destroy it, then wander through the same town afterward looking for friends who lived there when he knew them. He admitted that many of the soldiers he commanded during that time were not much more than thieves and ruffians.

   The book starts slowly and ends the same. Most of Sherman's story is the Civil War, four years of privation, desperation, and triumph. Maligned by his enemies, again as were most successful generals, his fights after the war were political, although he never sought political office. Rather his ambitions were for himself as the highest ranking officer in the U.S. Army, and for the Army itself.

   Although this is a scholarly work, it is an easy read, especially for a Civil War buff. There are moments when the reader will feel she is attaining some insight into his personality. But those moments slip away quite often. Because of this, the reader might wonder if something is being held back. For instance, I would like to have seen more details of the post-Civil War Army policies toward the Native Americans, something Sherman had much to do with.

   This is a must read for the Civil War scholar, American military history fan, and those interested in 19th century America. Sherman lived in much of the U.S. and details of these places in his time add to our understanding of life when our great-grandparents were young.




4. As Prof. Hirshson's student, I can say that this book reflects the author quite well. It is an accurate account of General Sherman's life. The book is well written and while reading it, I was able to imagine Prof. Hirshson giving a lecture to me as opposed to just reading through it. The language is very user friendly.



5. I found the book entertaining as well as informative about General Sherman and some of the other personalities and events of the Civil War. The author has done an excellant job of researching his topic. It will be best received by readers who are true history buffs.

5 comments about Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath.

1. It is curious that Stevenson claims hers to be the "objective" biography to correct "misunderstandings" about Sylvia Plath held by her followers ... never have I read a less objective piece of writing that attempted to pass as journalism. The book is riddled with negative adjectives for Plath at every turn ("brusque, mocking, scornful, contemptuous, fierce, snapping" - just in the course of half of one page), and every anecdote seems to be presented with the goal of depicting Plath as an emotionally stunted, deliriously ambitious, shallow American. True, all the major facts of her life are presented, given about an obligatory paragraph or so apiece, but given this kind of summary account, it is impossible for the reader to develop a sense of Plath as a whole person, an understanding of the imagery of her writing, in the same way that one does, for example, from reading Plath's unabridged journals or the excellent biography by Paul Alexander, "Rough Magic." In fact, Stevenson admits that she relies on information strictly from Hughes-based sources and certain passages from Plath's journals that reinforce her pereception of Plath as a gushing, phony American with a heart of black rot. Clearly Plath had her difficulties with various people. She had depressive tendencies and was probably not the most pleasant person to be around from time to time. But where Ted Hughes was not the epitome of evil, neither was she, and this biography does nothing to explore her humanity or the power of her poetry.



2. The amount of secondary material on Sylvia Plath is enough to make anyone feel a bit queasy about her myth, and makes you question the motives of anyone who's adding to this morbid little industry. What is their agenda?
   Undeniably, Plath fascinates, and not only because of the glassy, chill violence of her last poems. Ann Stevenson's biography does justice to both Plath as poet and as myth, though she tries to avoid salaciousness and does not ask questions that perhaps need answering. The thing is, Plath just becomes more and more mysterious the more you learn about her, and her death more bewildering and shocking. Does Stevenson subscribe to the chemically unstable theory? Or was Plath just an unstable personality? Stevenson never really delves into this murky but crucial territory.
   The most interesting and poignant part of this biography is actually about Sylvia's early womanhood, in which Stevenson seems to have a particular feeling for her subject (perhaps because Sylvia's journals are available to her through these years). Stevenson seems to become more hesitant, more uncertain as she approaches adult Sylvia and her fabled Ariel poems, the Hughes marriage and suicide, preferring not to speculate too much on Plath's psychology and focus instead on Plath's poems, which is theoretically fine, but makes for less interesting biography because Stevenson does not write about the Ariel poems with particular insight. (She's competent enough and suitably admiring, but does not probe as deeply as is perhaps necessary.)

   Still, this is a readable, if finally dissatisfying, biography. That said, it would be hard to write an entirely dull biography of Plath. I haven't read any of the other biographies available, but I can vouch that at least this one is balanced and scrupulous, if a bit over-cautious. My only other gripe would be
   pictures, which are very shadowy and rarely show Sylvia herself.




3. Anne Stevenson begins this book with a real dislike for Plath and her bi-polar or as she puts it "psychotic" fits. What she fails to see, (or maybe she just does not want to admit), that Ted Hughes is just as guilty of feeding Sylvia's jealousy, her unstable behavior. He never "puts his foot down" to Plath's behavior or insists that Sylvia seek help with her depression, etc. Instead he leaves Plath after starting an affair with a friend of both of theirs without any concern for leaving his children with a woman he knows is unstable. Plath is a brilliant poet, but she suffers from bouts of depression, aggression (she destroys the book Hughes is working on in a fit of jealousy), and is prone to paranoia.

   The job of the biographer is to lay out the facts and let the reader see into the life of the subject of the book. Stevenson takes sides, mostly with Hughes' sister. The book comes off interesting (as Plath is an interesting subject), but tainted. Overall, it left a very bad taste on my palate for this author's work.




4. This is one of the better biographies of Sylvia Plath (as is the Wagner-Martin biography, though Stevenson is much more thorough). Supposedly Stevenson comes down on the side of Ted Hughes, but to me the biography seems objective and fair. Even in those biographies written to make Plath look like a victim, she still comes across as tempermental and difficult to live around. I think Stevenson's biography is fair, if at times a bit ponderous to read. I'd suggest Silent Woman as a companion piece (it's a biography of Stevenson's biography). Bitter Fame has three appendices--memoirs of Sylvia written by others--Lucas Myers, Dido Merwin, and Richard Murphy. You get a sense of dread as you approach Dido's little memoir. I'm sure Plath was difficult and I'm sure Dido has her reasons, but you get the impression that she wrote her memoir just to 'get back at' Plath. To show her up so to speak, even though its tone isn't much different then what else you'll find in the book. Anyway, regardless of what type of person Sylvia Plath was, difficult or not, you cannot deny her genius, which is far greater than those who she came in contact with or have written about her.



5. Of all the bios I have read regarding Sylvia Plath, Stevenson's - Bitter Fame - still stands as the best. For me, the linchpin is the fact that the masterful poet Stevenson carries within herself the depth necessary to reach for the stars in comprehending one of our greatest poets. To distill life to its essence as the hallmark of poetry itself - is no easy task - neither is that endeavor made more accessible when the subject, such as Sylvia Plath in this masterpiece-of-a-book, presents perhaps the most complicated, but profound soul, we might count upon as a gift to treasure ever and anon.

4 comments about The Campaigns Of General Nathan Bedford Forrest And Of Forrest's Cavalry.

1. The book was written for the most part by a contemporary of General Forrest's, himself a Confederate general. Nathan Bedford Forrest read the proofs, suggested some changes, and approved of the product. It is easily read and gives great insight into this greatest of all cavalry wizards.



2. A meticulous and detailed account of the military operations that Gen. Forrest was involved in, showing the skill he had in combat, and the man that he was. Also provides short insights into many of the men that served under him. At times, I wished there were more (and more detailed) maps, so that I could follow the movements of Forrest's Cavalry and their enemy more precisely. Provides fair treatment of analysis of both sides of the war, as well as some feelings and evidence that dispute some of the myth and legend surrounding Gen. Forrest. I would suggest re-reading the introduction after you finish reading the book, as it works as a good post-commentary. This book is excactly what I was looking for to learn about cavalry operations during the Civil War.



3. I have read many different books written by people that lived in the era of the War Between the States, and this one has to be one of the best that I have read on one of the most audacious leaders that came out of the war on either side. I THOROUGHLY enjoyed reading this book. There were plenty of maps, and since the book was written under the watchful care of Nathan himself from his notes during the war, I believe it is one of the most complete works of this nature. I highly recommend the book to anyone. It is not just another boring read!



4. This book delivers more details on the battles than what was available in Jack Hurst's book. It has little about Forrest's personal life (none after the war as it was written in 1866). At close to 700 pages it gets a little too detailed in places but is overall a very good book.