5 comments about Martin Luther King, Jr. (Penguin Lives) (Penguin Lives).

1. In a short space, Marshall Frady has written an informative, inspiring and thoughtful biography of Martin Luther King Jr., of the nature of his achievement, of his America, and of his vision. The book does not engage in hero-worship or myth-making but rather presents Dr. King as a tortured.conflicted, and lonely individual. Frady writes at the close of his introduction (p.10) (itself a wonderful summation of the book and of Dr. King's achievement): "And what the full-bodied reality of King should finally tell us, beyond all the awe and celebration of him, is how mysteriously mixed, in what torturously complicated frms, our moral heroes -- our prophets --actually come to us."

   A theme of this book is how Dr. King's moral vision and achievement emerged from moral conflict. Dr King spent most of his career walking a difficult path between extremes. At the beginning of his career, he was criticized by the more conservative black establishment which preferred to use the courts rather than demonstrations as a means to promote racial equality. Indeed, Frady tells us, the Mongomery bus boycott of 1955, which catapaulted Dr. King into national prominence, did not end the segregation of the city's bus system -- a court decision did.

   Towards the end of his career, black leaders such as Malcolm X and Stokely Charmichael pressured Dr. King to abandon his philosophy of nonviolence. He did not do so. But Frady shows us how Dr. King and Malcolm X near the end of their lives each learned something from the other.

   King's most difficult moral struggle was with himself. Frady gives us a convincing picture of how Dr. King, whose appeal rested upon an ability to convey moral and religous principle, struggled (unsuccessfully) with sexuality. A myriad of affairs followed him and his mission from beginning to end. Frady has insightful things to say about the relationship between Dr. King's tortured, complex personal life and his public mission.

   Frady also describes how near the end of his career with segregation on the decline in the South, Dr. King tried to expand his mission by opposing the war in Vietnam and by his "poor peoples campaign" which Dr. King saw as an attack on the materialism, impersonality, and greed that he found pervaded American life. In so expanding his mission, Dr. King alienated many of his followers. His lasting achievement does not rest upon these later activities, according to Frady, but rather upon the idealism and moral committment with which he was able to infuse American life during a few short years.

   Frady gives us an eloquent discussion of Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech in Washington D.C. Later in his career, Dr King set forth his vision for America by speaking in terms of a "Beloved Community", a phrase adopted from the early 20th Century American philosopher, Josiah Royce. Dr King said (p. 183) "When I talk about power and the need for power, I'm talking in terms of the need for power to bring about ... the creation of the Beloved Community." Our nation is still trying to recover something of Dr. King's idealism and of the best of his vision.

   This book encourages us to think about and to formulate for ourselves the vision of America as a "Beloved Community" by reflecting on the life and achievement of a complex man.




2. Since his death in 1968, a plethora of books about Martin Luther King, Jr. has inundated the shelves of bookstores. Every angle about his life and work has been explored, critiqued and analyzed. Is there room for one more as we continue the quest for making King's dream for equality a reality? Penquin Lives says yes as it presents a brief biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. as seen through the eyes of a white southern reporter during the era, Marshall Frady.

   Mr. Frady was one of those reporters assigned to interpret and bring some sense of clarity to the public about the rising civil rights movement and its major leader, King. As a young reporter, he carried out his mission and now as an older statesman of the press he gives us another view about King, his work and his impact on the national scene.

   Martin Luther King, Jr. focuses on the success, failures and conflicts of a leader caught in a movement that swept him up into the pinacles of history. We see another dimension of King who is vain, unorganized, guilt ridden and a womanizer. His lieutenants are egotistical, mystical, self-serving and dedicated to the cause of freedom. King's genius in keepint these varied personalities in check for a greater cause is a testament to his genius.

   Frady really doesn't tell the reader anything new about King that hasn't been said before. He merely encapsulates previous information into a format that is readily accessible to those who want to get a brief history of King and the movement but can't endure reading works of countless pages of information. In this Frady excels and does a fine job of being brief but doesn't offer the reader in better insights about the man.

   I would recommend this book to those who want to get a brief snapshot of King from the perspective of a white southerner. Otherwise I would encourage readers to explore other books that give a more in depth look at the complex life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr.




3. Martin Luther King Jr., born on January 15, 1929,was named after his father Martin Luther King Sr. King Sr. was the preacher at the local Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.Although, daily he spoke the truths of Christianity, his actions didn't always correspond with what he preached. In furies of rage Martin Luther King Sr. would often horribly beat his wife and children. Martin Luther King Jr. was so troubled by his father's beatings that he attempted killing himself three times.
   At age fifteen, after graduating very early from highschool, the rather unmotivated King attended Morehouse College. After graduating from Morehouse, King went on to attend Cruzed Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania,where he was to become a preacher like his father. It was here that King seemingly grew up; he studied hard, became class president, and graduated as valdictorian. When King proposed to Coretta Scott in the early 1950s he was already engaged to a few other former girlfriends from back home. They married in 1953, spending their honeymoon night in the basement of a funeral parlor because the nearest hotels and motels were segregated.
   In 1954 the newlyweds moved to Montgomery Alabama where the young King became the highly respected preacher at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.King's life would shortly change when he was asked to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott that lasted over a year.Eventually he joined the NAACP and began the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King was arrested several times for his non-violent actions. During one of these incidents he composed his famous "Letter From a Birmingham Jail." He befriended the Kennedy brothers (somewhat) in their effort to help the movement. On August 28, 1963 King recited his, "I have a dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, by a sniper, James Earl Ray.



4. The Martin Luther King,jr. biography is an excellent book to buy or checkout at your local library. This book was written about his life and the struggles he endured as a young African American man and his life as a Civil Rights leader.The book goes through his whole life from his childhood to his assasination. It tells the reader about the discrimination and racism he went through. I reccomend this book to people of all ages.



5. Marshall Frady has produced an insightful summary of the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. for the Penguin Lives series of short biographies. Working within the limitations of the series, Frady's synopsis breaks no new ground - King's life, campaigns, struggles and death are covered in just over 200 pages. But the object here is less to broaden or shape understanding than to evoke the spirit of the man and his times.
   
   The key events of King's life are well known; here the story unfolds in a progression grounded in Biblical narrative. An explicit conceit of this work is a view of King as a latter-day prophet, an American Moses destined to point the way to the Promised Land, but not to reach it. The book's four major sections reflect this theme.
   
   The first, titled "Out of Egypt", recalls King's childhood and education; his assumption of pastorly duties in Montgomery; and the first dramatic act of his civil rights career as an (initially reluctant) organizer of the 1955 bus boycott campaign. The second, "The Wilderness Time", recounts the aimlessness that settled over King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference following the Montgomery victory. Although it was an NAACP-led court victory and not the boycott campaign which finally won the day, Montgomery had vaulted him to national prominence and de facto leadership of the civil rights movement. A potential follow-up act wouldn't present itself until 1961; even then, King's foray into Albany, Georgia in support of the Albany Movement to end segregation in that remote locale produced no substantive gains.
   
   In the meantime King had attracted the malevolent attentions of the reigning FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, whose grotesque character Frady evokes in a remarkable thumbnail sketch. "By the Fifties", Frady writes, Hoover "had become for much of the country... a kind of totem figure of law and uprightness." Yet his brand of law included domestic surveillance in the service of political blackmail. Impelled by racism and anticommunist paranoia, Hoover initiated a bugging and wiretap campaign against King.
   
   Hoover's wiretaps revealed little in the way of communist plots, but they did evidence the serial adultery that seems to have begun in this period. Amazingly, King's dalliances never became public knowledge during his lifetime, even though Hoover deliberately made taped materials available to members of the press. Contrast this restraint with today's media behavior: as Frady acknowledges, "King could very likely never have survived now as the figure he was then."
   
   The conflict between flesh and spirit was a constant theme in King's life. On the one hand, here was a man who eschewed public ostentation and sought to emulate Mahatma Gandhi; on the other, a womanizer and, it would appear, a plagiarist. But King's expression of the spiritual took other, powerful forms. He was frequently jailed in the course of his work for the movement and was no stranger to physical assault. By the fatal day in Memphis, King had already been punched, kicked, and stabbed by racist antagonists; all of which assaults he suffered with amazing forbearance. On one remarkable occasion of being repeatedly punched in the face, and the assailant having been wrestled to the ground by his entourage, King urged them: "Don't hurt him, we have to pray for him." As Frady suggests, the product of this frisson was a monumental oratorical power in communicating the message of nonviolence - a power that for America came to its fullest and most significant expression on the Washington Mall with the ringing proclamation: "I have a dream today!"
   
   Section three, "Apotheosis", narrates the battle to integrate Birmingham, the symbolic pinnacle of the March on Washington, and the watershed of American conscience at Selma - culminating in the crowning achievement of King's life and struggle: the Voting Rights Act of 1964.
   
   In Albany the movement had been "deprived... of those convulsive clashes that would have dramatized for the rest of the country the underlying barbarity of its segregationist order." In Birmingham the police were more obliging. After a slow start, King and his followers decided to mobilize schoolchildren in a bid to overwhelm the jail system and force a resolution. The controversial strategy worked; images of young people in their Sunday best pummeled by fire hoses sickened the nation. Under pressure from all sides, the municipal authorities were forced to concede.
   
   And then came that speech in Washington. Time and distance can threaten to make a cliché of most anything, but Frady's retelling feels fresh in its evocation: "It had suddenly become a pentecostal moment. A huge shiver of exhilaration moved through the expanses of the throng..."
   
   At Selma, the "underlying barbarity" was revealed for all to see, courtesy of the state police and national television. The spectacle of violence against innocent citizenry spurred the White House to action. Addressing the nation to announce the Voting Rights Act, (in a moment to make one feel keen regret at a legacy tarnished by Vietnam) President Johnson intoned: "... and we _shall_ overcome!"
   
   In the book's final section, "The Far Country", we have the rest of the story - the Nobel Peace Prize, the Movement post-Selma, and the sudden end in Memphis. If King found himself "in the wilderness" after Albany, perhaps he was even more so after Selma. The movement's key objectives achieved, King set his sights on perhaps a more impossible dream: the reorganization of American life on egalitarian, socialist, grounds. Given the sweeping ambitions of the frustrated Chicago Movement and the grandiosity of the Poor People's Campaign, there is something poignant in the fact that what brought King to Memphis in April 1968 was no vast plan of social reorganization but mobilization in support of striking garbage workers.
   
   If Frady's book is at times slightly overwritten ("the rhetoric of the human spirit immensely and elaborately gathering itself for slow and terrific struggle" [p. 35] feels like a blind stab at the Faulkneresque), it is also an effective, and at times even powerful, homage to one of our greatest Americans.

4 comments about Reminiscences of the Civil War.

1. Being a passionate reader of autobiographical accounts of the Civil War, I have to put this book on my top five of all-time favorites. General Gordon writes in a concise, easy-to-read style that demonstrates his intelligence as a leader and character as a great American.



2. This is an excellent book. Gordon may not be as well known as some Confederate Generals, Nevertheless, He was a very good officier and a gentlemen that can discuss the many complex issues with the Battles he was a part of. I strongly suggest that you read this book to learn more about him and his part in the war between the States.



3. John Gordon's book is an important book to read for those trying to gain an understanding of the Civil War and a perspective of a individual that had been involved in multiple engagements. From the start, Gordon writes about raising the Racoon Roughs and their start in Georgia which carries the reader chronologically throughout various battles. His service to the Confederate cause is covered well from his early beginnings to his involvement with General Lee in the surrender at Apomattox. This book is an important tool for understanding the fairness and qualities of Gordon and his sympathies for the people involved in the Civil War be it North or South. His character in speaking about individuals involved is fair and truly demonstrates that he wasn't just another 'racist' that fought for the South which is typical of only today's modern society. It is a must read for those looking to get into the mind of a great Southern leader. I would have rated this book 5 stars if Gordon would have only covered his involvement in the Civil War instead of writing reports on battles he wasn't involved with, though shaped the outcome of the Civil War. It would have better in my opinion if the book didn't get into explaining other battles or problems which Gordon had not took part in since it didn't appear that those other situations affected him.



4. John B. Gordon was Georgia's greatest Confederate Hero.
   After the war, he led the KKK in Georgia and participated in one of the greatest stock market scandals of the Gilded Age.

   He also formed a triumvirate, along with Aleck Stephens and Joe Brown that dominated Georgia politics for more than a quarter century after "redemption." And milked his image as the "plumed knight of Appomattox", who led the last charge of the Army of Northern Virginia.

   John B. Gordon, in short, was a piece of work. (Read C.Vann Woodward's description of him in TOM WATSON AGRARIAN REBEL.)

   Another of Gordon's postbellum achievements was as high priest
   of the cult of the "lost cause." In codifying the "myth," he was second only to Jubal Early. Like Early, he maintained that the war had not been about slavery at all, but states rights. Like Early, he would maintain that the South was not defeated but only overwhelmed but vastly superior numbers of men and material. Unlike Early, he downplayed the struggle between northern industrial capital and southern landed gentry and he gave the myth a conciliatory twist perfectly suited to the capital hungry "new south." For decades he would dazzle memorial day audiences, with a speech arguing that *both* sides of the "war between the states" were right and *both* sides won( the North preserved the union and the South preserved "honor"). (Now *that's* conciliatory!)

   It is this mythmaking, that is in evidence in his wartime memoirs. His overwritten florid prose

   describes each calvary charge in romantic hyperbole with out a hint of gore attached to the proceeding. (It is just this sort of bunk that Sherman had in mind when he told cadets "war is not a gentlemen's game,
   war is hell.")

   As "myth" this book deserves five stars, as "history" two would be being generous--so I've split the difference.

   If one wants a real soldier's story told with out concern for the memories of marble men or a sense of decorum one would be better off with Edward Porter Alexander's FIGHTING FOR THE CONFEDERACY.

   If on the other hand wants to wallow in fantasies of "moonlight and magnolias" then, by all means, knock yourself out!

5 comments about Custer Victorious: The Civil War Battles of General George Armstrong Custer.

1. Being from Michigan, I knew George Custer was a Civil War hero. After reading this book I realized just how important that man was to the Union cause. Although young, Custer was mature beyond his years, his prowess as a calvaryman is second to none. He was loved by his troops and respected by his enemies, some who he bested many times during the Civil War. He was a true leader in every sense of the word. Fearless and steady, always leading his troops into a charge. Ever concerned for the well being of his men. This book is a wonderful piece on a great man who was lost in history by speculation and heresay. Had he his Michigan Calvary Brigade, his beloved "Wolverines" or men like them at Little Big Horn and not 17 and 18 yr old troops as recently discovered, even though being outgunned I am sure there would have been different results for historians to ponder. Rest in Peace Major General Custer, your name is forever cleared.



2. This book tells the fascinating story of George Armstrong Custer's Civil War career. The self-confidence of this man, followed by his real accomplishment, is amazing. Prior to reading this book, I was aware of only Custer's battle with Jeb Stuart at Gettysburg. Now I find that Custer met Stuart on numerous occasions and, in fact, it was his brigade that was responsible for Stuart's death at Yellow Tavern. For the life of me, I can't figure out why this epic rivalry between these two great cavalry leaders is not better known.
   
   The bad news is that the writing is merely adequate. The prose is a tad purple and the last chapter, in which the author summarizes his theory that Custer was truly a great military leader, is superfluous in that the author has done a much more convincing job in merely telling the tale. Finally, I might quibble about the title. I almost didn't buy this book because I thought it was an alternative history of Little Big Horn.
   
   We live in an age with a scarcity of heroes. This book presents us a hero in the classic mold. We could do worse than to emulate this man. It is perhaps telling of our times, however, that rather than to acknowledge Custer's heroism, we defame his memory.



3. This is a good read and will open up a new opinion of Custer for most people. It was only in the 20th century that the name of George Armstrong Custer became associated with the ultimate bad decision and failure. In the last half of the 19th century, he was still remembered for his daring and SUCCESSFUL civil war exploits. It is nice to see his Civil War record documented in one spot so that future generations can see that there was more to this warrior than the Battle of the Little Big Horn. He employed the same tactics but with much more confidence and obviously greater success.



4. George Armstrong Custer is known to most people today as the general who led his soldiers to slaughter at the hands of the Indians at the Little Bighorn in Montana. But it was the glory and fame earned as a dashing and courageous Civil War cavalry officer that made that defeat so shocking and controversial. Gregory J.W. Urwin focuses on those Civil War years in this study.
   
   Custer graduated last in his class from West Point in 1861 (he may have been expelled if the army wasn't in desperate need of officers at the time). Assigned to a cavalry regiment, he first saw action at First Bull Run. There and later with McClellan on the Peninsular and then with General Alfred Pleasanton, Custer gained a reputation for bravery and bravado. He especially distinguished himself at Gettysburg and in the Shenandoah Valley with Sheridan in 1864. But perhaps his greatest achievement was the constant pressure he and his troops put on Lee as he retreated toward Appomattox Court House; Lee said it was a major factor in his decision to surrender.
   
   Custer was dashing and fearless in battle - and was not shy about having the spotlight on him. This, of course, breeds jealous enemies as well as cheering supporters (and is one reason why the Little Bighorn debacle was, and remains, so controversial). Urwin goes out of his way to make sure his book has no odor of the academic about it (despite the numerous footnotes and extensive bibliography): he writes in a familiar and totally informal style and describes much of the action in a novelistic way. This makes much of the book a page-turner - a fresh thing for historical writing. A most enjoyable read, and probably the definitive account of Custer in the Civil War - before his experiences on the Plains changed him and ultimately led to his downfall.



5. this book is valuable as a reference to Custer's Civil War service. At least you will learn in which battles he participated. Whether or not he was the brave hero portrayed is questionable simply because this author is so in love with Custer that everything else is disregarded.
   
   Urwin was only 24 years old when he wrote this book, and it shows. It's almost adolescent in its praise of Custer. He denigrates everyone who criticized Custer during his 7th Cav days. The enlisted men were "trash", the officers "petty and jealous". This is a book written by a young man with a lot to learn.

5 comments about The Doing of the Thing: The Brief, Brilliant Whitewater Career of Buzz Holmstrom (New Edition).

1. I remember years ago when I was a kid a story my father told me about an amazing river rafter and boat builder. My Dad grew up in Coquille and went to school with Buzz's younger brother. His story always ended with how Buzz had been on a rafting trip in eastern Oregon and went off and committed suicide. I could never understand how someone who had done the amazing things he did could end his life on that note. I thought about that story many times over the years and always wished I knew more. This book is incredibly well researched and documented. Even though many questions were answered, many more were raised. Such was the enigma that was Buzz Holmstrom.



2. Even today, with rescue not so far away, few of us would have the nerve to go down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon alone, so imagine the nerve it took when Buzz was totally alone, with no chance of help if he made a mistake. But the most amazing thing about Buzz was that in the midst of an adventure that would leave most people totally preoccupied with survival, Buzz had the soul power to look for and see the poetry in the river and the canyon. Merely knowing how to survive can be much easier than knowing how to live.



3. If you like white water rafting, this is a wonderful book about the birth of white water fun.



4. The legendary Buzz Holmstrom was a more complex figure than I knew. His journal entries express the feeling of all who really love rivers and the famous entry that includes "the doing of the thing" should be read on every river trip.
   This is the second Brad Dimock book I've read (the other on Bert Loper) and I am impressed with not only his skill as a writer, but his careful research. His handling of the tragic end to Buzz Holmstrom's life was that of a journalist with a sense of humanity.
   I've already loaned this book to friends.



5. Anyone remotely interested in white water rafting will thoroughly love this book. Buz Holstrom was a true Maverick in the sport. The authors bring him to life through their wonderful narrative and easy writing style. He is truly an individual that was remarkably talented in his boat building and navigational skills. This book left me wanting more of Buzz Holstrom and wishing he were still around to tell us more about his short remarkable life.

2 comments about Bad Hand.

1. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Coverage of Ranald Mackenzie is rather sparse and this book does a great job of detailing the man's entire life. Mackenzie was one of the many frontier heros who did not gain the notariety of other Indian fighters, but he was one of the most successful. Mackenzie showed the ability to learn from his mistakes and adapt tactics as necessary. He also served in all the theaters of Indian warfare (Northern Plains, Southern Plains, US/Mexico Border, and Arizona). This book is easy and entertaining to read and will hopefully help us remember an Indian fighter that history has tried to forget.



2. This was a good book. General MacKenzie WAS the great American Indian/bandit fighter which spawned the myth(?) of the American West in the next century (John Wayne played MacKenzie's role in "Rio Grande"). As for his place in history, he was not shot down in his prime the way the inept Custer was, and as a result, he has all but been forgotten in Western lore (his going mentally insane didn't help matters either).

   The book reads easily, flows well and the author doesn't bog you down with unimportant details. I recommend this book to anyone with a mild-to-high curiosity about the Indian Wars and the history of the American Southwest in the late 1800s.

1 comments about Prayin' to Be Set Free: Personal Accounts of Slavery in Mississippi (Real Voices, Real History Series).

1. This is one of the best of these collections of the WPA slave narratives for laymen. The ex-slaves form Mississippi offer a lot of folk wisdom regarding "way it was" and Andrew Waters correctly connects their stories to the lyrics of Mississippi's legendary blues artists.

   We also get some interesting and important information of the little known uprising of Mississippi Whites to end Reconstruction in the 1870s, as well of some memories of the Black major players of that period. That makes it a historians' delight.

   This makes your mouth water for the unedited versions of the Mississippi narratives which are available along with the complete colelction on the WPA Slave Narratives website. Look and learn.

5 comments about Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams.

1. I thoroughly enjoyed this short but absorbing biography of the country legend. Having been a fan all his life, Hemphill writes with great empathy and understanding, making the south and the country culture of the 1940s really come alive. So one learns a lot about the history of the southern states, the development of the music and the singers of the time. He analyses the lyrics and makes them more comprehensible in the light of Williams' personal life and background.
   
   It's interesting to learn about the towns, the venues, truckstops and radio stations, and the history of the Grand Ole Opry, the record companies and the major figures of early country music. In those days, live performances were more lucrative than record sales so Hank Williams worked extraordinarily hard on constant gruelling tours. That was before the days of luxury tour buses. Hemphill succeeds in capturing the essence of Williams' poetic genius in his discussions of the famous songs, enthusing the reader to go back to the music and listen with a new ear.
   
   As a music lover, I found the author's discussion of the different popular music genres of the late 1940s of particular interest, and how Hank Williams' songs were covered by artists as varied as Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong, Perry Como and Dinah Washington. Fifty years after his death, his music had been interpreted by an impressive array of artists from almost every possible genre, like James Brown, The Bee Gees, Nat King Cole, Isaac Hayes, Elvis and even The Residents: Stars & Hank Forever. In the introduction to her version of Pale Blue Eyes, Patti Smith pays tribute to Hank in a brief narration about his death in the back of a car on the way to a gig.
   
   The writing style is a pleasure, down to earth, often witty even when he narrates episodes from the dark side with lots of empathy. Lovesick Blues is one of the most enjoyable biographies of a musician that I have read. But the book would have benefited from a discography and stuff like Billboard country and pop chart positions, as well as an index. Five stars for reading pleasure, but one deducted for the absence of the aforementioned.
   
   Hank Williams: Snapshots from the Lost Highway
   
   Complete Collection



2. An excellent book on Hank Williams.I followed his career and enjoyed him and his music from the beginning.You often hear people say that they remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard JFKennedy was shot,or when the World Trade Center was attacked on 9/11;but I can remember it as clear as a bell when I heard Hank had died.I was in our kitchen listening to the radio;it may well have been a Hank song,but I'm not sure;when the announcer broke in to tell us that Hank Williams had died in the back seat of his Cadillac,on the way to do a show in Canton ,Ohio.
   Even if you have come to know Hank's music many years after his passing;you'll find this an excellent book that tells you what Hank and his music was all about.
   I also remember in those days the local radio station announced and played The Top Ten Country as well as the Top Ten Popular (Pop) Songs. For a year or more after his death, Hank's songs kept making the list;even though several had not even been released at the time he died.
   One should not overlook the fact that Hank's songs were mostly written by himself and were about his life.Today people loosely say that singers are singing from the heart;butif you really want to know what it really means, you will find it with Hank.Having a stable of songwriters,arrangers and so forth produce songs will never have the honesty that we got from Hank.
   I have other Biographies about Hank,including Colin Escott's .They are good,have a lot of facts and information;but this book really gets into the heart and soul of Hank.
   There are numerous references to Hank's Steel Guitar player,Don Helms,and quite rightly so.Don was with Hank through it all,both the good and the bad,and it is unlikely if anyone knew ,loved and understood Hank better than Don;and that includes Hank's wives and family.
   On June 30,2006 ,I heard that Don Helms was going to do a show outside of Hamilton,Ontario.I had forgotten about him,but when they announced that he had been Hank's Steel Guitar player;I just had to go. It was a small crowd,about 150 or so,in a Legion (VFW)hall. Well,was I in for a treat. Don had with him a young singer about 28 or so,about Hank's build dressed in a costume identical to Hank's "Music Suit" ;and accompained by Don and a couple of others sang Hank's songs all afternoon.The young singer,(Hank) Chris Malpow kept us spellbound with his reverent impersonation of Hank, and Don played with the vitality and dedication that he did 50 years ago. Along with them was his wonderful and extremely friendly wife of 60 years,Hazel. They talked one on one,signed autographs,posed for pictures with their admirers,left his famed Guitar on stage for anyone to admire;and seemed as happy to be with us as we were to have them.He said he had hopes to doing more shows.Having been born on Feb 28,1927,makes him 80 today;but I can tell you,he can put on a show as good as the best of them.So,If you get a chance to see him,don't miss it.
   He told us one very interesting story,among many.
   In the final days,Hank's problems were way beyond control. Hank decided to go back to Alabama. Don wouldn't go.He told Hank when he got things straightened out,he'd be waiting for him in Nashville. There had been a recording session already booked in Nashville.So Hank called Don to do what would be their final session,though nobody knew it at the time. Hank said he had written a new song.Don asked for more details,music,etc.Hank said,he wouldn't have any trouble,He would sing it, and Don could just play along.Well,that's what they did. The song was "Your Cheatin' Heart" and that was the only time he and Hank ever sang it ogether. A careful listening will show you that Don tried his best to follow Hank. And,what a song it was.
   As fans of Hank,we are very fortunate that people have made the effort to bring these biographies to us. Another person mentioned in the book is Bill Mcewan.For several years he and Colin Escott collaborated on a 3-Hour radio show every New Year's Day on Hank Williams. They were always telling wonderful stories and turning up recordings that had never been releaded.They often played parts of the "Health and Happiness"shows.
   On page 170 it is stated that ;
   "Hank recorded a total of sixty-six songs,thirty-seven of them making the "Billboard"charts,and the most important number is that he had written fifty of them himself."
   That number seems low to me. One Website lists 166 Songs between 1946 and 1952. Does anyone know what the correct number and the names are?



3. really just an unneccesary book. Totally a rehashing of Colin Escott's book. cant believe someone published it. some worthwhile moments, but not really a book id recommend.



4. I'm not sure many of us could have survived Hank Williams' early days, the single-mom, the street-wise kid educating himself while mom waited for that money he'd bring back home to keep them all from starving.
   
   And then Hank's dad, the typical disappearing act, a man too shamed, too drunk, too stupified by life to pay much attention to Hank, letting him grow up a drunk himself at twelve-years-old, this little Hank practicing his guitar, noting what pleases people and developing the patter to hold an audience.
   
   But think of all those road trips in the Cadillac, to little bars, PTA songfests, broken-down cattle auditions, driving, driving on to the next stop with the whiskey-bottle nearly empty, his sore back throbbing, but some female fan still ready to take him to bed and make him holler.
   
   And some of those women, his mom, his wife, hard-hearted bitches pushing him for more and more, and him yelling, screaming inside, but still coming back home from the road, always the road, his only escape until he was just too sick to go on, and so returned "home" where he'd have to take yet another cure.
   
   Yet the music was everything, wasn't it, the sadness, the horrific yolp of the terrified, the yodel coming from deep inside, enflaming waitresses and machinists and devil-may-care lovers, eager for someone to speak for them.
   
   And Hank Sr. spoke for them, sang for them, drank for them and died for them. Amen.
   
   This is quite a book, isn't it?
   
   by Larry Rochelle, author of TEN MILE CREEK.



5. Short to-the-point biography matches its subject, who started drinking at 13 and didn't stop until he'd drunk himself to death at 29, after a brief career turning out the greatest country music songs then and since. Such a sad mess.
   
   His parents were divorced early, ending a violent relationship dominated by a large angry Lillie Williams, who stage-mothered the young Hiram ("Harm" in the South Alabama dialect, self-renamed Hank as a teenager) when she wasn't berating him for his drinking or ignoring him or passing him to relatives to raise. His first marriage was to a gold-digging teen mother who married the father of her daughter after she was born and divorced him while he was in Europe fighting WW II so she could marry Hank, She too abused Hank about his drinking and tried to push him in his career.
   
   Their tempestuous relationship ended in a bitter divorce (following a breakup including gunshots and drunken affairs on the part of both), in time for Hank to marry again less than a year before he died, to another woman following the same pattern (teen mom, quicky divorce, violent temper).
   
   Hank died in the back seat of a car driven by a teenage taxi driver headed for Charleston, WV and then Canton, OH to play on New Years Eve and New Year's Day 1953. Country law enforcement and medical personnel performed a percursory autopsy, but the accepted cause of death, by the millions of poor rural fans, was the broken heart that stoked the greatest body of country songs ever written.

5 comments about Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order.

1. Sherman made war on women and children. He had his troops burned houses to the ground, turned a blind eye to the looting his men did, burned crops to the ground, destroyed any livestock he couldn't use and left the civilian population to starve to death everywhere he went in the South.
   Sherman had town halls burned so there were no accruate records as to how large the population of the town he burned was. Sherman also removed large numbers of civilians (women and children)who worked at the New Manchester and Roswell, Georgia Mills, North; where many of them died of exposure or starvation. On the trip North many of these New Manchester, Roswell, Georgia Mill women workers were raped.
   I am not a sympathizer for the Southern Cause during the American Civil War. However, I do believe that Sherman is a war criminal and shouldn't be idolized which this book does.



2. In this book, the author takes us on an in-depth tour of the life and times of William Tecumseh Sherman. In doing so, he lets us see Sherman as a boy living in poverty; as a nine-year-old foster child; and as a student, young soldier, husband, father, failed businessman, Civil War General, and aging military hero. In the end, we find that Sherman was very much like the rest of us: a man with hopes, dreams and fears of his own, and certainly not the crazed and often despised General who, according to legend, burned Atlanta to the ground and wantonly ravaged, pillaged, and plundered the South.
   
   True, Sherman did order that all inhabitants of Atlanta be evacuated [705 adults (few men), 860 children, and 79 slaves], but that was to prevent snipers from killing his soldiers. And he did order that all facilities which could be used to support the war effort be destroyed (e.g., the railroad station; factories producing uniforms, munitions, railroad tracks; etc.). But that only amounted to about one third of the structures in Atlanta. And he did march the bulk of his 60,000 man army to Savannah living off the land. But he did so to help bring the Civil War to a speedy conclusion with minimum loss of life by severing the logistic supply lines across the South. And his orders were not to burn or destroy any private property, no matter what the inhabitants "said", as long as they were not fired upon.
   
   And finally, and most revealing: When Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston was given the authority to surrender all remaining Confederate armies to General Sherman, Sherman met with him and developed what he thought were acceptable surrender terms. He forwarded them to Washington to obtain the necessary authorization only to find that his terms were considered much too soft on the South by then Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Stanton went so far as to send a letter to the New York Times accusing Sherman of TREASON and then attempted to have General Grant relieve him of his command. Grant met with Sherman but avoided doing so.
   
   According to the evidence, then, William Tecumseh Sherman wasn't the crazed villain many in the South consider him to be. And maybe, just maybe, he was the best friend the South ever had, or at least he tried to be. In any event, after reading this biography, one can only wonder how many people now living in the South, who vilify Sherman's memory, owe their very existence to the fact that he decided to make war on property rather than on their forefathers.



3. The difficulty for those of us interested in studying the American Civil War is that the available bibliography is overwhelmingly large. One could begin reading as a child and reach adulthood and continue reading until death or senility interrupted the exercise without completing all of the published titles! Life is too short to read poorly written books!
   
   With that observation in mind, it is a welcome experience to occasionally come across a worthwhile one volume biography of a major historical figure and "Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order" fills the bill perfectly. The author, John F. Marszalek, is a history professor at Mississippi State University.
   
   While it may strike some as odd that a historian employed on a campus located in the Deep South chose to write about General William T. Sherman, it is worth remembering that "Uncle Billy," himself, was a man of contradictions. Sherman tried and failed at many occupations during the antebellum period. One of the few successful and easily the most satisfying positions that he held was as the superintendent of a military academy located in Louisiana. But for the crisis of secession and war, Sherman would have been pleased to remain at the academy as a Southern gentleman and an accepted member of local society. The war came, however, and Sherman resigned his position and donned the blue Federal uniform. As a Union general, Sherman became the scrouge of the same South that he had so admired and enjoyed.
   
   Sherman was adopted into the family of a prominent Ohio politician following the death of his father. This was the first of many disruptions in his life. His adoptive parents compelled him to change his actual first name from "Tecumseh" (after the celebrated Indian leader and warrior) to William. Marszalek sees many of Sherman's subsequent choices and decisions as part of a determined effort to create and maintain continuity, stability and order. As much as he loved the South, Sherman viewed secession and disunity as a form of anarchy that needed to be crushed. Similarly, the Indian tribes threatening the settlement of the frontier needed to be suppressed. Late in his life, Sherman resisted his wife's repeated entreaties to have him convert to Catholicism.
   
   Marszalek also treats Sherman's friendship and eventual estrangement from Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman was devoted to the military and grew disillusioned when Grant chose to pursue a political career during the Reconstruction Era. Although both Grant and Sherman lived long enough to write memoirs, Grant's memoirs are better known on account of his superb ability as a writer. Unlike Grant, Sherman's own book generated more controversy than praise upon its publication (Grant defended Sherman's book, however, as providing accurate accounts and descriptions of events) and is not read as often today.
   
   I have had the good fortune to have visited Grant's residence in Galena, Illinois and the former Galt House (the hotel still exists, but it has relocated to a much larger building several blocks away) in Louisville, Kentucky, where Grant and Sherman studied their maps and plotted the strategy that resulted in the eventual Union victory. Marszalek's book helped bring some of these same details to life for me as a reader. Recommended.



4. 
   "Wars are not all evil; they are part of the grand machinery by which this world is governed; thunderstorms which purify the political atmosphere, test the manhood of a people, and prove whether they are worthy to take rank with others engaged in the same task by different methods." - Gen. William T. Sherman
   
   As a casual student of Civil War history, i.e. returning to it periodically after bouts with trashier fare, I've heretofore lost sight of General Sherman in General Grant's shadow at Shiloh, Vicksburg and Chattanooga. Even the commendable Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861-1865 failed to correct this failing. SHERMAN finally forced the man into my awareness.
   
   This book by John Marszalek is an extensively researched, comprehensive, and solid summary of the General's life from boyhood to death. I would love to have seen what the late, great Shelby Foote could've done with the material, but that's neither here nor there.
   
   SHERMAN includes all of the elements of the man's private and public life that you'd expect in a biography. What stood out for me were the elements that I never suspected: his sojourn in California from 1848 to 1857 both as a military officer and a private banker, his position as the first superintendent of the military academy that would later evolve into Louisiana State University, his eventual post-war falling-out with Grant, and his controversial views on race. Indeed, Sherman's personal view of slavery was akin to that of a Southern slave owner; he thought it consistent with the natural order of things. Furthermore, he opposed the abolitionists of the pre-war period believing their efforts conducive to the growing national disorder that eventually resulted in the Civil War. Sherman once said:
   
   "The negro should be a free man, but not put on any equality with the Whites ... the effect of equality is illustrated in the character of the mixed race in Mexico and South America. Indeed it appears to me that the right of suffrage in our Country should be rather abridged than enlarged."
   
   The chapters on Sherman's Civil War career make clear that he was significantly more successful as a war strategist than as a battlefield tactician as evidenced by his failures as a corps commander at Chickasaw Bayou (1862), as army commander when his Army of the Tennessee was repulsed at the north end of Missionary Ridge at the Battle of Chattanooga (1863), and as an army group commander at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain (1864). His claim to fame is, of course, his brilliant march through Georgia and the Carolinas during which his forces occupied Atlanta and Savannah, GA, and Columbia, SC, unopposed after skillfully maneuvering enemy forces out of all three cities beforehand.
   
   SHERMAN includes three photo sections, but no battlefield maps which otherwise might have been usefully illuminating.
   
   What drove Sherman was his deep antipathy for disorder, whether it be military, social, familial, or political. He would've made the consummate military dictator if given the opportunity. He was a great commander and man for his time and place. In today's politically correct and "enlightened" times, he would be shunned.
   
   "I look upon war with horror, but if it has to come I am here." - Gen. William T. Sherman



5. This is a good book about Sherman and the civil war. If you like Sherman is book is for you. Worth your money.

5 comments about The Ayn Rand Cult.

1. In the wake of Ayn Rand's death, two of her former acolytes, Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, authored separate accounts detailing the effects of Rand's severe moralism and hypocrisy on their lives.
   
   "Too little, too late" is the verdict that Jeff Walker renders on those books, and with his book "The Ayn Rand Cult" he exposes Ayn Rand and her legacy, "Objectivism" as it should have been exposed long ago.
   
   Walker did extensive interviews with former Objectivists in order to present a comprehensive critique of Rand and her thought. He shows that Objectivism, like subsequent cults like Scientology and est, was authoritarian at the core, and fed on fear and the threat of excommunication.
   
   Walker points out the obvious paradoxes in Rand's life and writing, most notably that her hackneyed fiction's heroes were stilted and similar in style to the chiseled products of Soviet Socialist Realism. which she supposedly abhorred.
   
   Walker also shows that in the context of the times and the literature she grew up with, Rand did not produce anything significantly original, and that she only grudgingly credited her influences. She referred to Nietzsche as "a gifted poet", as if he was only John the Baptist to her Messianic status. It shouldn't be hard for anybody doing a comparative reading of Nietzsche and Rand to figure out who was the real genius.
   
   Full examination is given to the culture of 1920's Business Theory, and the traditions of Jewish culture which were a large part of Rand's influences as well as foundations of the Objectivist movement--- never, of course, fully acknowledged.
   
   Walker's prescription for people who are beguiled by Rand is that they should investigate the classical liberals, like Fredrich Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises, as well as the models that Rand used for her fiction, like Frank Lloyd Wright--people that all had real genius. That is the "trail's end" where disenchanted followers of Rand usually wind up.
   
   Jeff Walker's book is most notable for its thoroughness in putting Ayn Rand and the proto-cult of Objectivism in context. It's a laundry list of reasons for individuals to resist the path of the true believer.



2. I have read a few of Rand's books and thought they were OK, not great, not terrible, just OK. I was never attracted to the underlying themes in the books or Rand's "philosphy". I was fascinated, however, by the fact that somehow she has become an icon because of these books and wanted to learn more about her. This book pretty much tells it all-there is no fawning or sugar coating here. She was a nasty woman with some pretty deep rooted mental problems--intelligent, yes, but warped. I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone with the qualities she admired such as intelligence, free thinking, individualism etc. would ever want anything to do with this cult. She must have had some really potent Kool-Aid.



3. Mr. Walker does little to justify his criticism of Ayn Rand. His review is rather simplistic in nature.
   
   At one point he seems to be critical of the idea that a person of fifteen years could become a follower of Ms. Rand. Yet most of us can recall becoming followers of a philospher, politician, or author at just such an age.
   
   Mr. Walker's review also seems somewhat typical of those who secretly wish that individuals must always be subservient to society.
   
   For those who have not read one of Ms. Rand's works, they would be better served by reading one and skipping Mr. Walker's book.



4. No need for a full review here. In short one really doesn't need to waste their time reading this nonsense as this author ventures deep into fiction (I kept asking myself why, as there is enough to factually be critical of Rand about without creating more from thin air). For those who do need more, this author doesn't understand Objectivism either (even on a most basic level).
   
   Want the scoop on O'ism? Rand laid out a very interesting philosophy that would naturally be adapted and eliminate all other POV's (points of view)... if only. Isn't there always an if LOL. In this case the "if" is huge, as Oism requires that a majority be looking to live in a really free society. Most us humans simply are not (as a group we don't encourage real freedom or vote for it). So the philosophy doesn't take (unless of course one creates an artificially protected society (like the valley in Atlas) where the world full of well-meaning thugs (read: most regular folks) can't force the O'ists into all sort of freedom killing nonsense (taxes, etc). If you want to know about the philosophy that would be perfect for a freedom loving population I'd recommend reading Rand, not the drivel in this book. Her fiction is top notch, and for those with a bent the non-fiction is mind-bending in its potential.



5. Unreadable mix of sophomoric psuedo-journalism smears an often very unlikeable Rand with ludicrous charges of cultdom based on a small cadre of intense fans. Just because Ayn Rand was not a likable person often emulated by even less likable sycophants neither diminishes the value of her writings nor paints her followers as cult members.
   
   See also The Passion of Ayn Rand, a biography of Rand written by Barbara Branden, the wife of the man she shared with Rand!

No comments about P.T. Barnum: The Legend and the Man.