1 comments about History of the Great American Fortunes: Great Fortunes from Railroads.

1. This book is documented to the limit and quoted and made reference to by everyone. This is a classic in radical history. It doesn't say anything nice or positive about the Great Wealthy Americans. This book is anti-capitalistic. It is anti-wealthy. It is not spoken of favorably by most established sources - but nobody can deny its research and its facts. If you are a descendant of a DuPont, or a Rockefeller, or a Carnegie, or a Vanderbilt, or J. P. Morgan, or the railroad barons you will not like Gustavus Myers. On the other hand I love this book and think there is probably more facts and truth in this account than you will probably find in most American History books.
   Myers has written more of the same controversial nature and I intend to get them all.

5 comments about Martin Van Buren and the Romantic Age of American Politics.

1. This is a very readable and interesting book that deals with the long and highly political life of Martin Van Buren. He comes off very well as a hard-working, fair and moral politician who practically establishes the democratic party as a well-oiled machine for both New York state and the United States. I have now read multiple books about the first eight presidents and he can hold his own with almost all of them so far. Highly recommended.



2. It is hard to tell how a man will do as President based on his experience. Some figures with virtually no political experience became good Presidents, such as Washington and Lincoln; others were failures such as Grant or Hoover. On the other hand, political experience is no guarantee of success: John Quincy Adams and James Buchanan had decent resumes going into office and had miserable presidencies. Martin Van Buren, one of the most politically talented of all Presidents, was not an utter failure, but he didn't shine in office either.

   In Niven's biography, we follow Van Buren from his impoverished roots through his rise in New York state government. Although not perfect, Van Buren had enough political astuteness and the right sort of temperment to help create and lead a party machine and elevate New York's prominence on a national level. Becoming a trusted advisor to Andrew Jackson and a member of his cabinet eventually led to his Vice Presidency and then the Presidency. With a major financial crash occurring right as he got into office, Van Buren was struggling right off the bat, and wound up serving only a single term; nonetheless, in an era of one-term presidents (from 1837 to 1861, no president was re-elected), Van Buren was hardly thrown into ignonimy after his defeat; instead, he remained a powerful member of the Democratic party for the next two decades.

   Niven's biography is generally favorable although he doesn't hide Van Buren's flaws. We learn of a man who was not a great ideologue but was one of the most masterful politicians of his era, holding his own with the often more prominent figures such as Jackson, Calhoun, Clay and Webster. He also wound up being a prominent figure in the anti-slavery movement, even running on the Free-Soil ticket at one point.

   At times, however, this biography is a bit ponderous and often focuses so much on the political part of Van Buren's life that the personal part is pushed aside. Thus, although this may be the best Van Buren biography available (it may also be the only one), I cannot give it a full five stars. Nonetheless, this is overall a very good book and worth reading if you are interested in this period of history.




3. Like others, I've set out to read at least one biography on each American President. This particular biography is extremely well researched. A myriad of detail about Martin Van Buren and his times is presented. It's not the book if you are looking for a brief summary of the highlights of Van Buren's career, but if you are looking for detail it's great. Occasionally I got a little lost, probably due to my relative ignorance of the political figures and movements of those times. You form a definite picture of the little magician with both flaws and strengths brought forward. The one significant historical event that I didn't read about was the interaction of Van Buren with the early Mormons, of which I have read some very interesting things elsewhere.



4. I came away from this book with a new appreciation for Martin Van Buren--who was certainly much more than the Jackson coattail rider I thought previously. This is THE definitive biography of Martin Van Buren, but I agree with the other reviewers that some of the many and DETAILED accounts of the political machinations in New York at the time were a bit much. That's really the only complaint I had about the book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and recommend it highly if you really want to know Van Buren.



5. I am currently reading a biography of every President in order. I realize with Martin Van Buren I am entering a long period of obscure Presidents, but very much looking forward to learning more about the chief executives between Jackson and Lincoln. Based on Amazon reviews, I decided that John Niven's biography was the best and most comprehensive choice.
   
   Thankfully, I have not been disappointed. John Niven has written a readable and extremely well researched biography of our eigth President. I was most impressed with the depth of detail Niven has included and the voluminous research it undoubtedly required. Niven has clearly succeeded in covering the public life of Martin Van Buren comprehensibly and succinctly from his early days in New York politics to his final years as an active participant in the political turmoil leading to the Civil War.
   
   The thoroughness this volume achieves regarding the political side of Van Buren's life comes at a price, however. At times this book is a dull read and seems to provide more detail, especially in the first third of the book dealing with New York machine politics, than most readers are likely to want or need. The book also does not delve very deeply into the personal side of Van Buren's life, although given that Van Buren's entire life revolved around politics (certainly far more than any previous President) this leaves fewer gaps than one might expect.
   
   In summation, this is an excellent biography of Van Buren, though Niven obviously intended it to be a scholarly treatment meant primarily for academic level study. This biography is easy to read and well organized, though not the type of book you that you will likely want to read twice.

3 comments about Ansel Adams and the American Landscape: A Biography.

1. This biography offers its readers a wide range of suggestions and examples how American landscape entered into the American cultural essence as an icon, a point of reference. Obvious that photographers could inhale deeper this magic: great prairies, majestic spaces of woods and water, and so on. Adams fought all his life for this searching, his adventure followed this last century, expecially for what's "preservation of nature and animals/plants nature contains". Thank you, Adams, from one among million walkers and photographers! Fred T. from Turin, Italy.



2. Jonathan Spaulding's biography of Ansel Adams (or AA as people referred to him) provides a counterpoint to Mary Street Alinder's. While Alinder shows us Adams the Man first, with the influence of the American West and the Environmental Movement in a supporting role, these forces are prominent in Spaulding's work.

   This is not to say that Spaulding does not talk about AA's private life, a pre-requisite for any biography, but does so only as it relates to AA's pursuit of photography and environmental causes. Absent, for example, are details of his relationship with his wife Virginia (which was quite complex: someone needs to write a biography of Virgina Best Adams in a way that Stacy Schiff wrote of Vera Nabokov) and the hard relationship with his children.

   What Spaulding gives us instead is a very detailed account of the evolution of Adams' photographic vision and technique, and the influence of the American West on it. Through this you find his relationship to other important photographers and their influence on him and his styles: Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, and many others. We also see the influence of Western expansion throughout the first half of the 20th century, especially after WWII. In particular the seeming incongruity of AA producing pictures drawing people to the Western national parks while campaigning with the Sierra Club to limit the impact of tourists on Nature is discussed. The battle, falling out, and eventual reconciliation between Adams and David Brower is also detailed

   If you are most interested in AA's life, read his autobiography or Alinder's biographry. If you want to know more about his influences and those things that he influenced, Spaulding's book is an excellent and readable choice. The book is heavily footnoted, with over 80 pages of notes, and contains a useful bibliography for anyone wishing to research further Adams' very interesting life.

   As a footnote, the book does not include any pictures whose copyright is held by the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, which refused to grant permission.




3. Ansel Adams and the American Landscape: A Biography by Jonathan Spaulding is a superlative biography of one of America's true icons. Spaulding does a magnificent job describing the evolution of Adams as a photographer, environmentalist and individual. In this, the book is more than just Adams' biography, but a history of the environmental movement and photography in America.

   The only significant disappointment was the inability of Spaulding to utilize the actual Adams pictures when describing their creation. For instance, his description of the creation of Moon over Hernandez would have greatly benefitted from the ability of the reader to actually see the picture. However, unfortunately he was unable to obtain permission to utilize the photographs. While this is not Spaldings fault, it does limit the impact the of the narrative.

   The most interesting part of the book was the evolution of 20th Century American photography. Adams cannot be separated from the development of photography in American and his life touched most of the great American photographers. Adams was constantly in conflict with many of them over the issue of quality versus the benefits of photojournalism. Adams saw photography as a high art form and was at odds with those who saw it as more as a story telling devise.

   For those that are interested in Adams, environmentalism or photography this book is a must.

3 comments about Ferber: Edna Ferber and Her Circle: Paperback Book.

1. Is there a renaissance of interest in the writings of Edna Ferber? Stamps were minted honoring her this past summer [2002], and now the reissuance of this biography, written by Ferber's greatniece and originally published about 1978. I hope this indicates a resurgence of interest in her writings -- but you would be better served to read Ferber's writings themselves, than this biography.

   I've been in love with the writings of Edna Ferber since I was 12 and someone gave me a used edition of "Amreican Beauty". I realize that she won't go down in the annals of the classics of American literature, such as Faulkner or even Carson McCullers: her writing lacks the quality of universality, and I suppose, self-discovery [on the reader's part]. But she is great at the sociology of America, at giving the reader an intuitive feel or understanding of an era or people. I even did my first term paper in high school on her: "The Effects of Minority Races on the Writing of Edna Ferber" -- and I still remember with pleasure the note the instructor wrote, to the effect that my love for Ferber's writings was apparent.

   So although I had read reviews to the effect that Ms. Gilbert did not let her closeness to her aunt affect her objectivity, I couldn't resist reading it. I was prepared for her to be critical. I was not prepared for her to be vindictive and viperish. She related Ferber's life backwards: 1960 to 1968, 1952 to 1960, 1938 to 1950, 1916 to 1938, etc. -- so you begin by seeing her as a crochety old lady [and indeed, this was the bulk of the book, rather than the period in which Ferber was writing -- although I suppose it is understandable, as that is when Ms. Gilbert would have known her] without having any idea what made her that way.

   What did come out was that Miss Ferber took over of the support of her extended family [besides her mother: her sister, her sister's 2 children, and their children] -- and that the family felt some guilt at this, and I felt Ms. Gilbert's book was an attempt to whitewash the family's guilt, saying in effect, "See, it wasn't easy for us, we had to put up with this disagreeable old lady." When she sticks to facts, it isn't too bad; but she's always jumping to pseudo-freudian conclusions, or attaching a moralistic interpretation to the actions of others. For example, although she quotes letters of praise from Noel Coward [who was not a person to suffer fools gladly] fairly frequently, she usually adds that the work "wasn't Ferber's best" [I wonder what she did feel was her best?] and that he undoubtedly did it out of friendship. She makes numerous allusions to a freudian problem which Miss Ferber had in her relationship with her mother, but during her tale of the early part of Ferber's life, never mentions anything to provide support or justification for such comments. If someone outside the family had written it, I'm sure they would be subject to a lawsuit for libel and inneundo.

   The biography is entitled "Ferber and her Circle", but is only tangentially about her "circle".




2. Biography written by a family member or friend so often is mere hagiography, not good biography. But the book by Julie Gilbert, Edna Ferber's great-niece, was the only Ferber biography I could find, so I decided I would start there to learn about Ferber, and I'm really glad I did. Is the Gilbert book objective? Of course not. No one writes objective biography.
   
   I applaud Gilbert for her courage in presenting Ferber as a real person, exposing the extremes of her personality. Ferber was outsized-she had a benevolent heart coupled with colossal rage: "When Ferber got worked up over an issue, there was nobody who could touch her. She was a dervish of indignation. When she was calm she exuded power; when she was upset she exuded great power." Katherine Hepburn, twenty years Ferber's junior, says: "We were dangerous women. There aren't any more of us around."
   
   I give the book only four stars for two reasons: One, because I wish Gilbert had included photos. I love the image that Gilbert writes of Ferber and her sister Fan looking together like a Diane Arbus photo: "visually similar and visually sour." A picture of these two together would have added a lot to the book; and two, because Gilbert doesn't include sources. Perhaps most of Ferber's papers are still in the family's control; regardless, I would like to have known where Gilbert found her information.
   
   That being said, I would recommend this book for anyone interested in Edna Ferber, and also in New York, theater, and party life of the 1930s. Whee, Ferb! Wot a girl!



3. This is a biography of an unusually successful and an unusual woman. Though some of her more well remembered works survive through countless productions of Showboat and viewings of the several versions of the movies made from her plays and books like Giant, Cimarron and Stage Door and the endless productions of her plays, she herself is less well-remembered than other groundbreaking female writers like Edith Wharton. Yet, as we learn from this biography, she was probably one of the most successful American writers portraying the grandeur of this vast country. And as she was able to portray the role of women in creating the patterns of American families, she herself was a powerful and independent woman. This biography tells her story from a point of view of an insider. Julie Gilbert writes of her grand-aunt in a way that describes her through the author's personal vision and then goes back to review Ferber's earlier years with outside research and access to intimate personal information that would be otherwise unavailable. Ferber's story is as fascinating as her stories and this biography is fun and informative. It is a must read.

5 comments about All Cloudless Glory, Volume Two: The Life of George Washington Making a Nation (All Cloudless Glory).

1. The first of Harrison Clark's two-parter on George Washington focuses on Washington's life and career up through 1781, and this volume closes with the victory at Yorktown that effectively ended the American Revolution.

   I would take issue with the Book Description (above) which describes the main character in this book as the "youthful Washingon, one not transformed into the dignified figure we associate with our first president." While Washington does not become president at any point in these pages, all the traits that we look for in Washington -- the dignified figure, master politician and diplomat, and inspirational leader -- are already in well in place by the final third of this book. One factor that practically leaps off the pages is the all-out adoration that men and women alike, regardless of their place in society, felt for the man. Clark lets those who saw and interacted with Washington do the talking through their letters or diaries, and Washington's charisma shines brightly from these pages.

   Clark has chosen to let Washington and his contemporaries tell the story of Washington's life and career through their own writings, and it would be a welcome choice but for one thing -- the book is organized so clumsily as to become disjointed. Rather than edit and organize the various writings into a narrative, Clark instead divides each chapter up into what I can only think to describe as a series of short vignettes.

   For example, chapter 19, "Cambridge and Boston," is broken up into 11 smaller parts, some of them only half a page long. It makes progress rather like reading a college textbook, with each section broken into smaller subsections, separated by its own little bold-faced headline ("The Vanishing Army"). Clark does tend to group events into short pieces that make sense on their own, but lack the context of the larger story.

   Clark wisely spends most of his time in this book outlining Washington's career in the Continental Army, but it is sometimes difficult to get an appreciation for the battles and skirmishes Washington fought because the maps of the battle sites are almost completely useless. The map of the 1776 New York Campaign, for example, is difficult to align with almost anything in the text.

   It's a shame that Clark has chosen such a floppy format in which to present his information, because there's some really first-rate stuff in here (the chapter on Benedict Arnold's treason is a highlight of the book, although it, too, gets bogged down in some disjointed narration). If you've not had the opportunity to read Washington's own letters from this period, Clark provides you with lots of samples of Washington's writings which, by themselves, make this volume worth owning. But if you're looking for an easily accessible, readable biography, this one probably isn't for you.

   Five stars for wealth of information presented, but only one star for the format, bringing this one down to a three.




2. I found this author to be a very cumbersome writer. He delivers a lot of great information, but often in a scattered, non grammatically correct format. This has caused me to reread sections of the book and make assessments about what the author is attempting to convey. For example, the author could be telling a story about 3 men and then continue talking only about one of them - but never tells the reader about which man he is speaking....he only refers to the man as "him". For a man of his credentials, I am really disappointed.



3. I am under the belief that the people that wrote favorable reviews for this book were related to Harrison Clark (the author).

   Although the book contains a lot of great information, the format, the grammar, and the lack of good maps limits the readers understanding.

   format - there were times when the text was so disjointed that I had to reread sections several times and sit down with pen an paper to map out his ideas.

   grammar - the author, for example, will tell a story about several men. When continuing the story about one man specifically Harrison will refer to the person as "him" without letting the reader know which of the men to whom he is making the reference.

   maps - The author refers to a lot of places, but doesn't map them out so it is hard to gain an understanding of what is happening in the book.

   If you haven't purchased this book - don't. Given Harrison's creditials this book is a disappointment.




4. Not only did I read this book, Vol 1 of 2, but I read Vol 2, as well. The first is "From youth to Yorktown" the second is "Making a Nation." This is not just a read, but a study of Washington with a vast quantity of verbatim correspondence from and to the man himself. Great insight into the inner man, how he thought, the deeds, the challenges he and his peers faced. Read these two volumes, cross-reference with other works, and you'll have a much enriched appreciation for the father of our country. Great Read/Study. If you like factual history, Enjoy!



5. In every respect, except for the subject, this book fails to earn your hard earned dollars. Poor editing, dull writing, and a lack of insightful analysis combine to eliminate this work from my suggested reading list. If it were not for a commitment of mine to finish every book I begin, then I would have stopped slogging through Clark's book around page twenty. My suffering reached its zenith when I read the subtitle he chose for a section, "General Howe Funks Out." This subtitle was only slightly worse than, "Washington is liked." With subtitles like these I seriously considered breaking my rule of completing every book I read. Nevertheless, the numerous passages Clark quotes from Washington's papers and diary entries give the book some merit; Washington himself could redeem the worst of books. But, why wade through Harrison's tiresome prose when you could simply read George Washington's diaries and gain all the merit while losing all the dross?

1 comments about Mary Edwards Walker: Above and Beyond (American Heroes).

1. In this short biography of Mary Walker, Dale Walker gives glimpses into the history of medicine, the world of women's fashions, prisons of the Civil War, and the beginning of the campaign for women's vote. Mary Walker was born in 1832 in upstate New York to freethinking parents who insisted that the four girls work on the farm and wear clothing that allowed amble circulation of blood. Not only did she follow her father's suggestions for attire, she also followed him into the medical profession and became one of the first female doctors in the Unites States. Her father was self-taught; Mary graduated from Syracuse Medical College in 1849 and began the difficult task of finding patients who would pay to see a woman doctor. What the Civil War began, she volunteered as a physician and fought hard to be paid as a physician, not a nurse. She worked to stop battlefield amputations and to incorporate sanitary practices. Known as much for her brash, unrelenting behavior as her trousers, she became fodder for Civil War tabloids. Captured as a spy, Mary spent four months in Confederate prison where she schemed for prison reforms including better food and medical care. She was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1865, had it rescinded 1917 when Congress decided that too many medals had been awarded without merit, and reinstated in 1977. Her life spanned the Civil War and beyond. She saw women's roles changed from domestic work to physician. Just before she died in 1919, women were granted the right to vote.
   
   Mary Walker is a terrific role model for today's girls- feisty, responsible, hard-working and not at all concerned about the fashion police. Well worth reading.
   
   Reviewed by Beth Edelsten for Flamingnet Book Reviews
   www.flamingnet.com
   Preteen, teen, and young adult book reviews and recommendations

2 comments about Love and Revolution: A Political Memoir (New Critical Theory).

1. On November 3rd, 1979, I was attending an internal meeting of the Communist Workers Party (CWP) in Pittsburgh, PA. That evening we repaired to the the funky living room of our Oakland district headquarters and learned from television broadcast that several anti-kkk activists had been killed or wounded during the course of a demonstration in Greensboro,North Carolina. A few minutes later, we received a call confirming our fears: four of our comrades had already died and several others were in serious
   condition after having been shot in cold-blood by a caravan of Klan/Nazi members who had attacked the anti-Klan march organized by the CWP.

   In her newly released, "Love and Revolution", Signe Waller, the widow of Jim Waller, one of the five to die as a result of that November tragedy, provides us with a "political memoir" that spans several genres. It is at once a biography of the victims of the Greensboro massacre, autobiography of the author, reportage, chapter in American history, political analysis and activist handbook. Ms. Waller writes in two voices: the first is that of the young Signe Waller, leftist militant circa 1979; the other voice is that of Signe Waller, year 2002. Combining these
   two perspectives, Ms. Waller allows us access to the passionate thought processes of a young revolutionary as well as the sobre reasoning of a seasoned activist culling the wisdom of her experience.

   Who were the five slain? Dr. James Waller, age 36; Dr. Michael Nathan, 32; William Sampson, 31; Sandra Smith, 28; Cesare Cauce, 25. These were extraordinary individuals. Collectively, they were collegiate student body presidents, Phi Beta Kappa,members,graduates of the University of Chicago, Duke,
   and Harvard Divinity and accomplished physicians. Poised for professional success and the material comfort and bourgeois respectability that would have afforded, they chose instead to live, work and struggle among the poor and working classes of
   North Carolina. To this end, four members of the CWP5 took low-paying and dangerous jobs in the textile mills of North Carolina and arm-in-arm with other workers fought for better working conditions and pay.
   
   Co-workers recognized the dedication and skill of
   these openly-radical CWP member, electing them as
   local Presidents and shop stewards. In addition to their trade-union activities, the "5" also participated in the anti-apartheid movement, struggles for better education, and anti-racist actions. After a long day's work at the mill, Dr. Waller gave gratis medical treatment to the workers and their families, even paying for the pharmaceuticals when his patients were too poor.

   In the Summer of 1979, the CWP along with other townfolk confronted and routed the Ku Klux Klan in China Grove, North Carolina, where the racist organization had been terrorizing african-americans and inter-racial couples. Emboldened by
   this victory, CWP leadership in North Carolina called
   for an anti-klan rally and march to be held in the
   predominantly black neighborhood of Morningside
   in Greensboro. The CWP publicly dared the Ku Klux
   Klan to show up at the rally and even sent the white
   supremacists a letter to that effect.

   The Klan did show up on November 3rd, accompanied by
   Nazis with whom they had recently forged an alliance.
   On-the-scene television crews recorded the fatal
   shootings. The CWP, complying with police orders,
   were not armed and, therefore, could not mount a
   defense. As one Klansmen noted, it was a "turkey
   shoot".

   In the wake of November 3rd, evidence came forward
   that proved this was more than a brutal assault by the KKK/Nazis. Sure those groups pulled the trigger but it was later brought to light that the Greensboro police and even the FBI had been in complicity and even helped organize the
   attack. Given the amount of conspiracy theory we encounter on the Internet, the sceptic should certainly be wary of such a statement. To this I can only reply, "Read the book!"

   In the last pages of "Love and Revolution", we learn
   that today Waller still believes in the ideals of her
   youth: an egalitarian society and no war. She does not berate her years in the now defunct CWP as youthful folly. Mistakes were made from which she has learned and evolved.

   She criticizes the rhetoric of the CWP. The CWP
   talked tough but was in no position for a military
   confrontation. This fact in no way justifies
   the argument of some at the time : that the CWP "got
   what it deserved" or provoked. The fact is that the
   CWP was leading a peaceful "unarmed" demonstration.
   Nonetheless, the group's aggressive rhetoric did make
   it possible for their enemies to portray them as violent.

   She also criticizes the Leninist party structure,
   democratic centralism. It was according to her "long
   on centralism and short on democracy".

   I couldn't agree more. As a one-time member of the
   CWP, I found rhetoric and democratic centralism
   perniciously fed into one another. The rhetoric alienated me, divided me from myself. Often I could not distinguish my true thoughts and feelings from Party rhetoric. When one did offer an
   unpopular opinion, there was always the threat that
   it would not be fairly judged but simply rejected as a symptom of "petit-bourgeois" orientation or my youth(I was only 19 at the time). Due to this censorship by others, or even self-censorship, there was NO chance that a regular cadre could influence party policy. In my opinion, not only democratic
   centralism but the party model, which aspires to mediate the desires of so many under a united platform, deserves to be tossed in the trash bin.

   I hope that this book will be studied by many
   activists. I also hope that it will serve as a call to
   reawaken all those ex-members of the Communist Workers Party who have fallen into the slumber of middle-age. A better world is possible and, as Signe informs us,we are being "convened by martyrs"




2. Shame is that all these morons weren't armed to the teeth and finished each other off.
   
   Hard to root for any of these idiots.

No comments about Iowa Letters: Dutch Immigrants On The American Frontier (Historical Series of the Reformed Church in America).

2 comments about The Life and Times of Martha Laurens Ramsey, 1759-1811.

1. Quoted from review in CHOICE, Feb.02: Modeled after Ulrich's A Midwife's Tale (1990), this life-and-times, detailed, and closely written study takes its starting point from her posthumous memoir, edited by her husband and published as a model for American Protestant women in the 19th century. As a strong-willed daughter of an American revolutionary leader and mother of 11, she fashioned a life that "developed, elasticized and resisted the claims of patriarch and family." The diary's silences, especially about slavery, were sometimes as eloquent as its formulaic language of pietism. Warmly understanding of her but frankly revealing her as an unexpectedly interesting subject. Useful and recommended for teaching early American history/ women/ religion.



2. This is a wonderful book! Starting with Martha Laurens Ramsey's brief pious memoir, Joanna Gillespie has reconstructed Martha's life in colonial South Carolina. Reading it, I felt as if I had been plunged into the planter society of the Carolina low country during the American Revolutionary period. The close cultural and economic ties with England, the changed definition of "citizenship" as independence created a new republic, and the unspoken contradiction of a "free" nation whose economic foundation was built on slavery are all presented with amazing insight and depth. Above all, the secret heart of Martha Laurens Ramsey is exposed. Defined both by her intellectual gifts and her pious search to understand God's Providence, Martha uses her secret diary as a way to analyze the conflicting demands of husband, family and society, With extensive contextual material, Gillespie has transformed those scattered thoughts into a sensitive and complex portrait of a remarkable woman and the era in which she lived.

No comments about Pittsburgh Lives: Men and Women Who Shaped Our City.