No comments about The Ashley Genealogy. a History of the Descendants of Robert Ashley of Springfield, Massachusetts.

No comments about SUFFOLK CO., Massachusetts Miscellaneous Docket Index to Probate Records 1639-1866.

5 comments about Revolution Downeast: The War for American Independence in Maine.

1. I had to read a Historical Non-Fiction book for my History class. I chose this one because it only had 223 pages. Everyone else had to read like a 600 page book. But, I payed my price. I think that this book sucks.(and that's being nice). I have never read anything so boring in my life. It is like reading 300 pages out of your history book. I know some people are actually in to this stuff,(if you have no life). So learn from my mistakes and please never ever read this lousy book. THE END.



2. The Revolution in Maine has been by and large ignored by professional historians but Leamon effectively reveals the dimensions of revolutionary events in Maine. One need not be a professional, however, in order to enjoy this book. Leamon's prose makes the book's content both accessible and enjoyable. :) I highly recommend this book.



3. Professor Leamon's wealth of knowledge and pithy style make this book a delight. I'm not a fan of positivistic approaches to history, but Leamon's insights, analysis, and strong literary voice endow Revolution Downeast with special character. It is obvious that Mr. Leamon devoted years of his professional career to ensuring the durability and integrity of his work.



4. _Revoltion Downeast_ is a fascinating look at the role Maine played in the American Revolution. While not quite the density of Prof. Baiylin's work, the book can be slow going. Being a Maine native myself, I found this book to be particularly interesting. Reading about the American Fleet at Penobscot Bay, I didn't know whether I should laugh or cry. This is definately a must read for anyone from around here.



5. This is a fine book - James Leamon gives the reader very interesting insights into this field of history. I have a post-modern view of academics and enjoy finding information that is ignored by others for one reason or another. Any serious student (especially of this period) will find this book a valued addition to his of her own library. I rate it 5 stars and a thanks to the author.

2 comments about Silent City on a Hill: Picturesque Landscapes of Memory And Boston's Mount Auburn Cemetery.

1. Thousands of visitors annually visit America's first and best example of a rural cemetery. Mount Auburn Cemetery was consecrated in 1831. It came about as a practical, down-to-earth (no pun intended) solution to a pressing problem. Boston simply had no more room left in which to bury its dead citizens. A group of business men decided it was a good idea to develop a new burial ground well outside the city limits, but close enough for people to easily visit and pray for their departed family members. It was also suggested that the new burial ground should be a pleasant place to visit and where the living could be assured that the departed were residing in a pleasant and peaceful environment. It was decided to enlist the Horticultural Society to help achieve this new concept in rural burial grounds. Since Mount Auburn was the first such cemetery in the United States it was a forerunner of not only rural burying grounds but many landscaped, public parks within city limits. Central Park in New York City was one such result of this new beautiful park concept.
   If one doesn't have the patience or interest in reading the rather dry 1861 annual report-like "History of Mount Auburn Cemetery" by Jacob Bigelow, the President of the Corporation and one of the founders of that National Landmark, this is the award-winning coffee table book for you. It's lavishly illustrated with colorful prints as well as photographs and is meticulously researched and well written. More importantly, it's interesting to read. The history of Mount Auburn is fascinating and for those who have actually visited the peaceful location, it will refresh many of their personal memories. In the 19th Century more visitors came to see Mount Auburn than went to see Niagara Falls. It was, and still is, world famous as a "City of the Dead."
   The reader won't be disappointed with this volume. It's a publishing gem.



2. This book has been extremely influential for me as an art history student and scholar-in-training. I go to school in Boston and visited Forest Hills Cemetery on a whim. My captivation with this place led me to this book. Forest Hills Cemetery was founded by same man as Mount Auburn Cemetery- Henry A. S. Dearborn. This book was the starting place for my research on Dearborn. Read this book and you will learn the fascinating story of the beginning of the rural cemetery movement. Silent City on a Hill is an excellent piece of scholarship- well written and thoroughly researched! It is also well illustrated with photographs of the places and historical engravings, maps and portraits.

No comments about History and Genealogy of "Elder" John Whipple of Ipswich, Massachusetts His English Ancestors and American Descendants.

5 comments about Ceremonial Time: Fifteen Thousand Years on One Square Mile.

1. Mitchell goes far beyond "reading the landscape" of his town. He analyzes the history, anthropology, architecture, agriculture, geology, botany, and zoology of an area northwest of Littleton, Massachusetts, called "Scratch Flat." As if that's not enough, he goes one step further by investigating and uncovering the ancestral *spirit* of the place. This book is an easy, enlightening read that will not only have you looking differently at your own neighborhood but also contemplating our traditional notions of time. "[W]e are the future of the past, and the past of the future." (p. 200) Certainly food for thought.



2. ....is what the author shows you throughout this highly readable tale of Scratch Flat, a mile-square locale near Concord. The history of its geography, botany, and inhabitants unfolds here in lucid prose devoid of technical jargon. For the ecopsychology course I'm putting together I plan to make this book required reading.

   A recommendation: the word "primitive" ought to be removed from future editions when used in reference to American Indians. Many regard it as derogatory, and even white readers may well wonder who is more primitive: those who inhabit the land with care or those who kill its inhabitants and "develop" it out of existence.




3. Loved the book especially since I live in NH. We were walking down a commercial ally in Portsmouth, NH and I spied the book in a store window. I said to my husband, remember the name. We got home and ofcourse I forgot but remembered the Author's last name and something about C-Time. I pulled up Portsmouth on the computer found the address. Called and they were kind enough to
   send it to me Media Mail. Got it the next day!!! Within 15 pages I was hooked. The book was written in '85 and I dare to think that the whole area has been commercialized since. I travel I-495 occasionally and I wil be searching for Scratch Flat intently as he gave precise directions.



4. This is marketed as natural history / history . The author himself has admitted that parts of it are just made up. Major disappointment.



5. A "must read" for anyone living close to the land. I appreciated the author's understanding that we and our environs exist not just 2- or 3- dimensions, but rather four with time being the missing feature in most people's thinking about the land and landscapes. It should be noted, however, that I live in the region and can relate to the local setting and features Mitchell describes.

3 comments about A Rabble in Arms: Massachusetts Towns and Militiamen during King Philip's War (Warfare and Culture).

1. Zelner's text proves that the old values of social history, combined with new perspectives on war and society, can produce important new additions to the historical landscape. The impressive leg-work that must have gone into the production of this book certainly pay off in its results. The assumption of the democratic status of the early American militia, and society more generally, is proven false. The society Zelner portrays is far more complex; at times petty, at times genuinely conflicted, the tragedy of war and the choices it forces communities to make are vividly described. This book would be a welcome addition to any historian of war and society, early America, or social history. Zelner should be particularly applauded for his contextualization of the American experience in its English (and colonial) context. An impressive display of scholarship in a genuinely readable format.



2. Names, Places, in our history. If you have family from Massachusetts or delight in learning about this countries early history in a personal way, this is the book for you!



3. A RABBLE IN ARMS: MASSACHUSETTS TOWNS AND MILITIAMEN DURING KING PHILIP'S WAR
   Kyle F. Zelner
   New York University Press, 2009
   Hardcover, $50.00, 325 Pages, Illustrations, Maps, Appendices, Tables, Bibliography, Notes
   
   
   The militia in the English colonies evolved from the ancient Anglo-Saxon fyrd, which was based on the obligation of every member of society to participate in the common defense. After the Norman Conquest in 1066, the military responsibilities of the militia, as the Latinized fyrd was called, gradually dwindled as medieval monarchs relied more and more on mercenaries and a hereditary warrior class to fight their wars. By 1600, the English militia was essentially moribund. Only a fraction of the middle and upper classes were enrolled; training was infrequent and ineffective; and weapons were scarce and often obsolete. The peculiar nature of the English colonial experience in North America led to a revival of the militia in the New World. Because the early English colonies were under-capitalized commercial enterprises rather than government projects, the colonists couldn't rely on royal military forces or expensive mercenaries for protection. As no one else would defend them, they had to defend themselves. The initial landing parties in Chesapeake Bay and New England usually included veterans of the wars in Ireland or the Netherlands, such as John Smith and Miles Standish. Their responsibility was to train the rest of the colonists in the military arts and provide military leadership in times of crisis. As the years passed and the early colonies became established, these ad hoc military arrangements were formalized by law and custom into English-style militias. The early settlements at Jamestown, Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay weren't products of cross-Atlantic military assaults on hostile New World beachheads, but colonizing efforts by civilians for whom a professional military was anathema. Thus, as civilian-colonists whose only thoughts were of self-protection, their fundamental military organization was simple, defensive in nature, and based on the long-held English tradition of a citizen-soldiery, or militia. Militia represented a classical (and biblical) tradition of free people dropping scythes and shouldering weapons to defend hearth and home against invaders; then, the battle won, of returning to resume cutting hay. For a people with neither resources nor inclination-based on both religious and secular philosophical convictions-to maintain full-time defenders, a community-based militia wholly made up of citizen-soldiers dovetailed prefectly with their basic credos. Initially, militia service was universal. Varying slightly from colony to colony, every able-bodied male from 16 to 60 (which sometimes included slaves and indentured servants) was expected to keep and maintain a firearm and sufficient ammunition, and to willingly appear for regularly schedule drill. In a new book, A RABBLE IN ARMS: MASSACHUSETTS TOWNS AND MILITIAMEN DURING KING PHILIP'S WAR, author Kyle F. Zelner provides an insightful portrayal of Massachusetts soldiery in one of the most important but overlooked wars in this nation's history-King Philip's War. Drawing on muster and pay lists as well as numerous historical records, Zelner demonstrates that Essex County's more upstanding citizens, such as yeoman farmers, church members, and family heads, were often spared from impressments, while the "rabble"-criminals, drunkards, the poor-were forced to join active fighting u8nits, with town militia committees selecting soldiers who would be least missed should they die in action. He carefully peels away myths that have been reinforced so strongly through the mediums of popular culture (literature, movies, and television) that fact and fiction have blurred, but the reality was quite different. Zelner's book is a welcome addition to the literature of pre-Revolutionary War America.
   
   
   Lt. Colonel Robert A. Lynn, Florida Guard
   Orlando, Florida

1 comments about Beacon Hill: The Life and Times of a Neighborhood.

1. A great book from the pictures to the well-written text. A nice glimpse at how Beacon Hill has evolved and thrived since its origin. Written with feeling and flows like a novel!

3 comments about Plymouth Colony: Its History and People.

1. In doing research on my own ancestor who was a passanger on the Mayflower and one of the original Pilgrims, I have used over 50 books. This one is by far the best. Very readable, this book provides an excellent narative of many of the events of the first 70 years at Plymouth, and detailed descriptions of many of the Pilgrims. For anyone interested in this era, this book is a must.



2. There are hundreds of books out there about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving and all that goes with the subject. But the majority of these books are written either in a stodgy, encyclopedic (read: Boring!) format, or they are written for children. Well, now I have one that is actually written for adults, as well as in an easy to read manner. Written mainly from a genealogical stance, the author, Eugene Aubrey Stratton, did his "putting flesh on the bones" research; that is, he sought out how the pilgrims lived their daily lives in all aspects of their time and place. Instead of the cartoonish figures we all see come November, Mr. Stratton actually gives an authentic look to these early Americans. He makes the reader feel that they now know the pilgrims, not only through their historical prominence in our early history, but by name, and we feel their hardships, especially of their first winter here. After the first time reading this book, I re-read it, only this time I read the 'Biographical Sketches' section, located toward the back of the book, first, THEN I went to the beginning. My advice to the first time reader is to do the same. You will then know who you are reading about as names are mentioned.
   This book is, simply put, the best of its kind. Maybe more genealogists should write our history books! At least they bring history to life!



3. My husband & I are both descended from The Mayflower - He from William Brewster & Stephen Hopkins and I from William Bradford. This book has added so much information for our Genealogy. I cannot tell you how many times I have used it to add information to our family history file. It has many years of use.

5 comments about Harvard Square: An Illustrated History Since 1950.

1. This is a great trip for those who remember or worked in Harvard Square any time during the last 50 years. It's full of great photos and the text--including historical background and personal reflections--is very well-written. The book is arranged chronologically and it's fascinating (and often depressing) to see the how much the Square changed over the years.
   I worked in Harvard Square for several years in the Coop record department. It was a kind of cultural crossroads in those days, and many people remember it. Mr Lotman's book could have given more attention to that department, but I can't fault him too much for that since he includes so much other great material. My only real complaint is with the tiny mini-maps found on most pages. Even with a magnifying glass, they are much too hard to see. A larger, pull-out map of the Square would have been a better idea. Apart from that, this is a terrific book and I wondered why it hadn't been done long before.



2. If you'd like to wander down memory lane looking at photographs of businesses, mostly shops and restaurants, that the author enjoyed, this is the book for you. There's some mention and pictures of various new commercial buildings going up. But the book repeatedly covers the same places, like the Hong Kong Restaurant, while never mentioning Underdog, Goods, or Ta Chien. There are a few pages about the folk movement (based around the venues), the 60s riots (stores were damaged), the building of the new T station and extension, and a couple of the buskers. I was expecting something else, a real history of the square, with architecture, facts, etc. based on the title. Endless slightly different photos of the same streetscapes a few years apart got very old, I could tell that the author put a LOT of work into finding photos, researching when certain stores opened, closed, and information about their owners, but there's just too much missing. If you're looking for the history of the Square in more general terms, this isn't it.



3. Harvard Square: An Illustrated History Since 1950 offers an oversized, visual journey through one of this country's must influential public places, offering a decade-by-decade account of the events and people of Harvard Square. It will earn its place in any library strong in regional American or Massachusetts history, featuring fine photos and interviews with over a hundred of the people who influenced the square's history and development.



4. Hi:
   Excellent book. Brought back many memories of my working and socializing in Harvard Square from the 60's on. It was about time something like this was published. Great pictures!!!!



5. If you've ever spent any time in Harvard Square, the heart of Cambridge, this is a treasure of a book. It is well organized, with interesting commentary on what was happening when, as well as terrific photos of Harvard Square as it changed over the years. This book has provided many hours of nostalgic wandering down memory lane.