Ohio History Journal

Book Reviews

 

 

Naming Names. By Victor S. Navasky. (New York: The Viking Press. 1980.

xxvi + 482p.; notes, notes on sources, index. $15.95.)

 

In an essay published in the American Historical Review in 1962, John

Higham argued for the necessity of what he called "moral history." Harking

back to a nineteenth-century style of historical scholarship, Higham stated

that an exploration of the moral aspects of historical events was both neces-

sary and valid, if done with "tentativeness and humility, with a minimum

of self-righteousness, and with a willingness to meet the past on equal

terms." Regrettably, in the furor of the late sixties and early seventies over

"New Left" history and "cliometrics," few historians heeded Higham's

admonition, and moral history has remained chiefly a subject for biog-

raphers, most of them not professional historians. Naively unaware of re-

cent trends in modes of scholarship, journalist Victor Navasky has produced

an outstanding example of exactly the type of history Higham called for.

The author uses the role of informer in Hollywood to examine a dark aspect

of Cold War America. Why did some people "name names" before HUAC,

while others, often at great personal cost, refused to cooperate? How did

organizations and institutions respond to the Committee, and what were

the consequences, for both individuals and society, of this anticommunist

purge? Unlike some other students of the Cold War era, Navasky explores

these issues with subtlety and fairness, yet without flinching from neces-

sary moral judgments.

Navasky lays the groundwork by discussing different types of informers,

the ambiguous response of organizations like the American Civil Liberties

Union and Americans for Democratic Action to HUAC, and the develop-

ment of the"blacklist" in Hollywood. He then focuses on the informers,

asking why "so many people failed to follow their better instincts." Navasky

finds part of the answer in the "collaborators"-especially a Hollywood

lawyer who represented many informers and a therapist who treated many

of them. There were also "guilty bystanders," such as the Screen Actors

Guild and the establishment press, who failed to aid the blacklisted or

criticize the Committee. But he is more interested in analyzing the reasons

for informing given by the informers themselves. After allowing people like

Elia Kazan to forcefully state their own case, Navasky considers the valid-

ity of their arguments and finds them often weak. The claim, for example,

that mitigating circumstances "forced" individuals to cooperate is shaky,

because many of those who refused to testify suffered under similar con-

straints. The informers took part in "degradation ceremonies" designed to

stigmatize former Communists, and Navasky through extensive interviews

traces the wreckage of lost careers and devastated personal lives inflicted

upon those named by HUAC witnesses, and the spirit of fear and betrayal

engendered by the hunt for "reds."

In the last section of the book, "Lessons," Navasky lifts his analysis to

magisterial heights, sensitively exploring such issues as "the question of

forgiveness" for the informers, using as a vehicle an extended correspond-

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90                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

ence between Dalton Trumbo and Albert Maltz in the early 1970s. In the

final chapter the author addresses himself to those who have criticized the

Hollywood Ten and other resisters because they did not candidly identify

themselves as Communists. Navasky basically rejects such arguments,

agreeing with Sissela Bok that "One has a right to protect oneself from

illigitimate inquiries," and he finds the evils of Stalinism an inadequate

justification for blacklisting in the United States.

In the Forward, Navasky claims to have written "less a history than a

moral detective story." He has in fact combined the two brilliantly, and in

doing so has greatly enlarged our understanding of the Cold War.

 

Temple University                               Kenneth L. Kusmer

 

 

No Man's Land: 1918-the last year of the Great War. By John Toland.

(Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1980. xx + 651p.; illustrations,

maps, cast, sources, notes, index. $17.95.)

 

This book is an excellent introduction to the final stages of the Great War

for the general reader. John Toland is among the best popular historians of

our day and the topic is particularly suited to his talents. The book sweeps

the reader from the shell holes of Flanders to the Bolshevik Councils in

Moscow; from the grand designs shaped in the cabinet rooms of Washing-

ton, London, Berlin, and Vienna to the thoughts of a young German officer

as the guns fell silent on November 11, 1918. It is about people great and

small caught up in a profound historical movement. Their experiences are

the central focus of the volume. Toland captures the abject terror and fierce

exultation of battle. Even in that absolute horror of a war there were mo-

ments-a British officer, a former schoolmaster, alone, his company dead

and wounded around him, crying "never" to a German call for his sur-

render; the tragic grandeur of the Canadian cavalry charge at the Bois de

Moreuil which saved Amiens-when the stubborn human spirit cast a halo

around the dark devastation of industrial war.

This is a work of synthesis. The academic specialist will not find anything

new it it. The action pieces which describe the British response to "Opera-

tion Michael," the German spring offensive in Flanders, based in part on

the superb collection of papers and memoirs at the British Imperial War

Museum, catch the immediacy of that crisis and are the best parts of the

book. Interallied diplomacy, the French defense of the Chemin des Dames,

the American reinforcement and its not insignificant contribution to blunt-

ing the German drive, the Russian intervention, and the final Allied offen-

sives and the Armistice are much less effectively handled. In particular, the

work on the American military effort is uncritical. There will not be a really

sound account of the Meuse-Argonne offensive until Father Donald Smythe

publishes the second volume of his biography of General John J. Pershing.

The book includes some annoying errors of fact. For example, the Whip-

pet tank did not go thirty miles an hour (p. 357) and it was the Thirty-

seventh Buckeye Division (Ohio National Guard) that attacked Montfaucon

on the 26th of September, 1918, not the Twenty-seventh Division (p. 436).

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Book Notes                                                      91

 

The end notes and bibliography are adequate but not complete. Neverthe-

less, this is a good narrative history, written in the romantic manner. To-

land tells the story well and academic historians could learn from him, if

only they would, how to write in such a way as to attract the attention their

own work deserves from the general public.

 

University of Cincinnati                           Daniel R. Beaver

 

 

Eisenhower and the Cold War. By Robert A Divine. (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1981. x + 182p.; notes, index, $14.95 cloth, $3.95 pap-

er.)

 

The traditional view of Eisenhower's performance as President has

undergone substantial revision in the past fifteen years. The old view-

seldom challenged during the decade after 1957-was critical of Eisenhow-

er. Ike presided; he did not lead. Domestically, he refused to use his popular

appeal to promote positive social good. Internationally, he bungled and

retreated, preferring golf and thermonuclear security to an activist foreign

policy. He was the equal of Chester Arthur, historians announced. A politic-

al scientist agreed, labeling Ike a "passive-negative" President who did

little and disliked doing even that.

The old view has since been challenged. Ike was the "Prestone President,"

Bernard Sternsher states. He was the necessary "cooling agent" who dis-

charged his mandate for "no expansion but retention of the New Deal." In

foreign affairs, Ike kept the peace and brought his party and nation to

accept with measured restraint the new responsibilities of world leadership.

In short, Ike gave Americans what they wanted-prosperity, security and

order.

The new view is not without its critics. There remain the uninformed and

the unconvinced who prefer the old view in its essense. And it is to their

edification, presumably, that Divine presents this study. For Eisenhower

and the Cold War is of the new view and is written, by confession, in "basic

sympathy for a badly underrated President" (p. viii).

Divine offers a simple thesis: Ike ran the show in foreign policy; and he

ran that show well. Building his analysis on secondary and published pri-

mary sources, Divine confirms the new view that Eisenhower, and not

Dulles, "called the shots" (p. 88). Indeed, the President was in "full control"

(p. 154) at all times and "used Dulles" as a "lightning rod" (p. 21) of sorts by

which the secretary of state's belligerance directed criticism away from the

President, apppeased domestic Russophobes, and established an advanced

position of massive retaliation behind which the President freely pursued

his "more pacific overtures." The result in policy may have been

"schizophrenic" (p. 106) in appearance, but that was its very beauty. For the

"ambiguity" (p. 135) in an Eisenhower-Dulles policy and the "uncertainty it

engendered in the enemy" (p. 39) enabled Ike to walk the "careful line

between firmness and conciliation" (p. 136).

In consequence, Eisenhower managed diplomatic solutions to the many

problems he "inherited from Truman" (p. 11). He brought the Chinese to a

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92                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

negotiated settlement in Korea, and dissuaded them from moving in force

against the French Indochina and in the Nationalists on the off-shore is-

lands of Quemoy and Matsu. Also, he kept the Russians out of West Berlin

and on the periphery of the Middle East. Above all else, he preserved the

peace in a complex and unstable world.

These were "negative" accomplishments, Divine confesses. But it is for

that reason that historians of an activist, "progressive" (p. 154) turn of mind

have fashioned the old view of Ike. Divine's point here is well taken, and he

argues the new view with clarity and wisdom. Unfortunately, his deter-

mination to remake Ike in the new view has led to occasional overstate-

ment, perhaps to error. At one point, for example, Divine asserts that Amer-

ican voters "apparently agreed" with the President's objection to Adlai

Stevenson's test-ban proposal, since they reelected Ike by an "impressive

margin" (p.124). Divine knows better than to make such a silly and un-

founded statement, a knowledge to which his Foreign Policy and U.S. Pres-

idential Elections attests. At another point Divine makes the questionable

and unsupported claim that domestic hawks fixed on Dulles' "hard line"

while men of peace throughout the world looked only to Ike's "peaceful

initiatives" (p. 106). In fact, this "schizophrenic appearance" which Divine

applauds often ran counter to American interests. America's allies, as

Harold Macmillan emphasized in 1971, thought that Dulles made policy.

Britain and France apparently acted on that assumption in 1956, when they

and Israel moved on the Suez. Could the delusion have prevailed in Moscow

as well-when Khrushchev dismissed Ike's disarmament proposals as so

much American intrigue?

 

Bowling Green State University                      John V. Garrett

 

 

The War Between the Generals: Inside the Allied High Command. By David

Irving. (New York: Congdon and Lattes, Inc., 1981. ⁴⁴6p.; illustrations,

archival sources, index. $17.95.)

 

David Irving is an author well known to, but not always revered by,

serious military historians. Over the years he has cranked out a number of

books on various dimensions of World War II. Most have been well written,

sensationalist in style and treatment, based in part on some previously

undiscovered primary sources, and flawed because of the author's lack of

adequate research, uncritical acceptance of his recently discovered sources,

and eagerness to create exciting best sellers. Mr. Irving's latest offering,

The War Between the Generals, fits this mold precisely.

Here is the story of Eisenhower and his senior subordinates from the

early planning of "Operation Overlord," the Normandy invasion, through

the allied halt at the Elbe River in May 1945. Employing his usual flowing,

highly readable style, Irving brings Ike, Bradley, Montgomery, and Patton,

as well as a number of the other players, to life, describing their efforts to

defeat Nazi Germany.

But alas, the sensationalism. The reader quickly discovers that he is onto

something big. Beneath the cover story circulated for the past thirty-five

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Book Notes                                                    93

 

years about Anglo-American wartime harmony, we find that in fact there

were violent disagreements and serious clashes between and among the

British and American military leaders engaged in the re-invasion of For-

tress Europe. Eisenhower and others had sought to keep the real story

quiet-"to cheat history," but as a result of Irving's efforts we at last have

"the untold story of the generals' war." In truth, Irving reveals little on the

subject that is new. Eisenhower, the compromiser who made allied harmony

a top priority; Montgomery, egocentric, pompous, but loved by his troops

because he was a winner; Patton, flamboyant, seeking to upstage Monty,

steal the headlines and feed his own ego; Bradly, fearful that Ike was selling

out to the British, thereby giving the Americans only a secondary role in

the defeat of Germany-all this is old hat. Yet Irving does an excellent job of

tracing the petty bickering and the major issues that divided the allied

leaders.

Devoting the first quarter of the book to the pre-invasion period, he be-

gins the story with a brief review of British-American military relations in

North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. Tensions were evident from the outset; the

conquest of Sicily "was a textbook example of how alliances should not

operate." Treating the January-June 1944 planning of Overlord in some

detail, Irving provides reasonably good coverage of the debate over control

and targeting of the strategic air forces in support of the invasion. During

this period it became clear that the disharmony was not just along national

lines. For example, almost no one in Eisenhower's headquarters-British or

American-cared much for Montgomery.

Irving then takes the reader from the invasion, through the breakout, on

to the setback in the Battle of the Bulge, then to the linkup with the Soviet

forces inside Germany. He is at his best describing Brigadier General Nor-

man Cota's efforts on Omaha Beach. Other highlights are the new insights

he provides about the impact of the V-1 flying bomb on the allied cause

during the first months after the invasion, and into the poor behavior of

U.S. forces toward French civilians-another headache for Eisenhower.

Sensationalism and shoddy research rear their ugly heads throughout

The War Between the Generals, especially when the issues are the private

lives of the American generals and allied strategy. The U.S. leaders emerge

a sordid lot: the old story of Eisenhower receiving more than companionship

from his driver, Kay Sumersby; Patton sleeping with his niece; Walter

Bedel Smith giving carbines to a gunsmith in exchange for a custom-made

shotgun. Unfortunately, Irving does not use footnotes, so it is impossible to

check the credibility of his sources. Dwelling on human feelings-real or

imagined-adds spice and apparently sells books.

Some of the author's views on allied strategy further call into question

the depth and breadth of his research. Characterizing Eisenhower as a

vacillating strategist who provided "aimless" leadership, Irving never

attempts to discover what significant factors influenced Ike's strategic deci-

sions concerning which army group would receive how much priority in the

drive across France and into Germany. Likewise, his conclusion that Mont-

gomery had never really intended to execute a breakout from the Norman-

dy beachhead in the British zone-he was thinking all along only of draw-

ing in the bulk of the German forces to ease the way of the Americans at

Saint Lo--ignores evidence to the contrary. Finally the author echoes Mon-

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94                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

ty's persistent argument against Eisenhower's broad front strategy: In

September-October 1944, a single thrust "might yet have rapidly ended the

war." Irving completely ignores what the Germans still had available to

meet such a thin thrust and carefully avoids drawing conclusions from the

Arnhem fiasco. The author could have profited greatly from reading the

manuscript of noted historian Russell Weigly's new book, Eisenhower's

Lieutenants, which carefully and thoroughly analyzes these and other

strategic questions.

One of the surprising things about The War Between the Generals is the

presumption that there should have been little bickering or serious dis-

agreement between the British and Americans. Given the strong personali-

ties involved, divergent national interests, and concern for international

prestige, what is more impressive is that the allied military leadership got

along as well as they did.

Irving has produced another interesting, well written book, but for a more

accurate account of the struggle for Western Europe read Weigley's

Eisenhower's Lieutenants. Oh yes, Irving's newly discovered primary source

is the handwritten diary of General Everett S. Hughes, an individual Irving

calls Ike's "eyes and ears." The insights provided by the diary are valuable,

but they do not compensate for The War Between the Generals' deficiencies.

 

U.S. Air Force Academy                             John F. Shiner

 

 

Eisenhower the President. Crucial Days: 1951-1960. By William Bragg

Ewald, Jr. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1981. 336p.; index.

$12.95.)

 

In recent years, the presidency and personality of Dwight D. Eisenhower

have undergone considerable reassessment from earlier interpretations of

the former as lacking in accomplishments and the latter as lacking in

acuity. Typecast as a grandfatherly old soldier whose dedication to golf

exceeded his understanding of and interest in affairs of state, Eisenhower

has been reevalauted in the wake of the military failures of the Vietnam

War, the political bankruptcy of Watergate, and the subsequent reappraisal

of the role and power of the presidency. Using the massive collection of

Administration documents housed at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene,

Kansas, supplemented by other manuscript collections and oral histories,

scholars have discovered, sometimes begrudgingly, that Dwight Eisenhow-

er was often shrewd, knowledgeable, and commanding in matters foreign

and domestic. With the publication of Eisenhower the President: Crucial

Days, 1951-1960, William Bragg Ewald, Jr. joins these revisionist ranks.

A former White House staff member (1954-1956), assistant to Interior

Secretary Fred Seaton (1957-1961), and research assistant during the writ-

ing of Eisenhower's memoirs (1961-1965), Ewald presents not a strictly

personal memoir or scholarly monograph, but a well-research episodic look

at the President and his Administration. In foreign affairs, Ewald's

Eisenhower believed unabashedly in massive retaliation, the domino

theory, and the existence of Third World surrogates for Soviet expansion-

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Book Reviews                                                  95

 

ism. As a Cold Warrior, however, Eisenhower fought judiciously, avoiding a

potential American military debacle in Southeast Asia, firmly confronting

the People's Republic of China over possession of Quemoy and Matsu with-

out recourse to direct conflict, and endorsing Central Intelligence Agency

efforts to save Iran from purported communist takeover. Unlike that of his

successors, Eisenhower's leadership gave the nation eight years of peace

without a massive Defense Department budget.

On domestic matters Ewald is less orderly in his narrative, passing over

many significant economic and social issues for vignettes about White

House operating procedure and Administration personalities. Drawing

heavily on personal interviews with such Administration personnel as

Sherman Adams, Herbert Brownell, Arthur Burns, James Hagerty, and

Ann Whitman, press secretary Hagerty's diary, and Eisenhower's private

correspondence, Ewald focuses on episodes which offer demonstrable evi-

dence of Eisenhower's shrewd mind, cautious personal style, and political

acumen: the indirect White House campaign against Joe McCarthy in 1954;

Eisenhower's transparent attempt to replace Richard Nixon as Vice Presi-

dent in 1956, probably with Robert Anderson; his use of Nixon and Republi-

can Party Chairman Meade Alcorn as point men in the effort to dispose of

Sherman Adams in 1958 following the appearance of scandal; and the Presi-

dent's husbanding of his political image, often at the expense of Republican

candidates for office.

Much of the story has been told in greater detail elsewhere, but Ewald

provides fresh anecdotal material and occasional new insight. Of particular

interest are Ewald's references to the additions and deletions made by

Eisenhower during the writing of his presidential memoirs. Eisenhower

and his Administration have also been examined more critically. Ewald is

an Eisenhower partisan, but not rigidly so. He offers his audience, especial-

ly the general reader, entertaining and readable access to the renovation of

Dwight Eisenhower and his presidency.

 

University of Massachusetts                         Larry Bassett

 

 

Goodbye Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War. By William Manchester.

(Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1980. xiv + 401p.; illustrations,

notes, bibliography, maps. $14.95.)

 

The most recent book by William Manchster, author of several popular

histories, is a partial account of World War II in the Pacific. The connecting

element in the book is a narrative of some of the campaigns. To this

framework Manchester has added an account of his own war experiences as

a Marine, and a description of the battle zone as it looks today. The catalyst

for the book was the author's war dreams and his feeling that revisiting the

area would help him to deal with them. The first chapters cover Manches-

ter's own background, the origins of the Pacific war, and Pearl Harbor in

1941 and 1978. In later chapters we are treated to discussions of the Phillip-

pines in 1941-42, the New Guinea campaign, Marines on Guadalcanal,

training camp at Paris Island, and the battles at Tarawa, Saipan, Pelileu,

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96                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

Iwo Jima, Leyte, and Okinawa. Each of the chapters contains accounts of

Manchester's personal experiences and descriptions of the war areas today.

To help the reader, there are a large number of maps and photographs of the

battlefields.

The various elements of this "memoir" when brought together do not

constitute a cohesive whole. Manchester includes many episodes in which

he had no personal involvement. These take the book beyond the traditional

meaning of the word "memoir." However, the book can not be considered a

history of the war in the Pacific because the story presented is incomplete,

inaccurate, and disjointed. A number of campaigns and battles, such as

Midway, are almost totally ignored. The war narrative that Manchester

does include is ordered in a way that is hard to follow. For example, in his

account of the Guadalcanal campaign, the author concentrates on the first

two months of the ground fighting. He ignores more than half of the time

period of the action and almost all of the naval and aerial activities. The

narrative of the part of the campaign that he does present lacks chronologic-

al continuity. Moreover, Manchester was not present on the island until

long after the fighting was over.

Throughout the war episodes there are a number of statements which

raise doubts about the historical accuracy of the text. For example, Man-

chester writes that at the end of November 1941 "The Americans now knew

that an attack was coming, when it would come, and where." This is a grave

assertion, but like all the others in the work, it is not documented.

The most interesting parts of the book are the actual war memoirs, but

these too are hard to follow. The personal anecdotes apparently are pre-

sented whenever the author felt they related to a campaign he was describ-

ing. In most cases they have little or nothing chronologically to do with the

battle being covered. At the same time, these brief descriptions whet one's

appetite for more of Manchester's experiences.

Another phase of the book is a description of the battlefields and sur-

rounding territory as they look today. Manchester also examines the lives of

the native peoples. Again, because the treatment is scattered throughout

the narrative, it loses its impact. The war apparently had a negative effect

on the inhabitants of this previously isolated area. The brief treatment

leaves the reader searching for more.

William Manchester's war "memoir" may have succeeded in eliminating

some World War II demons from his mind, but it accomplishes little for his

readers. The author has combined a partial account of his own experiences

with descriptions of the Pacific theater in World War II and the area today.

He is not successful in really exploring any of these three topics. The parts

of the book that are a war memoir suggest that had Manchester concen-

trated solely on this topic, this could have been a very interesting account of

one Marine's experiences. There are hints that a book dealing with the

impact of the war on the Pacific island cultures would also have brought out

some fascinating insights. The weakest part of this memoir is the author's

attempt to write another narrative of the Pacific War; this one simply does

not measure up to the many already in existence. In summary, it is a shame

that Manchester's successful effort to deal with his personal problems does

not do more for his readers.

Ohio University                                    Marvin Fletcher

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Book Reviews                                                   97

 

John W. Foster: Politics and Diplomacy in the Imperial Era, 1873-1917. By

Michael J. Devine. (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1981. x +

187p.; illustrations, notes, essay on sources. bibliography, index. $15.50.)

 

In recent years, many claims concerning the Gilded Age have been suc-

cessfully refuted, including the claim that the United States was an insular

and isolated power. In this first-rate study of Benjamin Harrison's secretary

of state, Devine shows just how involved in the affairs of others America

was. Furthermore, he forces the historian to see Foster as a statesman in his

own right, not just as the cloudy figure passed down in the history books as

the father-in-law of Robert Lansing and the grandfather of John Foster

Dulles.

Ironically, for a diplomat so able, Foster received his first diplomatic post

as a political payoff. A Civil War veteran and editor of a newspaper in

Evansville, Indiana, Foster labored for a Republican victory in 1872. With-

in the year, he was made minister to Mexico. Though Foster had never been

abroad and spoke neither Spanish nor any other foreign language, he

learned quickly. He helped his nation avoid war with Mexico, and his en-

thusiasm for trade south of the Rio Grande matched his opposition to ter-

ritorial expansion there.

By 1880, Foster was a seasoned diplomat, and other appointments-

minister to Russia, special envoy to Spain-came quickly. Out of adminis-

tration favor during Cleveland's first term, Foster served as legal counsel

for the Chinese delegation in Washington, in which capacity he fought

Chinese exclusion. As the nineties approached, he was America's most ex-

perienced negotiator. During the Harrison presidency, Foster was involved

in nearly every aspect of foreign policy. He made a reciprocity agreement

with Brazil, dealt with Spain over trade with Cuba and Puerto Rico, settled

the "pork war" with Germany, and helped resolve a crisis (one that he

himself had helped create) with Chile.

Once James G. Blaine resigned as secretary of state, Foster was his re-

placement. Because the appointment was made in June 1892, Foster's term

lasted well less than a year. As secretary, Foster considered Hawaii vital to

American security interests and believed that the United States had a

"civilizing" mission there. While not endorsing the coup that overthrew

Queen Liliuokalani, he supported the provincial government and hastily

attempted to secure Hawaii's annexation before Cleveland because presi-

dent. Yet Foster was not usually an imperialist. He later opposed the ac-

quisition of the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, doing so on the grounds

that the United States could not assimilate "alien" peoples.

Foster's foremost accomplishment took place after he left the State De-

partment. This was his participation in the conference of Shimonoseki

(1895), where he helped to expedite the Chinese peace with Japan. Devine

shows how Foster found himself in the midst of a wild American plot to

overthrow China's ruling dynasty, place statesman Li Hung-chang on the

throne, and thereby open the Chinese empire to American economic

penetration. Other activities included participation in the Alaska Boundary

Tribunal, continuing the fight against the Chinese exclusion, and writing

diplomatic history. He helped to establish the American Society of Interna-

tional Law, and in 1917 he called for the total defeat of Germany.

• 9
 

98                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

Despite minor faults-an ahistorical tendency to debate with Foster, mis-

use of the term "fundamentalism"-this work is a most solid one. Devine

reveals Foster as a most able man, perhaps the nation's first professional

diplomat. Yet he also shows Foster as very much the product of his time.

Foster engaged in questionable campaign tactics in 1876, praised the order

and stability he found in the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz's Mexico, and

ignored the emerging forces of Chinese nationalism. As a lawyer, he was

always fascinated by formal pacts and legal contracts. Unfortunately, some

issues could never be resolved that way.

 

New College of the University of South Florida  Justus D. Doenecke

 

 

 

Light-Horse Harry Lee and the Legacy of the American Revolution.By

Charles Royster. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981. xiii + 301p.; illus-

trations, notes, bibliographical essay, index. $15.00.)

 

Interest in the early American republic is easily understood. The revolu-

tion produced a generation of dynamic leaders, possessed of delicate egos

and conflicting visions of the future. Rivalries were inevitable and philo-

sophical differences bitterly and regularly debated in public. Although few,

if any, of the founding fathers were completely satisfied with the results of

the decades following the war, all shared an initial optimism. For many,

however, the early confidence proved a little too sanguine.

The extent to which the revolution shaped the conflicting ideas of the

leaders of that period has been much investigated but never fully under-

stood. How long did the war dominate thought and influence affairs of

government? In what manner did the conflicting aspirations of the revolu-

tionaries impact upon the early republic? Which Americans had won the

war? These questions are central in Charles Royster's investigation of Hen-

ry Lee. Not the usual kind of biography based upon chronology, the book

deals with themes in Lee's life, seeking to understand the connection be-

tween personality/character and war.

Royster could hardly have chosen a more suitable subject through which

to trace the legacy of war than the enigmatic Lee. A member of the distin-

guished Virginia family, few men saw more of the war than "Light Horse

Harry." At times a brilliant and innovative leader in battle, ever loyal to his

"legion," his military prowess quickly brought a command and recognition

from George Washington. But there were also disappointments. Twice court

marshalled, accused of incompetence in the storming of Paulus Hook, and

the object of widespread resentment, Harry left the army before the war

ended, not in triumph but "resentful isolation."

Distressed by the widespread misconduct he witnessed in the military

and failure to receive his fair share of glory, Lee the civilian looked to the

future with hope. He married his young cousin Matilda and contemplated a

more quiet life devoted to family affairs. His interest turned naturally to

business. With visions of a great population growth, Lee believed that the

Potomac would become a focal point, a major artery for intercourse between

• 10
 

Book Reviews                                                   99

 

the east and ever increasing settlements in the west. Owning property at

the strategically located Great Falls, he planned a city to be called Matilda-

ville. Unfortunately, his business affairs were as flawed as his military

experience. Founded in 1790, the year of Matilda's death, the town never

approached expectations.

It was inevitable that Lee would also turn to politics at the end of the war.

Always convinced that Americans should remain united, his service in the

Continental Congress, 1785-1789, strengthened his belief in the need for a

strong central government. With the acceptance of the new constitution, he

served the state of Virginia both as governor and legislator. Although a

Federalist, he disagreed with Hamilton's financial program which he feared

would thwart economic growth. Speculation, he argued, would not result in

productive labor. But like many of his contemporaries, he was eventually

forced to alter his position. By 1799 he reluctantly determined that the

assumption of state debts and the funding of the national debt was the only

acceptable alternative.

As his personal health and finances deteriorated, so too did his confidence

and influence in politics. In a desperate effort to remain solvent, he attempt-

ed to obtain a diplomatic post in 1808. But his efforts were futile. Jailed for

debt in 1809, he was not released until the following spring when he agreed

to the transfer of his property. But the greatest indignity was yet to occur.

For reasons that are unclear, Lee appeared at the Baltimore headquarters

of a Federalist newspaper opposed to war with England. Confronted by an

angry mob, Lee and others were attacked and beaten. The unfortunate

event destroyed his status as a patriot and ended his career as a revolution-

ary. To recover his health and ease the pain of personal dispair, he went to

the West Indies. Five years later, in the spring of 1818, he returned to die in

the nation to which he had contributed so much.

Royster presents an unique kind of narrative about an important and

exceedingly complex personality without once resorting to clinical

psychological analyses. Although the thematic scheme is at times repeti-

tious, the results more than justify the organization. Certainly the author

succeeds in providing a deeper understanding of the ways in which the

American Revolution influenced a major personality. Subsequent works

can only sharpen the focus.

 

Miami University                                 Richard M. Jellison

 

 

The Baron of Beacon Hill: A Biography of John Hancock. By William M.

Fowler, Jr. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979. ix + 366p.; illus-

trations, notes, bibliography, index. $15.00.)

 

In The Baron of Beacon Hill, William Fowler considers how and why John

Hancock, certainly not the prototypical revolutionary, dominated first Bos-

ton and then Massachusetts politics for nearly thirty years, and as well

acted a significant role in the American Revolution. In the style of a stan-

dard "life and times" study, Fowler's biography of Hancock begins with a

brief treatment of Hancock's progenitors, passes quickly and without much

• 11
 

100                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

enlightenment over early childhood, and then settles down to business as

Hancock grows to young manhood in the house and under the guidance of

his wealthy merchant uncle, Thomas.

It was Thomas, according to Fowler, who exerted the dominant influence

on the character and values of John. Doubtless Thomas, who took the young

boy in at age eight, was the role model for his nephew, especially in style of

living and public image. He reared him, introduced him into the world of

business, society and politics both provincial and imperial, made him (at

age twenty-one) a partner in the House of Hancock, and left the business to

him upon his death.

But Thomas Hancock was first and foremost a businessman, who made

most of his money from war contracts awarded by the Crown. By 1765, John

found that he could not operate as his uncle had, that he-the first man in

Boston-counted for very little in Whitehall. A vain, rich, and ambitious

man, John Hancock showed little interest in, and less ability for, the world

of business. His milieu, he found-oddly enough for a rich man-was popu-

lar politics. Indeed, perhaps Hancock's penchant (or genius) was not so odd.

Fowler exaggerates when he calls Hancock America's "first modern politi-

cian" (p. 280). He is scarcely the original of the Tweeds and Daleys and

Andrew Jacksons, much less the vast army who work in the trenches of

local, state, and national party politics today. But he is a good patristic

model of the American "aristocrat" as a "democrat, at least in public" (p.

280).

Through the Stamp Act Crisis, the years of the Revolution, and finally

Hancock's long if undistinguished career as governor of Massachusetts,

Fowler creates a portrait of a man whose overwhelming ambition was to

win fame. Hancock loved the limelight, the plaudits of the crowd, their often

unthinking adoration. For this he spent a fortune, became "martyr" and

"hero" to his public (while never, if possible, foregoing the rich wines and

foods that cursed him with chronic gout). Little wonder that he aroused

envy and suspicion in the minds of his less (popularly) successful colleagues

such as John and Sam Adams.

For the most part, Fowler is evenhanded and judicious in his assessment

of Hancock's significance as one of our Founding Fathers. He rightly cor-

rects the notion that Hancock was merely a dupe, a "stalking horse" for the

clever Sam Adams and his radical coterie. He emphasizes that Hancock

played a real and very important role in rallying and sustaining popular

support for the Revolution, was a true voice for compromise among clashing

interests, especially in the Continental Congress, and was, above all, a

symbol of sacrifice by one at the top for those beneath on the economic and

social scale. Nor does he ignore the weaknesses inherent in Hancock's

strengths as a political power: the lack of ideological commitment, the inse-

cure grasp of issues, the always dominant desire to be popular. These weak-

nesses almost ensured that Hancock would be the ineffectual, vascillating,

and rather useless figure that he was as governor of Massachusetts during

Shay's Rebellion.

The book says nothing new about the Revolution. The background to

Hancock's career is drawn piecemeal from Bailyn, Maier, and other author-

ities, without much analysis.The "real issue" of the Revolution, writes Fow-

ler, was "ideology," to which he devotes several cursory paragraphs with

• 12
 

Book Reviews                                                  101

 

reference to Bailyn's Ideological Origins of the American Revolution,

Maier's From Resistance to Revolution, and Caroline Robbin's The Eight-

eenth-Century Commonwealthman/p. 520). This brief nod to genuine scho-

larship rather confuses than enlightens the reader who is informed that

Hancock was, after all, "not, nor would he ever be, a philosopher" (p.52).

Who does Fowler have in mind when he uses the word philosopher? Surely

not Machiavelli or Adam Smith.

Finally, Fowler does not really answer the question that he implicitly

poses: how did Hancock do it? How did he win such popularity, rise to such

eminence among men clearly his superior in almost every respect save

wealth, and develop an instinct, a style, for pleasing and stirring the de-

mos? The answer to this question must lie in a much closer analysis, not so

much of John Hancock but of the times and the people that made him the

"Baron of Beacon Hill."

 

The Ohio State University                        Paul C. Bowers, Jr.

 

 

Divine Rebel: The Life ofAnne Marbury Hutchinson. By Selma R. Williams.

(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981. viii + 246p.; notes, select

bibliography, index. $14.95.)

 

"In the case of both Roger Williams and of Anne Hutchinson, it is

altogether too easy for us to appraise them from the point of view of later

issues, rather than of their contemporary significance" (Ann Arbor Paper-

back edition n.d.-ca 1968 p. 63). So wrote Herbert W.Schneider in his book

The Puritan Mind, published by Henry Holt in 1930. Now, Holt, Rinehart

and Winston offers a study of Anne Hutchinson which is a classic example

of the above: Ms. Williams has used Anne's career to support a twentieth

century cause-women's liberation. She makes a contention, partially justi-

fied, that "to a man," the nation's "most brilliant and conscientious histo-

rians have dismissed Anne Hutchinson as a 'babbling troublemaker'." The

crowning insult was delivered by Emery Battes in his book published in

1962: he "assailed" her as a "menopausal neurotic."

Almost everything known about Anne Hutchinson has come from her

opponents, especially from John Winthrop who, although three years her

senior, has never been described as a menopausal neurotic. Ms. Williams is

understandably anxious to come to Anne's defense. Her method has been to

study "the thinking and behaviour of both Anne and her inquisitors in

primeval New England . . . by setting their lives and times firmly in the

context of their long years in Old England." She has done extensive re-

search and writing in English social and religious life of the period, and

from this has come a lively account of the England of Anne's first forty-

three years. Concurrently, Anne's immediate family background is sketch-

ed, from the insubordination of her minister father, Francis Marbury, to-

ward his superiors in the Anglican church hierarchy, and the paternal

acceptance of the child Anne as an intellectual equal and partner in his own

unorthodoxy, to her consequent knowledge of the scriptures and her wil-

• 13
 

102                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

lingness to question literal and official interpretation. Her father's position

as a member of the gentry and his return to overt orthodoxy, her youth

spent in the stimulating environment of Shakespearian London, and her

happy marriage to a man of means and prominence in a small Lincolshire

town all contributed to a personal self-assurance that is most apparent in

her later activities in New England and her superb bearing at her "trial."

She could not readily accept authority after witnessing the erosion under

the ineffable King James both of the right to diversity in religious thought

and the Elizabethan elevation in the position of and respect for women of

the gentry class.

In Boston, Anne continued her inquiries into the interpretation of the

scripture in her informal meetings with women and some men where she

commented on the sermons of the various Puritan ministers. Ms. Williams

seems to fine the consequent conflict with the theocratic oligarchy of John

Winthrop and his associates to be based on a personal antipathy between

the right-minded Anne and the wrong-headed John Winthrop. Anne, she

believes, was seeking a better position for women through rejecting the

doctrine of original sin and its reflection on all women through their prog-

enitor, Eve; and through her insistence on a Covenant of Grace whereby all

men and women communicated directly with God and received His assur-

ance of personal election. The ministers, other than John Cotton and John

Wheelwright, were, in her view, under a Covenant of Works, a completely

fallacious approach to saintliness. In addition, they were determined to

continue to restrict all female activity to what John Winthrop described as

"the God-given calling of wife, mother, and family mainstay."

The hearings before the magistracy resulting from the accusation of

heterodoxy made against Anne are given here in excruciating detail. John

Winthrop appears as a dictatorial misogynist, and the treatment accorded

to Anne at the hearings was as inexcusable at the time as it would be

unheard of today. Nevertheless, the determination to exile from the Holy

Commonwealth both Anne and some of her supporters cannot, it seems to

this writer, be attributed to the feminist issue or to the concurrent claim

that as a midwife, Anne must have conversed with the Devil.

As Herbert Schneider has suggested, the basic issue would appear to have

been a conflict between Evangelical Christianity as propounded by Anne,

and Social Christianity as understood by JohnWinthrop and his supporters;

between the splintering, even anarchistic effects of the Covenant of Grace,

and the Holy Commonwealth, essentially authoritarian objectives of the

Covenant of Works. To Anne, each person's actions must "be guided by his

or her own conscience and sense of morality." To Winthrop, the City on a

Hill must be preserved through the conformity of the visible saints to the

guidance of the trained authority of the ministers and magistrates. To each

of them the female issue was not fundamental, but was chiefly a weapon to

be used in the confrontation of two diametrically opposed theological posi-

tions.

Ms. Williams should be congratulated for her refreshing and readable

approach to a rather tired old disputation. The Anne Hutchinson of this

book is a women to whom Americans can look with great appreciation. A

final chapter points to her continuing influence, through her humanism and

pacifism, through her insistence on female equality in the eyes of God and of

humanity, and through her numerous non-conforming descendants. Ms.

• 14
 

Book Reviews                                                    103

 

Williams would be happy to know that the town of Hutchinson, Minnesota,

founded by her direct descendants, the Hutchinson singers of Abolitionist

fame, gave women the right to vote on all local issues a hundred years ago

this year.

 

Bowling Green State University                   Virginia Bever Platt

 

 

Puritans and Adventurers: Change and Persistence in Early America. By T.

H. Breen. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. xviii + 270p.;

notes. $17.50.)

 

Of the nine essays comprising Puritans and Adventurers, seven were

previously published in scholarly journals, two winning prizes for the out-

standing article to appear in the William and Mary Quarterly for 1973 and

1975. Chapters II, VI, and VIII have been expanded to include additional

evidence in support of Breen's arguments. Chapter V, "War, Taxes and

Political Brokers: The Ordeal of Massachusetts Bay, 1675-1692," and Chap-

ter IX, "Of Time and Nature: A Study of Persistent Values in Colonial

Virginia," appear for the first time in published form.

Breen defines his approach as "comparative cultural history" (p. xi), de-

voting the first five chapters to Massachusetts Bay, and the last four to

Virginia. The format of the book does remind one that this is not a conven-

tional monograph, but rather, for the most part, a series of self-contained

essays. Nevertheless, the structure of the book detracts very little from its

significance as a thoughtful, throughly scholarly, and consistently chal-

lenging examination of values and institutions in colonial Massachusetts

and Virginia.

Indeed, these essays are clearly units in an ongoing, interrelated study of

cultural persistence and change in early America. All are attempts to ex-

plain "why men and women who settled in these two regions created and

then maintained strikingly different patterns of institutional behavior" (p.

xii). All are extrapolations of two primary themes. Where Breen "expected

to find changing values in the New World," he rather "encountered persist-

ence" (p. xi). Secondly, "local cultural variation-indeed the existence of

enduring sub-cultures-turned out to be more important in understanding

everyday life in Massachusetts and Virginia than did broad cultural simi-

larities" (p. xii). Thus Breen's thesis: specific locale (in time and space), not

general (read "English" or "colonial") culture, and persistence, not fun-

damental change of values, were the determinant and result of the colonial

history of these societies.

In Chapters I-IV, Breen addresses himself to the phenomenon of the

transfer of values from England to Massachusetts Bay. He finds that histo-

rians of New England, with very few exceptions, have emphasized transfer-

ence of a general "English" culture, and have ignored or slighted the domi-

nant concerns of particular locales (towns, villages, counties), at specific

times of emigration in the seventeenth century. Breen asks these questions:

who exactly were the people who migrated to Massachusetts Bay, where did

• 15
 

104                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

they come from, and what were their dominant local concerns at the time of

their migration? Answers to these questions (partial but impressive) sharp-

ly challenge the view of transferral of a "homogeneous" cultural baggage,

and provide the foundation for a sustained argument that threats to various

levels of local and traditional independence and autonomy, especially under

Charles I, insured the transferral to Massachusetts Bay of a fundamental

commitment to localism, and an enduring opposition to the centralization of

power. Yet Breen's insistence that there was no change in values in an

essentially localistic and conservative Massachusetts in the seventeenth

century is questionable. Localism-hence communal conservatism-may

have been a prime value that persisted, but does that mean that other

values (economic, religious) did not change? Breen's rather single-minded

pursuit of the localism-conservatism-persistence syndrome as historical de-

terminant allows him to pass over the declension of Puritanism and the rise

of economic self-interest in the Bay Colony too easily.

The chapters on Virginia provide a new approach, and a much needed

one, to the study of that central outpost of empire, so different from Mas-

sachusetts Bay. Breen identifies those adventurers who founded Virginia as

a distinct "sub-culture," both in England and the New World. He contends

that the interplay between a variant of Jacobean culture and a specific New

World setting determined the character of Virginia's institutions, habits of

personal interaction, and patterns of group behavior. The men who founded

Virginia were, Breen asserts, "extra-ordinarily individualistic, fiercely

competitive, and highly materialistic" (p. 109). The cultivation of tobacco,

according to Breen, served to fix and perpetuate these "regional virtues" (p.

126) onVirginia society, virtues which manifested themselves in virtually

every aspect of life,including a widespread addiction to gambling.

Virginia's problem-if it can be called that-was that it had no past (at

least until the Civil War), only a chimerical present and future based on its

marvelous natural fecundity. In the last chapter of the book, Breen argues

with great skill that colonial Virginians had almost no interest in the past,

and had an "impoverished sense of local tradition" (p. 168). Thus from John

Smith to Thomas Jefferson, Virginians focused on a dynamic present flow-

ing into a utopian future. Their very "core values" set them apart from the

fundamentally localistic, traditionalistic, and conservative New England-

ers. But where did the Virginian's get their values? And at what specific

time, and place? This Breen does not answer, at least not in the way he

answers such questions in the first five chapters of his book. Breen scarcely

bothers with where, what, and when the Virginia Adventurers came from.

He concentrates almost solely on what they came to: the promise of quick

money and the easy life. One might well agree that greed is a persistent

value, yet question its relevance to localism.

Altogether, Puritans and Adventures is a most impressive and innovative

book. Scholars of early American history might not agree with Breen's

arguments; they will certainly profit by carefully considering them.

 

The Ohio State University                       Paul C. Bowers, Jr.

• 16
 

Book Reviews                                                 105

 

Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. By

Linda K. Kerber. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for

The Institute of Early American Culture Williamsburg, Virginia, 1980.

xiv + 305p.; illustrations, notes, note on sources, index. $19.50 cloth;

$9.00 paper.)

 

 

Toward the end of this excellent contribution to women's history, Linda

Kerber notes the "curiously modern ring" of characterizing domestic tasks

as the business of the model Republican Mother. Much of Kerber's analysis

of the ideology concerning women in the Revolutionary era-public roles,

patriotism, family responsibilities, intellectual capabilities-will strike

readers as having a modern ring. Contemporary demands for ratification of

the Equal Rights Amendment, for example, have elicited a range of counter

arguments focussed primarily on the traditional assumption that the home

is where women should exercise authority and demonstrate virtue. The

image of the model Republican Mother dies hard! So, too, does the periodic

appeal to women to help meet the latest national emergency, from the War

of Independence through World War II, at least.

Women were urged to demonstrate their patriotism, "for the duration" of

the Revolutionary era. By necessity, the public activities of women ex-

panded: they engaged in economic boycotts, collected money and made

items for military purposes, served troops as poorly paid cooks and nurses,

and, of course, maintained households from which men were absent. War-

related economic and political realities expanded their roles, but without

changing their basic rights and status, as Kerber documents by her careful

and rewarding examination of court records concerning property rights and

divorce petitions for government support submitted by war widows, diaries,

letters, public addresses on the education of girls, commentaries on women's

reading habits, and pictorial symbols. Women had patriotic obligations but

no clear political rights in the public arena. Neither the majority of Enlight-

enment writers nor Revolutionary leaders viewed women as the intellectual

equals of men nor incorporated them as active participants in the political

community. Whether married or single, the political status of women was

assumed to mirror their husband's, father's or other male relative.

Although there were individual challenges to this assumption, the fact

remained that women's political dependence accompanied their economic

dependence.

In part because of their participation in the Revolution, Kerber argues,

women fashioned an ideology that allowed them to contribute to the politi-

cal life of their time. They formulated a middle-class model of the Republi-

can Mother who, within the domestic setting, would inculcate the virtues of

good citizenship to male children and manage the home with an example of

efficiency for female children, both tasks informed by some formal educa-

tion. To Kerber, this concept of republican motherhood should be considered

a revolutionary breakthrough on its own terms, that is, within the social

context of the revolutionary era. This is a caution worth heeding: contem-

porary measures of feminist behavior might obscure an understanding of

how creatively women have fashioned new, expanded roles for themselves

against seemingly insurmountable odds. Kerber's contribution should en-

• 17
 

106                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

courage a sensitivity to the very real constraints to change in women's lives,

by the intellectually elite as well as by such purveyors of popular culture as

literature and pictorial representations, and to the fact that middle-class

women, at least, consciously created a role within the domestic arena for the

exercise of their political awareness, however indirectly. They used tradi-

tional attitudes, which most of the women Kerber studied held, in a new

way, for their benefit.

Women of the Republic goes beyond an analysis of the ways in which

women demonstrated their patriotism. Kerber provides a fresh look at some

of the ironies of the era and the limits of revolutionary rhetoric: while

throwing off the burden of deference to the English, men of the Revolution

demanded continuing deference from women. Admitting that women

should be educated, as every good citizen should, men warned that too much

or the wrong kind (i.e., male) of education would make women dangerously

masculine or lead to neglect of home and family.

Middle-class women may indeed, as Kerber contends, have created and

used the image of motherhood to their advantage, but they remained, still,

in the home. Their influence on the political culture was through the sons

they helped to educate and the husbands and fathers they served. The

"curiously modern ring" to that domestic context might well serve as a

warning bell. Women in the revolutionary era were encouraged to read

history, considered harmless because there was little danger of finding

intellectual, educated, activist heroines. Women, and men, today should be

encouraged to read Kerber's intellectual history for the opposite reason,

precisely to find information with which to challenge the revival of tradi-

tional generalizations about women's roles. Kerber's analysis of an earlier

time should alert contemporary readers to the apparent ease with which

popular ideology can be shaped to control women's direct political, econom-

ic, civic participation. In addition, the women who shaped the image of the

Republican Mother should serve as models of how women initially created a

political ideology for themselves-which other women have recreated and

expanded upon ever since.

 

Skidmore College                               Joanna S. Zangrando

 

 

Years of Estrangement: American Relations with the Soviet Union, 1933-

1941, By Thomas R. Maddux. (Gainesville: The University Presses of

Florida, 1980. ix + 238p.; tables, notes, appendix, bibliographical essay,

selected bibliography, index. $15.00.)

 

Roosevelt early concluded that American economic and diplomatic for-

tune would obtain if "friendly, cooperative relations" (p. vii) were estab-

lished with Russia. But these hopes were "short-lived" (p. 27). The expecta-

tion that Stalin's Five Year Plan offered an "almost limitless" (p. 156)

market for the produce of a depressed American economy was founded in

fantasy. In 1938, the last year of normal trading, Russia consumed less than

three percent of the total value of American exports. Equally fruitless were

Roosevelt's persistent efforts to use Russia as a counter to Japanese and

• 18
 

Book Reviews                                                  107

 

German expansion. By the end of the decade, Stalin had fashioned an

armistice with Japan and had joined with Hitler in the division of eastern

Europe. Instead of cooperation, "[estrangement pervaded official relations"

(p. 162).

Why did Roosevelt fail? The answer, Maddux insists, lies in the Presi-

dent's "weakness as a diplomat" (p. 25) and in the "insuperable obstacles"

(p. 101) to cooperation which even he could not overcome. The instrument of

recognition, indicative of Roosevelt's eagerness to compromise and disin-

terest in detail, was hastily contrived and "full of unresolved problems" (p.

22) which returned to haunt subsequent relations. Stalin's reticent and

inconsistent diplomacy, as well as the turbulence of international affairs in

the 1930s, further complicated Roosevelt's efforts. At home, the President

was constrained by isolationist sentiment, by neutrality legislation, and by

popular distaste for Soviet domestic and foreign policies. Finally, Roosevelt

encountered "stubborn resistance" (p. 156) to his Russian policy from diplo-

mats and advisers who distrusted Stalin and found Soviet policy "repug-

nant" (p. 82).

Maddux offers a trenchant analysis of a subject which, he reminds us,

historians have "neglected" (p. vii) in order to pursue the drama of wartime

and postwar relations. His argument is intelligible and persuasive; his style

pleasing and lucid. Impressive too are his command of evidence, his ex-

amination of Soviet policy and judgment, his presentation (by text and

appended tables) of editorial opinion, and, especially, his sensitivity to the

complex of internal and external pressures which reduced Roosevelt's flex-

ibility. But he does not leave us there, at estrangement. He too is drawn to

the dramatic.

For the Cold War "was to be a part of the legacy of this failure by

Roosevelt and his advisors to coordinate their views" (p. 162). Roosevelt's

view stood upon a careful assessment of power realities in the 1930s, in

which cooperation with Russia loomed essential to the containment of Ger-

many and Japan. But Roosevelt "too quickly brushed aside fears" (p. 159) of

ulterior or concurrent Soviet objectives, emphasized only Russia's interest

in security, entertained "exaggerated hopes for postwar cooperation" (p.

162), and, as in the matter of Lend-Lease, discounted the wisdom of advisers

who "advocated a strategy of firmness with quid pro quo tactics." That was

"unfortunate" (p. 161). Had Roosevelt listened more closely to his advisers

and demanded reciprocity, he might have obtained a "useful gauge of Sta-

lin's intentions and the feasibility of Soviet-American cooperation" (p. 152).

Instead, Roosevelt retreated, Stalin "exploited" (p. 161), and Truman's

toughs decried Soviet policy in eastern Europe on the basis of "views" they

"formed in the 1930s" (p. 45).

Maddux's flight to the Cold War is intriguing, but it develops two argu-

ments which his data do not support. The first concerns the likely effect of

reciprocity and assumes-for the data are not marshalled-that Stalin's

aims congealed early. V. Mastny, however, has shown recently that Soviet

aims evolved with military fortune; in 1941 American officials would have

learned-as indeed they did-that Russia insisted only on its 1941 frontier.

The second argument addresses the "critical influence of the 1930s experi-

ence" (p. 45) on the diplomats who later advised Truman. Maddux's discus-

sion here is excellent, and it is consistent with recent studies by D. Yergin

• 19
 

108                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

and M. Weil. But Maddux fails to show that these attitudes, rather than

postwar experience and social environmental factors, as H. DeSantis sug-

gests, did in fact "mold" (p. 45) postwar assessments of Soviet intent.

These observations do not detract from the merit of this work. It remains

an important, informative study.

 

Bowling Green State University                     John V. Garrett

 

 

The Radical Persuasion 1890-1917: Aspects of the Intellectual History and

the Historiography of Three American Radical Organizations. By Aileen

S. Kraditor. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981. viii

+ 381p.; notes, index. $37.50 cloth; $12.95 paper.)

 

The Radical Persuasion, 1890-1917 is an intellectual history of the

Socialist Labor Party, the Socialist Party of America, and the Industrial

Workers of the World. The volume is based on the "public rhetoric"-pri-

marily newspaper and pamphlet literature-of the three organizations. As

the subtitle indicates, it also includes some discussions of the historiogra-

phy of these pre-WWI movements, but they are limited to the writings of

radical historians. The central question of the book is this: "how accurately

did American radicals perceive the world in the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries?" (p. 4.)

In her introduction, Aileen S. Kraditor tells us that this work represents

a redefining of her personal philosophy and of her approach to American

history in general. "When radicalism ceased being the framework of my

perceptions . . .," she writes, "it became itself, in a new way, an object of

historical study for me .... Instead of assuming that they [the radicals] saw

American social reality accurately, I discovered that their perceptions had

become possible objects of open-ended analysis, and instead of automatical-

ly perceiving their contemporaries through the radicals' eyes, I could now

consider the startling notion of looking at those radicals through their

contemporaries' eyes" (p. 1). Much of Kraditor's book therefore has the

character of a discourse on why she no longer finds the radical perspective

persuasive.

Kraditor believes that the radicals' world view was grossly inaccurate.

After all, John Q. Worker (Kraditor's term) never rushed to embrace Social-

ism as the various radicals predicted he inevitably would. The radicals'

understanding of the world was limited because they viewed society as a

system in which all aspects of John Q. Worker's life were subordinated to

the economic struggle. Radicals and subsequent radical historians, accord-

ing to Kraditor, viewed the worker either as a heroic rebel or a passive

victim. They ignored, or even considered as obstacles to the development of

class consciousness, those parts of the workers' culture which did not relate

directly to the economic system. Kraditor offers an alternative. "I shall

argue," she writes, "that what radicals perceived as a 'System' was actually

what I shall call a 'Society,' with 'social space' that allowed a variety of

institutions, life-styles, values, aspirations, and beliefs to exist indepen-

dently of the interests and needs of the rules of the economy" (p. 3). John Q.

Worker did not see himself as the radicals portrayed him. His church,

• 20
 

Book Reviews                                                  109

 

family, ethnic ties, and other non-economic associations filled needs which

Socialism ignored.

The problem with Kraditor's society model is not that it is not persuasive.

Much of recent social history supports Kraditor's view of the autonomy of

working-class culture. The difficulty with her argument is that it is based

on inference and not empirical research. (Her very use of the disembodied

term "John Q. Worker" to represent the American working class in all of its

ethnic, religious, racial, sexual, and economic diversity suggests the ab-

stract nature of her approach.) In fairness, Kraditor recognizes this-at one

point lamenting that more research has not been done on the workers'

attitude toward radicalism. "Perhaps the data do not exist," she concedes (p.

23).

Another serious weakness of the book is Kraditor's exclusive reliance on

published material in analyzing the attitudes of radicals. She defends this

by arguing that "it is their public rhetoric that best reveals both the images

that the movements wanted to project to the public and the images that

they did project" (p. 6). But when Eugene Debs blasts the workers in the

following manner: "If the working men of Chicago were not inert as clods,

white-livered excuses for men, they would rise like a whirlwind . . ." (p.

134), is he showing genuine contempt for them, as Kraditor would have us

believe, or is he merely using a rhetorical device common to propagandistic

writings and stump speaking? Only an extensive use of manuscript sources

can provide an answer to this type of question.

The Radical Persuasion is a flawed book. Its insights are disappointingly

rare and its author's graceless style makes it difficult to read. Serious stu-

dents of American radicalism should consult it, but, in view of the volume's

high price, this reviewer recommends that it be used in the library.

 

Indiana Historical Society                     Errol Wayne Stevens

 

War on The Raisin. By Dennis M. Au. (Monroe: Monroe County Historical

Commission, 1981. iv + 138p.; illustrations, notes, bibliography. $

 

The battle of the River Raisin in January 1813 proved a significant chap-

ter in the Northwest campaigns of the War of 1812. In August of 1812,

Brigadier General William Hull had surrendered the town of Detroit and

the entire Army of the Northwest to the British. Seeking to recover the

town, repatriate its citizens, and push into Canada, General William Henry

Harrison hastily formed a new army, placing General James Winchester in

command of its western third. Although ordered by Harrison to rendezvous

with the eastern two-thirds at the Maummee River rapids in January,

Winchester, burdened with woefully inadequate supplies and troops

dangerously near mutiny, elected instead to advance into Michigan and

engage the British and Indian forces near the vicinity of French Town

(present day Monroe, Michigan) on the River Raisin. Proceeding to the

Raisin, Winchester met the enemy on January 18. The battle, while brief,

was decisive. The Americans swept the field and routed the British, giving

the nation its first real victory in the Northwest since the beginning of the

conflict.

• 21
 

110                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

Winchester, although apprised of intelligence that the British were pre-

paring a major counterattack, failed to ready his camp for defense. The

British, strongly reinforced and accompanied by artillery, returned in the

early hours of January 22. Unobserved up to this time, the English attacked

at dawn. The ensuing battle was hotly contested with heavy casualties on

both sides. The capture of Winchester, however, and a critical shortage of

ammunition, forced the Americans to surrender. Although the wounded

American survivors were promised protection from the Indians as a condi-

tion of their surrender, this protection was withdrawn as the British troops

and their prisoners left the field. The following day, nearly 280 wounded

Americans, unable to travel and left behind, were massacred at the site.

Though the defeat dealt a devastating blow to Harrison, postponing his

winter invasion until fresh troops and supplies could be secured, those

killed following the battle exerted enormous influence from the grave. The

cry of "Remember the Raisin!" remained on the lips and in the hearts of

those serving on the Northwest frontier until the war's conclusion. Becom-

ing a universal rally cry, "Remember the Raisin" embodied the emotional

focus of the remainder of the Northwestern campaigns.

In War On The Raisin, Dennis M. Au, Assistant Director of the Monroe

County Historical Museum, has provided a definitive account of the River

Raisin region's involvement in the War of 1812. Drawing from an impres-

sive array of primary sources, many cited here for the first time, Au chroni-

cles the causes and course of the war, always keeping the contributions and

sacrifices of French Town's residents in sharp, crisp focus. Extensive foot-

notes, a listing of pertinent manuscript depositories, and a bibliography

offer historians a wealth of material with which to work for some time to

come.

Au's work, however,is seriously flawed. In the acknowledgements (p. iv)

there are hints that the publication process became rushed near deadline. If

this is the case, it would account for the numerous editorial and technolog-

ical mistakes which significantly mar the monograph. Typographic errors

and misspelled words riddle each chapter (espansion, p. 4, Tucumseh, p. 17,

certainluy, p. 64, to note only a few), and Au's reliance on long-form foot-

notes for multiple citations at times makes these references excessively

lengthy and cumbersome. Au also tells us that "Other suspected persons

who remained were arrested" (p. 61). Accurate and timely editing would

most certainly have prevented these unfortunate mistakes.

Far more damaging to the publication is the consistently disappointing

manner in which the book is printed. Pages 3 and 4 are misnumbered and

inverted, and parts of pages 1, 3, 7, 16, 24, 28, 30, 38, 39, 45, 46,55, and 57

are indistinct and difficult to read. On pages 24 and 45 entire paragraphs

are rendered illegible, and the problems on page 45 are compounded by the

omission of a sentence in the next to last paragraph. Minor historical errors

also appear, though rarely. The British arrived at Fort Meigs on April 26,

1813, Not April 29 (p. 65), as documented in a letter to Joseph Larwill from

Charles Marvin, not Charles Marion (notes 480 and 487).

War On The Raisin was published in a first edition of 250 copies. One

hopes that a corrected version will be reissued, for Au's impeccable research

and masterful scholarship have produced at study that, technical difficul-

• 22
 

Book Reviews                                                 111

 

ties notwithstanding, seems destined to become the standard work on the

topic.

 

Ohio Historical Society                            Larry L. Nelson

 

 

The War With Spain in 1898. By David F. Trask. (New York: Macmillan

Publishing Co., Inc., 1981. xiv + ⁶⁵⁴p.; maps, notes on sources, notes,

index. $29.95.)

 

A volume in The Macmillan Wars of the United States series edited by

Louis Morton, Trask claims this is both international and military-political

history. Nevertheless, it is primarily military history, and with that firmly

in mind the book does provide an up-to-date synthesis of the brief encounter

from the sinking of the Maine to the Treaty of Paris.

Readers will have to look elsewhere to discover the origins or conse-

quences of the war, as Trask glosses over the background in the first 29

pages, discusses the Treaty of Paris and its preliminaries in only 49, and

gives virtually no space to the consequences, such as the Philippine insur-

rection and the creation of an American overseas empire. Yet the subject is

the war, not the causes or results. Relying heavily on both American and

Spanish published government documents and a variety of secondary

works, Trask carefully examines United States and Spanish military and

naval adventures and puts them in context with political and diplomatic

activity.

Trask views the war as an "humanitarian crusade" that achieved its end,

the liberation of Cuba, but admits the war "stimulated expansionist activi-

ties." He firmly denies that any government policy existed prior to the war

to build an American empire at the expense of the Spanish, and that ac-

quisition of the Philippines, that made necessary other Pacific holdings not

foreseen prior to the armistice, had not been planned in advance.

Neither nation was prepared for a war neither wanted, though the United

States had an edge with a more modern navy. Hastily, American planners

decided to assault the periphery of Spain's power and inflict maximum

damage with minimal cost to the United States, in an effort to get Spain to

the peace table quickly. The strategy worked, in spite of poor military and

naval leadership, intense interservice rivalry, disease, and general confu-

sion.

Spanish civilian and military authorities appeared from the first to be

paralyzed by their philosophy of inevitable defeat, and concerned largely

with the question of how to preserve Spanish honor. United States political

and military leaders showed a serious lack of knowledge of the background,

aspirations, and ability of both Cuban revolutionaries and especially Filipi-

no insurrectos who thus were allowed to play only the most insignificant

roles in military and diplomatic decisions that affected them directly.

As in Margaret Leech's In the Days of McKinley, the president emerges as

a much stronger figure than he is popularly thought to have been. Though

not quite strong enough to head off a war he opposed, McKinley proved firm

in his direction of the war, knew what he wanted from the Spanish for peace

• 23
 

112                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

terms, and successfully managed to achieve his ends. Politically wise, he

chose former Confederate Civil War cavalrymen Joseph Wheeler and Fitz-

hugh Lee to serve among the 108 generals he appointed, a gesture success-

ful in restoring sectional harmony and insuring enthusiastic Southern sup-

port for the war. Trask downplays Theodore Roosevelt's role, both as Assis-

tant Secretary of the Navy and as Rough Rider: Admiral Mahan is por-

trayed as something less than an expert; War Secretary Alger, with com-

manders, who were less than able, stumbled along, while Navy Secretary

Long, with officers somewhat more fit, proved more competent.

As if written in fits and starts, the book is annoyingly repetitious in

places, and perhaps a third longer than it need be. Yet the military effort is

well documented and comprehensive under the circumstances. The book

does explode some of the myths associated with the war effort, clearly shows

the need for efficient organization of the military (much of which did follow

later), does give a balanced look at Spain's military and diplomatic efforts,

and does often fairly and dispassionately evaluate both American and Span-

ish participants.

 

The University of Akron                             Robert H.Jones

 

 

The Only Land They Knew: The Tragic Story of the A merican Indians in the

Old South. By J. Leitch Wright, Jr. (New York: The Free Press, 1981. xi

+372p.; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $16.95.)

 

This is an ethnohistorical presentation of the "Amerinds" of the southern

United States, with its major emphasis on the Atlantic seaboard and the

Florida Peninsula, from white contact until the Jacksonian removal. The

book is well written and contains an excellent bibliography. J. Leitch

Wright, Jr., has attempted to present the total history of thse people in one

volume. He called upon the ancillary disciplines-anthropology, archaeolo-

gy, linguistics, and enthnology-that are essential for such a synthesis.

The title tends to mislead any reader with an anthropological or

archaeological background. Even the subtitle contradicts the contents of the

work. The inference that this is the only land these Indians ever knew

denies the premise of prehistoric peoples migratory patterns generally

accepted in prehistory today. Although the author accepts the work of the

contemporary linguistic analysis of these people in historic times, he fails to

recognize the "problem" of a Siouan speaking people in the deep south and,

as his title infers, leads us to believe this is the "only land they knew." The

subtitle would be more appropriately worded the "tragic story of white-red

conflict and acculturation in the Old South."

Wright's major emphasis is the confrontation between white and Indian

culture, made unique by the addition of black culture, and the problems of

the Indian adjusting his lifestyle and existence to the onslaught of white

settlement in the "Old South." He attempts to survey the Indians' experi-

ence in this area with first the Spanish, then the French, and finally the

British, from the period of Spanish exploration until Andrew Jackson's era.

His treatment of the Indians' position is quite objective and does not fall

• 24
 

Book Reviews                                                 113

 

into the trap of the numerous apologetic postions in vogue in the past

decade or so. Wright does a good job on the role of the Indians' contribution

to this settlement and development period, although he sometimes gets

carried away with the black-red intermix. His treatment of the interplay

between the cultures that brought about the decline are well documented

and indicate that he used sources which previously had not been used to a

great extent, i.e., court records, tax records, and local records that might

contain data on Indian occupation and influence.

Although the scope of his book is tremendous, Wright has done a com-

mendable job of pulling together in one volume this complex story. It should

give the reader an overview of the story, illustrate the problems in present-

ing the story, and not confuse him with the polemics typical of works of this

genre. The Only Land They Knew should become a basic source for the

study of the American Indian east of the Mississippi River.

 

Defiance College                              Randall L. Buchman

 

 

Republicans, Negroes, and Progressives in the South, 1912-1916. By Paul D.

Casdorph. (University, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press,

1981. ix + 262p.; tables, notes, bibliography, index. $18.75.)

 

Many monographs aspire to significance as being pieces in a "mosaic" yet

to be completed. Professor Casdorph's study can claim more empirical rele-

vance as reflecting tendencies in and out of the major parties, and their

dynamics of change. The book's overall setting is well established. A racist

South was held in Republican bondage in post-Civil War decades. It was

released by a white supremacist drive which kept the South Democratic, not

only at heart but in fact. Nevertheless, there were political remnants which,

aided by federal patronage, provided a tissue of southern Republicanism. It

affected the party's national conventions, and gained significance in the

divided Republican convention of 1912, when 252 out of the 1,078 seats

went to southern Republicans.

Once Theodore Roosevelt's "hat [was] in the Ring," southern Republican

delegates were strategic in decisions determining his challenge, and thus

the election itself. A large number of party hacks and local Republicans

throughout the South provided the personnel for Casdorph's conscientious

study: men like John M. Parker of Louisiana and Cecil A. Lyon of Texas.

Casdorph identifies the "lily white" concept which weighed on their councils

as having originated in an 1888 Texas Republican convention, and as hav-

ing been formulated by a Texas Negro leader, Norris Wright Cuney, who

protested an effort to exclude Negroes from the convention.

Casdorph follows the careers of numerous Republicans in the South with

a true researcher's interest, from Texas to the tiny South Carolina Republi-

can group, all of which sent delegates to the Chicago convention. An in-

teresting thread to follow is the careers of northerners who in this period

had moved South and mixed southern with northern Republican attitudes.

Of greatest interest to the historian and student of politics is, first, the

role of principle in all their political maneuvers, and then the evolution of

• 25
 

114                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

the Negro faction in developments which ultimately turned them away

from the Republicans to a Democratic position. Little in principle separated

the Taft Regulars from the "lily white" T.R. partisans on the place of Neg-

roes in their programs for winning, but self-interest among all elements

made for variations in attitude. The Georgia state convention was warned:

"If the Southern delegations go to Mr. Taft, and if Mr. Roosevelt and his

friends get control of the National Convention, then the South will be

punished by the Roosevelt people" (p. 86).

Taft strategists fought back, successfully as it proved, with patronage

activities Roosevelt could not match with promises. Negro community lead-

ers vacillated in their stand in the face of insults and rejections, being more

urgently wooed by such Taft partisans as C. Bascom Slemp of Virginia, and

Taft's direct patronage representative for the South Charles D. Hilles.

Southern Negroes moved Taft-ward. During the numerous seconding

speeches, J. E. Wood, a Negro delegate from Kentucky, seconded the

nomination of Elihu Root, a Taft follower, for temporary chairman, with the

words: "The Negro of this country has always looked to the Republican

party for -."A shout of "Postoffices," and convention turmoil did not pre-

vent him from concluding: "But I stand here as a representative of my race

to say that the negro [sic] is loyal and true, and he will obey the instructions

of his constituency, and will cast his vote for Elihu Root" (p. 111). In such

circumstances, it is difficult to discern principle beyond self-preservation.

Although Negroes were intensely propagandized respecting Roosevelt's

drastic decisions in the Brownsville Riot of 1906, some Negro Republicans

turned to him for lack of welcome in the Regular Republican enclaves.

Casdorph has read deeply in the political sources, but less of the social

and human factors which made up black and Republican white societies.

Although, for example, the Leo Frank atrocity took place in Atlanta and

vicinity in 1913-15, Tom Watson's change from Populist to mad-dog minor-

ity-hater was now long established, and was at one end of a spectrum which

ran to a farther end of gracious accomodation with Negroes. Negro attach-

ment to the Taft cause no more than signalled an end of older Republican-

ism in the South, and on-coming Democratic alliances. Though more en-

lightening than edifying, Casdorph's study offers a specific against gross

demagogy, as well as vain expectations.

 

Ovid, Michigan                                        Louis Filler

 

 

White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African

History. By George M. Fredrickson. (New York: Oxford University Press,

1981. xxv + 356p.; maps, notes, chronology, index. $19.95.)

 

George M. Fredrickson is William Smith Mason Professor of American

History at Northwestern University and the author of two highly respected

books in American history, The Inner Civil War and The Black Image in The

White Mind, the latter being co-winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award in Race

Relations. In preparation for White Supremacy, he visited South Africa and

learned Afrikaans.

• 26
 

Book Reviews                                                 115

 

The author marshaled a vast array of notes. Indeed, they fill fifty pages.

For the most part the reliance is on secondary sources, including some

literature in Afrikaans. Dr. Fredrickson drew on fine scholars and repeated-

ly is fair in presenting differing views on controversial issues. One omission

is the iconographic and pictorial material compiled by Ladislas Bugner and

the Menil Foundation, which would have improved the discussion of early

Dutch and British attitudes towards Africans.

White Supremacy is a gem of the comparative method. Similarities and

differences between America and South Africa easily emerge from the sus-

tained and systematic analysis. The narrative clings to the overall thesis

and the wordage holds one's attention.

The roots of the North American and South African whites' outlook on

race relations sprang from the commercial expansion of northern, Protes-

tant Europe. At the Cape of Good Hope the Dutch treatment of the

Khoikhoi, the so-called Hottentots, derived from the earlier Dutch experi-

ence of subjugating Indonesia, while the English attitude toward North

American Indians grew from the English experience of crushing Ireland.

Both at the Cape and in North America white expansion moved relentlessly

at the expense of the indigenes; neither the British government in North

America nor the Dutch and British regimes in South Africa succeeded in

limiting the movement. Significantly, in the 1830s the Great Trek and the

"Indian Trek" coincided. The former involved the departure into the South

African interior of Boers seeking to escape British authority at the Cape;

the "Indian Trek" resulted from the American government driving the Indi-

ans westward in order to make way for white settlement.

Dr. Fredrickson superbly draws contrasts: the role of the Enlightenment

in America, but its absence in South Africa; the nonviolent emancipation of

slaves in South Africa versus slavery's end in America because of the Civil

War; the American constitutional enfranchisement of black freedmen ver-

sus none in Boer South Africa; the American limits to official sanctions that

could be given to racial inequality versus the South African goverment

willingly supporting caste-like distinctions between black and white labor

and in creating a system of industrial apartheid. In South Africa the belated

development of the mining industry, insatiably demanding the cheapest

labor, and the simultaneous struggle for political independence, engendered

in the whites the myth of a racial mission.

Two matters deserve more adequate coverage. Their eighteenth century

wars of extermination against the San (Bushmen) contributed to the Boers'

hatred of the indigenes. This recalls the British and American view: "The

only good Indian is a dead Indian." More significantly, the author down-

played the Calvinist impact. In both the American and South African ex-

periences Dr. Fredrickson does not consider the Huguenot factor. In the

American situation the book overlooks the staunch opposition to slavery of

the Associate Presbyterian, Associate Reformed, Covenanter, and Free

Presbyterian Churches; furthermore, in treating the all-important Four-

teenth Amendment, Dr. Fredrickson is unaware that its principal author,

John A. Bingham, was molded at Franklin College (New Athens, Ohio) by

the Associate Presbyterian clergyman, John Walker. In the South African

case, to inject one instance, the author does not show the Calvinist imprint

on Dr. Daniel F. Malan, the long-time leader of the Nationalist Party and

• 27
 

116                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

the prime minister who inaugurated apartheid; in fact, Malan receives no

mention.

 

University of Dayton                           Erving E. Beauregard

 

 

Slaves No More: Letters from Liberia, 1833-1869. Edited by Bell I. Wiley.

(Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1980. viii + 349p.; illus-

trations, appendix, notes, bibliographic notes, index. $21.50.)

 

Before the Civil War, the American Colonization Society (1817) and its

state affiliates settled some 12,000 U.S. blacks along the Grain Coast of

West Africa. Slaves No More presents 273 letters ex-slaves in Liberia wrote

to former owners and their families and to Colonization Society officials.

The late Bell I. Wiley included all known correspondence from ex-slaves in

Liberia to individuals, as well as "a selection of representative communica-

tions" to ACS agents. Wiley grouped the letters in ten chapters, seven

arranged by family and three miscellaneous units. Each chapter opens with

a brief introduction; letters appear chronologically, and useful footnotes

identify persons and events.

These letters vividly portray the difficulty of surviving in an unfamiliar

and hostile environment. Disease (especially malarial fever) and death

were frequent visitors; during the first two decades, one-fifth of the new-

comers died within a year of arrival. Farming suffered from extreme rain-

fall and drought, absence of work animals, and settlers' ignorance of

appropriate agricultural techniques. Wild animals destroyed crops and

livestock, and tribal warfare disrupted farming and commerce. Since set-

tlers lacked money and provisions were scarce and costly, they repeatedly

asked ex-owners to send tools, seed, food, cloth, and tobacco. Wiley's collec-

tion also demonstrates the high value emigrants placed on family ties.

Writers typically addressed greetings to long lists of relatives, and several

hoped to arrange passage for siblings, spouses, or children. In addition,

Afro-American families in Liberia took in kin who were alone or dependent.

Intense religiosity is yet another theme recurring in the letters. Religion

helped survivors endure illness, famine, and loss of loved ones and promised

reunion after death with those remaining in the U.S. Thus, ex-slaves inter-

preted events in Biblical terms, reported religious advances in Liberia, and

inquired about the spiritual status of family and friends left behind in

America. Some migrants expressed a plaintive loneliness, a feeling no

doubt intensified when they received no answers to their messages and

when packages sent from America were not received. But correspondents

also declared delight with living "where the free air blows, for here are

liberty." One announced, "I am under my own vine and fig tree land] none

dare molest nor make me afraid .. ." Along with freedom and dignity came

pride in Liberia and confidence in its future. Seaborn Evans asserted that

"this young and infant republic bids fair to become a grate peopl ... Liberia

is the Star in East for the free black man." Such pride, however, did not

extend to the country's indigenous people, whom most black emigrants

regarded as uncivilized savages deserving conquest and conversion.

• 28
 

Book Reviews                                                  117

 

Slaves No More is not without limitations, some of which derive from its

genre. Substantial repetition makes reading tedious at times. Although the

letters occasionally touch on intramural conflicts and on relations with

Africans, British, and slavers, one would learn more about these subjects

from a secondary study like Tom W. Shick's Behold the Promised Land.

Other problems are of the editor's making. Wiley does not convincingly

justify his selection criteria, particularly his excluding letters from free

blacks, who comprised over 40 percent of the settlers and who dominated

the new country. Moreover, editorial commentaries are more descriptive

than analytical and do not adequately probe the interplay between ex-slave

and ex-master. For example, Wiley is more willing to take correspondents'

effusive praise for former owners at face value than was Randall M. Miller

when he edited "Dear Master": Letters of a Slave Family, a book Slaves No

More partly overlaps. Such matters notwithstanding, Wiley's volume elo-

quently documents the human drama of settlement in a new land. The

editor and publisher deserve thanks for making this valuable source collec-

tion available.

 

Eastern Michigan University                      Michael W. Homel

 

 

The Public Good: Philanthropy & Welfare in the Civil War Era. By Robert

H. Bremner. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1980. xvii + 234p.; illus-

trations, notes, bibliographical notes, index. $15.00.)

 

The Public Good is the sixth volume in a series planned by The Civil War

Centennial Commission, a series that focuses on the impact of the war

rather than on the war itself. This series reflects some of the changes in

historical writing recently suggested by Frances Fitzgerald in America Re-

vised, the shifting of emphases in textbook writing since the sixties from

presenting stability and purpose in American institutions to an investiga-

tion and criticism of our weaknesses. Like the other volumes in this series,

The Public Good explores American society in the Civil War era in a man-

ner that suggests new interpretation and criticism by careful analysis of a

particular segment of thought of that society, in this case philanthropy.

Growth, achievement and progress marked mid-nineteenth century

America, a time of"vigor and confidence," a people experimenting with new

ways of life in a still promising land. It was a time for hard work and

success, progress and prosperity, of reaching out and climbing up, a time for

fireworks and celebration. But underneath a thin facade were anxiety,

strain, inequality and injustice. Depression checked the advance of prosper-

ity; failure checked success; poverty, wealth; isolationism, expansion; and

the disgrace of the sweatshop and declining agricultural production were

making mockery of hard work as a surefire way to ensure advancement up

the economic and social ladders. Qualitative demands lost the battle to

quantitative methods.

Some immigrants found their dream world of opportunity; too many

others discovered slums, disease and suffering in the new land. The city

replaced the garden as the symbol of the good life, but the city too quickly

• 29
 

118                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

lost its luster in the midst of pollution, corruption, unemployment and

overcrowding. Across the broad land there were disasters of fire, wind and

water; too much consumption of alcoholic beverages, too much violence and

too many uncontrolled epidemics of diseases. The self-confidence aug-

mented by the country's great economic growth and expansion tottered

before the phenomena of political intrigue, depression economics and the

departure from traditional moral standards. Religious values evaporated in

the market place. New world enthusiasm gave way to old world pessimism.

Americans squirmed restlessly in the midst of abundance.

As though a cruel irony, however, there weaved through the Civil War

era and beyond a strange myth that Americans were more concerned about

the ills of humanity than other nations. As though to give proof to this

proposition, Americans responded to their trials with a lavish display of

benevolence. Philanthropy literally became the order of the day, philan-

thropists the shapers of the "dream" in the midst of the nation's breaking

seams. Relief to the suffering came from churches, the state, corporations,

private individuals, and from organizations set up for particular causes.

It was during the Civil War that this myth became most tantalizing, and

it is to this period that Bremner turns his attention to survey this myth of

American giving and its counterpart, the myth still prevalent today that to

receive welfare is to violate the code of hard work and weaken the will of the

individual to perform the necessary life tasks of his role in a democratic

society. This second myth offers the concern that too free giving contributes

heavily to laziness, moral laxness and a decline of personal responsibility-

not to mention heavy debt.

In wartime, however, there was ample opportunity to live up to the ex-

pectations of the first myth, giving until it hurt for a good and righteous

cause while avoiding the consequences of the second myth because, to both

contestants, this was "a second War of Independence," and giving was most

appropriate in the midst of patriotic fervor. War not only brought death and

destruction on the battlefield, but behind the lines suffering was also com-

monplace as women, children, the elderly and the handicapped suffered the

absence of the provider, the rising costs of living, displacement and the

sacrifices of mind and body continually demanded of them. Thus Americans

basking in huge war profits could not only solve their social problems by

large gifts, but they could also relieve their consciences for excessive accum-

ulation.

Commissions and agencies, do-gooders of all persuasions, the religious,

and patriotic, even the armies turned their attentions to war's needy. Relief,

assistance, support and concern became bywords, and though expectation

usually outran accomplishment, there was nevertheless a fervor unleashed

that is striking, even to later generations. And was it not a special bonus to

giver and receiver alike that neither would be corrupted in the process? So

the giving took strange turns-bibles, temperance tracts, oranges, "com-

fort-bags," and "a pickle sharper than the keenest logic of Colenso" sup-

plementing the larger demands for guns, manpower, transportation, better

generals, and sanitation.

This enthusiasm for increased philanthropy continued past the war, into

the postwar period where the needy were just as obvious and their demands

just as urgent. But there was a difference between war and postwar giving.

• 30
 

Book Reviews                                                   119

 

The threat to the system again became a factor as the freedmen, the war-

maimed, the displaced immigrants and the new dispossessed of the city and

the rural revolution received increasingly larger attention as social prob-

lems. As giving increased, philanthropy and welfare aid became a force "to

enhance the prestige of voluntary efforts and to encourage reliance on them

for solutions to social problems," a philosophy strongly hinted by current

governmental leaders.

Drawing heavily from contemporary sources, Bremner in a well-

researched, generally well-written, though sometimes burdened with the

heavy style of careful listing and description, and finely interpretative

manuscript has given us a work of importance on understanding of the

American society. He dispels the myth that there was a basic hostility

between public and private sectors in giving in America. He clarifies the

myth that giving is somehow more humane in a democracy. As a tool for

interpretation, Bremner uses philanthropy effectively, as others have some-

times used topics like education, to look at the ingredients and the mean-

ings of our national "dream." He spells out in much detail the names and

the deeds of the philanthropists that become more than just labored listings

of organizers and organizations. He traces clearly the contradiction that

giving is a great American virtue and at the same time clearly a portent of

disaster. Contemporary society might well brood over these messages and

interpretations, for they continue to relate heavily to all the issues involved

today in philanthropy and welfare aid; to the needy as relief or incentive, or

to the world of art and humanities to improve the quality of our daily living.

 

Wittenberg University                                 Robert Hartje

 

 

The Politics of New Town Planning: The Newfields, Ohio Story. By

Frederick Steiner. (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1981. xiii + 266p.;

maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $16.95.)

 

Americans have been planning and building towns since the first perma-

nent settlers arrived in the seventeenth century. Until the emergence of

governmental controls over urban land use, such planning was a relatively

simple process: a real estate speculator selected a location that offered good

transportation, platted the town to focus upon that transportation, and

offered parcels for sale, often after prudently ensuring the appearance of a

budding metropolis by giving lots to early arrivals who would agree to

remain for a period and improve the property or provide a necessary service.

The vast majority of American communities began in this fashion, molded

by entrepreneurs seeking profits; only a handful arose from "professional"

planning, and even those few soon succumbed to the interests of private

enterprise. The combination of profit motive and amateurism, say critics of

urban America, has been the bane of the city. More perfect cities could be

created, however, if greed were restrained and real power were placed in the

hands of trained experts. Powerful government could achieve both goals,

the former by reducing the risk of private developers through government

guarantees of their massive mortgages, and the latter through the creation

• 31
 

120                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

of complex procedures that require the use of professionals trained in disci-

plines ranging from ecology and sociology to engineering and urban plan-

ning. The supporters of the Urban Growth and New Community Develop-

ment Act, Title VII of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1970,

sought those ends, but Frederick Steiner's study of one Title VII project

concludes that the search was in vain.

The site for the story is a tract of some 5,000 acres of farmland northwest

of Dayton, Ohio, on which Donald Huber dreamed of building a New Town

under the expanded guarantee provisions of Title VII. Member of a promi-

nent Dayton family of developers and experienced in previous federal hous-

ing programs, Huber and his staff began the process of applying for federal

guarantees in 1971. By early 1972 they realized their project had serious

problems, and in February Huber hired a St. Louis-based community plan-

ning and land development consultant, Gerwin K. Rohrbach, as general

manager. During the next several months Rohrbach wrought order from

the chaos he had inherited by introducing a "systems management" tech-

nique that emphasized process (rather than tasks) and by hiring qualified

personnel to take over from Huber's staff the crucial components of the

project. By late summer the Rohrbach team's efficiency and expertise had

guided the New Town through several stages of the application process.

With each Rohrbach success, however, Huber became more uneasy, and by

September 1972 policy and personal differences increasingly estranged the

developer and his general manager. Convinced that his usefulness was

ended, Rohrbach resigned in November, predicting that the New Town

would fail within six months because of basic changes that Huber was

implementing behind Rohrbach's back. With the general manager gone,

Huber gave control to personnel more attuned to the developer's views. The

project continued down an increasingly rocky trail until financial disaster

overtook it some three years later than Rohrbach had forecast.

Steiner, a member of the Department of Horticulture and Landscape

Architecture at Washington State University, tells the story as both a pedi-

gogical professional and a sometime participant while a student. Based

solely upon internal project reocrds, personal interviews, and Dayton news-

paper accounts, the bulk of the book analyzes in separate chapters each

significant portion of the Rohrbach system and the Rohrbach-Huber rup-

ture, and it concludes with chapters sketching the project's post-Rohrbach

decline into collapse and suggesting what lessons might be learned. As with

Newfields, Steiner concludes, responsibility for the failures of most of the

new towns of the 1960s and 1970s rests not with professionals like Rohr-

bach, who "had very limited power over the crucial decisions," but rather

with the developers and the federal government, which did have the power

(p. 218). The developers were "a curious collection of eccentrics who adopted

bits and pieces of the professional premises," but who mostly did not escape

the motivations of "guilt [and] profit" that trapped Huber (p. 219). The

federal government's share of the blame stems from its lack of a real urban

policy, which resulted in underfunding of projects and lack of consistency in

laying out guidelines. The Formula for future success, Steiner asserts, is a

"full-fledged comprehensive ongoing [federal] commitment to urban areas"

from downtown to New Town "in the form of funding [irrespective of wealth

and politics] . . ., and the creation of guidelines that would force intelligent

• 32
 

Book Reviews                                                  121

 

use of land that demonstrates cognizance of future societal needs" (p. 227).

Then, presumably, the professionals can get on with the serious business of

impartially planning the perfect city.

 

The Ohio State University                        Richard J. Hopkins

 

 

 

The Philosopher in the City: The Moral Dimensions Of Urban Politics. By

Hadley Arkes. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. xiv +

465p.; notes, index. $27.50 cloth; $6.95 paper.)

 

This is a book about the moral principles which affect the dispensation of

justice, the moral attitudes and beliefs that establish a rule of law. Sub-

scribing to Kantian philosophy, Arkes argues that moral truths are abso-

lute, not shifting and changing to suit individual preferences, and that

government is therefore established to frame these moral principles and

apply them to the entire society. To understand the law, one must under-

stand the moral foundation upon which the law is erected. Once one under-

stands the morals which fix a particular statute, one can judge whether that

statute is right or wrong. Good laws are established according to good moral

principles; bad laws on those which-while not categorically bad-are at

least fuzzy as to their moral rectitude. And so Arkes guides the reader on a

journey examining those parts of the urban polity where law has been

applied both with and without a vision of moral principles, at least as he

interprets them.

Arkes's argument makes the book worth reading. He challenges the read-

er to examine urban politics from a philosophical angle seldom encountered

by those who deal with prosaic mattes like urban redevelopment, city gov-

ernment reforms, or mass transit policy. His argument is clear and highly

readable, and although the chapters dealwith separate and distinct issues-

busing, education, or speech freedoms-each is carefully connected to the

study's theme.

The book has some serious problems, however. Arkes maintains an un-

wavering sympathy for moral principles as defined by those in authority

and noticeable distaste for those as defined by the masses. Elite-prescribed

morals are better than mass-interpreted morals, which are at best ill-

informed and should be resisted. Thus, the authorities in Chicago were

correct in forbidding a parade permit to the National Mobilization Commit-

tee in August 1968; they were only protecting the city from potential dis-

order. The firing of Jonathan Kozol from the Boston Public Schools was

justified because he was defying the authority of "the school as a public

institution." Moreover, in Arkes's view, government operates on a high

moral level when its leaders are in firm control (like in Daley's Chicago),

allowing change to come from above. He is wary of government which

permits working-class interests to force themselves into the political pro-

cess, because such a situation creates disorder and endows public employees

unions with too much power.

But in this argument, the author implies that the protection of the estab-

• 33
 

122                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

lished political order is the main precept upon which law should be founded,

thus posing an important dilemma. What if state-serving morality is wrong,

while a revolutionary or establishment-provoking morality is right? Arkes

does not deal squarely with this question except by assuming that our

lawmakers are persons committed to establishing rule according to moral

principles. That is, they are individuals who have "cultivated some notable

competence in the art of rendering justice" (f.n., p. 10). Although they occa-

sionally may stray from sound moral reasoning, their judgments will prove

best in the long term. This is a slender reed to support an argument, and at

the very least Arkes's analysis cries out for some examination of the moral

competence of politico-economic elites and a more sensitive assessment of

morality as often interpreted by mass organizations.

The book contains other nagging difficulties. Arkes has a penchant for

supporting his assertions with analogies, several of which are blantantly

imprecise. For instance, he compares anti-war demonstrators in Chicago

with racists protesting the first black family to move into a white neighbor-

hood. The tactics used by the two groups were similar, but the morality of

their goals was decidedly different. Also, he embellishes his argument with

distorted dichotomies, as when he provides a sympathetic assessment of

Robert Dahl's pluralist model, which is contrasted with Floyd Hunter's

analysis of community power. Yet Arkes offers no recognition of the refine-

ments in elite theory which have occurred since Hunter's study appeared

and which would render untenable his shallow argument on behalf of plur-

alism. At the very least, he should provide more recognition to Schatt-

schneider, Bachrach and Baratz, Parenti, Edelman, Milliband, and Berger

and Luckmann. Elite theory, after all, did not end with Floyd Hunter.

Despite these flaws, Arkes's thesis is reasonable and convincing: The law

should be grounded in moral virtue. His implication that elites are best

equipped to prescribe morals for the rest of us, however, is a bit too rawly

cooked to swallow.

 

The Ohio State University at Lima               William D. Angel, Jr.

 

 

The Village: A History of Germantown, Ohio, 1804-1976. By Carl M. Beck-

er. (Germantown: The Historical Society of Germantown, 1981. xvi +

241p.; tables, figures, photographs, bibliographical notes, index. $15.00.)

 

Congratulations! Germantown, Ohio. You have what it takes to get your

history written, printed, distributed and read: grass roots interest in fund-

ing, a dedicated historian, a State Historical Society that cooperates, a State

University Press that helps you distribute your work, and to top it all off, a

foreword by the Director of the Massachusetts Historical Society. I rejoice

with you over your achievement. Germantown, Massachusetts, has not

been as fortunate as you have, although it was laid out with the blessings of

Benjamin Franklin and his brother, and its early map put on display in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to attract German immigrants from that Ger-

man over-populated state to Massachusetts. This Germantown has benefit-

ted from none of your advantages. A book, recently published, which re-

• 34
 

Book Reviews                                                 123

 

prints from the only extant copy in Stuttgart the detailed description of

Germantown, Massachusetts, and which presents the documents encourag-

ing German immigration to Massachusetts, is not even found in the library

of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Another book just published, celeb-

rating the 100th anniversary of America's most successful utopia, Harmony

on the Connoquenessing, has likewise failed to obtain the support of Penn-

sylvania's Historical Society or Commission. It not only takes local interest,

but also the support of the State Historical Societies, which exist for the

purpose of promoting all state history, to make the memory of the past come

back to life.

Professor Becker is well acquainted with modern trends in American

historiography, but, fortunately, has used little of such methodology and

anlysis for his work, which attempts to cover the entire chronological his-

tory of Germantown, Ohio. His book extends over a period of nearly two

centuries, so he preferred to identify and elucidate certain themes, such as

the growth and nature of the population, economic and technological

change, the configuration of institutional and everyday life that character-

ized the development of Germantown, Ohio. His history is divided into ten

chapters, the first eight dealing with what he calls the first village, 1804-

1945, chapters nine and ten dealing with the second village, 1946-1976.

This is then followed by a bibliographical note and an index.

Becker's first chapter covers the years 1804-1850 and sees Germantown

as one of many settlements ultimately originating out of a long struggle for

dominion over the Ohio country, but in this otherwise so carefully

documented book the year 1804 as the year of the founding of Germantown

is not clearly established. It is a point of particular interest because 1804 is

definitely the year that George Rapp and his people began building their

"Germantown" below Pittsburgh, and previously Rapp himself had been

searching for land in Ohio. Philip Gunckel, so important in the history of

Germantown, Ohio, first wanted to settle near the junction of Bull's Skin

Creek with the Ohio River, and many of Rapp's followers established them-

selves on Bull Creek; so there is a great temptation to establish a rela-

tionship here, but an examination of early Ohio maps shows that there is a

lot of space between the creeks that were named for the bull and for the

bull's skin.

The years between 1850 and 1945 are covered thematically and

documented under the headings: Bonds of Community; Public Order and

Everyday Life; Quest for such capital instruments as Canals, Turnpikes

and Railroads; Technology of the later years; and The Village at Main-

stream, 1900-1945. There are five tables to population, ancestry, occupa-

tion, real estate, and distribution of income by families. Fifteen figures

illustrate geographic location, community layout, and various problems

dealing with access to the community by canals, turnpikes, and railroads.

Thirty-two photographs help bring Germantown to the reader's eyes in its

homes, public buildings, churches, schools, and places of public entertain-

ment. The work as a whole is well documented and provided both with a

biblography and index. An enormous amount of research went into the

production.

One of the benefits modern readers can derive from this history is to learn

what effort, struggle, and work it took to bring into the town all those

advantages of civilization which today are taken for granted: sewerage,

• 35
 

124                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

paved streets, water works, gas, electricity, street lighting, schools, and

libraries, for example. All these conveniences came gradually to the frugal

inhabitants of Germantown because the conservative character of Germans

did not favor debts. Becker's detailed study makes one appreciate such

blessings, and this writer believes that his devotion to such minute but

important elements of a community are of great educational value for

everyone who too easily looks to the State or the Federal Government to

provide the means for local improvements which should be handled locally.

Germantown was fiercely individualistic and concerned about its indi-

vidual rights. Professor Becker illustrates this well by quotations from the

records of the town council, and this reviewer, having become the victim of

high-handed machinations of the councils of the highest taxed state in the

Union, has come to admire the Germantowners of Ohio for their frugal

obstinancy to submit easily to the "greater wisdom" of the town fathers.

Professor Becker seems impatient with the village mentality of the inhabi-

tants of Germantown, but these good people have retained the power of

government in their hands.

One serious criticism of this so carefully prepared history is its title: THE

VILLAGE. For all times this book in library catalogues will be listed with

George Crabbe's The Village, and school children looking for material on

Longfellow's The Village Blacksmith will be disappointed not to find him at

home in either volume. The Historical Society of Germantown sponsored a

publication of this history and selected Professor Becker to research and

write the history. Being a scholar and a gentleman, Professor Becker should

not have superimposed a title which grew out of his research over the

honorable name of Germantown, Ohio. His title is a misnomer and should

be changed to GERMANTOWN, OHIO, 1804-1976. In the subtitle one

might then say, "The History of a Great American Village." Ehre dem

Ehre gebuhret!

 

Clark University                                  Karl J. R. Arndt

 

 

George Rapp's Separatists 1700-1803. Prelude to America. Compiled and

edited by Karl J. R. Arndt. (Worcester, Massachusetts: Harmony Society

Press, 1980. xxxii + 480p.; notes, illustrations, translations, index.

$30.00.)

Harmony on the Connoquenessing, 1803-1815. George Rapp's First Amer-

ican Harmony. A Documentary History. Compiled and edited by Karl J.

R. Arndt. (Worcester, Harmony Society Press, 1980. xliv + 1021p.;

notes, illustrations, maps, letter, documents, index. $38.00.)

 

While there were numerous utopian experiments on the antebellum

American frontier, none became as materially successful as the Harmony

Society, more popularly known as Rappites. This eighteenth-century group

of Wurttemberg (Swabian) Separatists, led by the lay preacher and vine

grower George Rapp (1757-1847), developed out of Lutheran Pietism. Rapp,

a mystic millenialist, was convinced that the Lord would return within his

lifetime and so he gathered the faithful into a sectarian brotherhood to

• 36
 

Book Reviews                                                 125

 

partake of the divine "harmony" of the new age. After separation from

official Lutheranism, persecution, and emigration to the United States, he

organized the communal Harmony Society in Butler County, Pennsylvania,

in 1805. Undisputed head of the colony and church, Rapp moved the

Brethren to the Wabash River in Indiana in 1815 in search of better lands,

and again to a third settlement, Economy, Pennsylvania, in 1824. Follow-

ing a tragic schism in 1831 and Rapp's death in 1847, membership de-

creased to the point where the Society was dissolved by court action in 1905.

The two volumes reviewed here are part of an ambitious six volume

project by Karl Arndt to publish a complete Documentary History of the

Harmony Society covering the years between 1700 and 1916. Two other

volumes in this series, The Indiana Decade of the Harmony Society, 1814-

1824, were previously published by the Indiana Historical Society in 1975

and 1978 with a grant from the Lilly Foundation. Unable to secure a uni-

versity press, a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, or a Ger-

man publisher, Arndt "reactivated" the Harmony Society Press, which

Rapp had established in 1824, to issue the remaining volumes of the

Documentary History.

Arndt's purpose is to make available to the public and historians various

papers of the Harmony Society in the language in which they were original-

ly written. The documents in George Rapp's Separatists are transliterated

from the eighteenth-century German script. Consequently, one needs the

ability to read German, sprinkled with a few Swabian terms, to fully

appreciate the volume. Headlines and brief summaries of each document

are in English. Arndt did not publish the collection in English because, in

his words, "the documents are too distinctly Swabian to be translated into

such a commercial language as American" (p. xxviii). His frustration at not

finding a German publisher for this volume is all too evident.

The format and organization of George Rapp's Separatists and Harmony

on the Connoquenessing are similar to the Indiana Decade volumes. They

are essentially collections of source material which includes letters, reports,

business and legal documents, and devotional writings, chronologically

arranged with brief explanatory notes. These volumes serve to both supple-

ment and enhance Professor Arndt's earlier narrative history, George

Rapp's Harmony Society, 1785-1847 (rev. ed., 1972).

The Forward, Preface, and Introduction (in three parts) of George Rapp's

Separatists are in German and English, although the English sections are

somewhat confusingly written and arranged. A student who selected this

volume to begin a study of the Harmonists, without any previous exposure

to Rapp or the Society, would soon suffer from hopeless confusion. The first

section, the Prolegomena 1700-1782, provides a glimpse of problems which

the Wurtemberg government had with regards to New World emigration,

Pietism, and Separatist activities before Rapp. Part II, which covers 1785-

1792, focuses on the development of Rapp's Pietism at Iptingen and his

reasons for separation from the established church. A third section deals

with the formation of a clearly organized separatist brotherhood (Rapp's

"Geliebter Bruder") and their unofficial toleration between 1793 and 1803.

The concluding section of documents, 1803-1805, reveals Rapp's prepara-

tion to move the Brethren to the New World. The decision to emigrate was

based on his millenialist conviction that his group was the Sunwoman

• 37
 

126                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

prophesied in Revelation 12:1,6 and that with the advent of Napoleon and

the destruction of Old Europe, the time had arrived for her to flee to the

wilderness of North America.

Reviewers of the Indiana Decade have lamented the fact that those

volumes contained very few sources revealing the spiritual dynamic of the

Society. Arndt recognizes this shortcoming (Preface, p. x) and explains that

religious subjects were well treated before the Indiana sojourn. George

Rapp's Separatists helps to fill this void because it contains official inter-

views, pastoral letters, hymns, and confessions. Of special note are the

Lomersheim (1798) and Ohlbrom (1799) confessions (pp. 272-79, 294-300).

Still, the collection would have been strengthened had there been more on

the relationship between Rapp's group and the most noted Swabian Pietist

leader of the day, Johann Michael Hahn (1758-1819), a lay preacher and

self-taught theologian who remained within the Lutheran church.

The second volume, Harmony on the Connoquenessing, takes its name

from the creek in Butler County, Pennsylvania, on which Rapp's group built

its first town of Harmony, beginning in 1804. Chronologically, the volume

covers the period between Rapp's arrival in Philadelphia in 1803 and the

sale of the Harmony property in 1815. Unlike George Rapp's Separatists,

German documents are here given in the original and in English. Again,

the documents are arranged by date but without any attempt to group

various items topically.

Few frontier towns have such a thoroughly documented history as does

Harmony. Actually, the Butler County site was not Rapp's first choice as it

was not well suited for vineyard cultivation. He initially explored land on

the waters of the Muskingum in Ohio and, after meeting Thomas Jefferson

in 1804, petitioned Congress in 1806 for several thousand acres of public

domain land on favorable terms. A bill allowing Rapp to purchase a

township in the Indiana Teritory passed the Senate but lost in the House by

one vote, primarily due to nativist sentiment. The Connoquenessing loca-

tion was sold to Rapp by land speculator D. B. Muller (Detmar

Friedrich Basse) and others who convinced him that the Ohio location was

too far inland. This acreage, with subsequent additions, was purchased for

about $20,000 and sold eleven years later for $100,000.

One of the many themes which the documents reveal is the growing

importance to the Society of Frederick Rapp (1775-1834), "Father" Rapp's

adopted son. His letters have a special quality all their own, especially as he

struggled with and eventually mastered English. He was clearly devoted to

George Rapp and his millennialist teachings, a careful student of world

events, and business agent between the Society and the outside world.

Indeed, much of the economic success which Harmony enjoyed was due to

Frederick Rapp's careful management of the common treasury and the

various business interests, both agricultural and industrial, which the Soci-

ety undertook. Arndt includes two excellent (and favorable) descriptions of

Harmony's material accomplishments; one by "F. Cuming" in 1810 (pp.

419-24) and a second by John Molish, 1811 (pp. 451-64). The latter account,

which appeared in his Travels in the United States of America (Phi-

ladelphia, 1812), was reprinted many times and helped Harmony become

internationally famous.

While source volumes are not generally consumed by the reading public,

historians will find much in Harmony on the Connoquenessing to ponder.

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Book Reviews                                                  127

 

There is, for example, the remarkably brief Articles of Agreement of the

Harmony Society, dated February 15, 1805 (pp. 80-91). It reads as a contract

between Rapp and his followers. They agreed to give him and the Society

their earthly possessions. They would ask for no pay for work performed,

and promised to promote the best interests of the congregation. Rapp, on the

other hand, promised to care for them materially, instruct them spiritually,

and to return the estate of departing disssenters without interest. Perhaps

this very simplicity is a key to understanding the early prosperity of the

Harmonists during the Connoquenessing period. There were no formally

stated creeds, rules, or regulations, for these were written on the hearts of

the faithful. Although there were numerous lawsuits between dissenters

and the Society, the Articles of Agreement were upheld by the courts, and

served well past Rapp's death.

Both George Rapp's Separatists and Harmony on the Connoquenessing are

welcome additions to the literature on the Harmony Society, as well as

utopian groups and frontier development. Together they document the

birth, struggles, and initial flowering of one of America's most successful

communal groups. Both books have maps, photographs, and are carefully

indexed.

Dr. Karl J. R. Arndt, a prolific writer and linguist, is emeritus professor of

German at Clark University.

 

Bluffton College                                     David B. Eller

 

 

Lost Country Life. By Dorothy Hartley. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981.

ix + 374p.; appendices, glossary, illustrations, index. $6.95 paper.)

 

"Basically, the man we are studying was an individual shaped by the

earth itself." This is the kind of history Dorothy Hartley writes in Lost

Country Life, the history both of man and of the earth that shaped him. Her

focus is on the English middle ages, but because of this concern with the

earth, the history is both more ancient and more up to date than that; the

"period" she describes stretches back into antiquity and is only now ending

in many parts of the world.

On one level, Lost Country Life is a "how-they-did-it" book: how medieval

men and women dyed their cloth, designed their dwellings, made their

tools, their bread and beer, counted (or tallied) their corn and sheep, and

minded their flocks, herds and swarms. The book is almost overwhelming in

its details about such country activities. Through decades of study of con-

temporary books, pictures, maps and the marks human tools make on hu-

man products (including the landscape itself), Hartley has found answers to

questions the more casual observer would not think could be answered.

Anyone who has made a hobby of what was once part of making a living

from the land-herb-gardening, beekeeping, weaving, woodworking-will

find real wealth here.

The underlying philosophy of history Hartley presents is even more in-

teresting. This is the story of man being shaped by the land, even as he

learned to shape it. To pick one example from dozens, she describes how the

• 39
 

128                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

medieval woodworker, whether he was building a ship or a mill, searched

the forests (or had others search for him) to find oddly shaped timbers for

particular jobs. In the centuries before power saws could turn out curves

against or across the natural grain, "it was the natural curve of the wood

that was needed." Similarly, the size and shapes of fields depended upon the

natural shape and size and capabilities of ox and laborer, and so on through

each of the activities she describes.

Thus, Hartley speaks of "our materially educated man" (italics added),

the human being learning from the environment, building, she believes,

even abstractions like religion and law on that solid base. Her account of

medieval trade and finance (the distaste for the middleman, she demon-

strates, goes back at least that far) provides a primer in economics and

urban history. Some of her interpretations are probably controversial; sur-

rounded by this wealth of detail, they are pretty convincing.

In her note to this American edition, Hartley points out that "America

begins where this book ends." Lost Country Life establishes this American

connection in a number of ways: the medieval origins of the substances used

to color The White House, the kind of cattle the Mayflower brought to New

England, "Uncle Remus" on the character of the cow, and so on. Huck Finn

provides one of her most telling examples of the "materially educated man,"

man thinking "with his own knowledge of the earth" (her italics). Less

happily, it was "sugarcane and slavery" in the Americas that ended the

medieval beekeeper's monopoly on sweeteners-and made beeswax a scarce

commodity. And, of course, America participated with enthusiasm and daz-

zling efficiency in the processes that transformed medieval life into modern,

that eventually made this kind of country life "lost." The disjunction has

been radical and accelerating: "things that depend upon animals remain

static for centuries; it is machinery that changes rapidly."

Lost Country Life is a beautiful, fascinating book. Hartley is by turns

witty, wise, and riddling, a fitting style for this historian of the body, espe-

cially of the hand and foot and eye, of what humanity has seen and felt, and

then, based on those elementary perceptions, thought. The illustrations-

photographs, old maps, and line drawings-are as delightful and instruc-

tive as the text.

Otterbein College                              William T. Hamilton

 

 

Farmers, Bureaucrats, and Middlemen: Historical Perspectives on American

Agriculture. By Trudy Huskamp Peterson. (Washington, D.C.: Howard

University Press, 1981. x + 357p.; illustrations, notes, biographical

sketches, appendix, index. $19.95.)

 

Farming, once an integral aspect of American life, changed dramatically,

especially during the twentieth century. At present, less than five percent

of the population claim to be full-time farmers. What was once a way of life

has become an industry-appropriately called agribusiness. While the basic

farm unit and the family which lived on it have been diminishing factors,

agricultural productivity has increased.

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Book Reviews                                                  129

 

This volume grew out of the proceedings of a conference at the National

Archives in 1977 and was co-sponsored by the Agricultural History Society.

Traditionally, agricultural historians have focused on the conventional

aspects of farming: crops in colonial America, rise of cotton and tobacco

production, the role of slave labor in the antebellum South, mechanization

on northern and western farms in the nineteenth century, and the poverty

of the average farmer by the 1920s and 1930s. It is good history but lacking

in drama in contrast to such lively issues and topics as sectionalism, the

Civil War, industrialization, urbanization, diplomacy, and presidential

elections, to mention only a few. There is a need for revisionism in agri-

cultural history; the time has come to climb out of the traditional furrows

and examine individuals, programs, institutions and government itself

which have inexorably changed the way we farm and produce commodities

in this country.

This volume will contain some pleasant surprises, especially for Amer-

ican historians whose specialities are not agrarian but who should know

more about the field and its research. The role of agricultural labor is

contrasted in studies by Allan Bogue on farm tenants, Donald Holley on the

sharecroppers, Manuel Machado on Mexican labor, and Dorothy Schwieder

on farm women. The conclusion of these experts is that agriculture was not

often an attractive employment. Those individuals who were called farmers

were frequently laborers; and their contribution is appropriately described

as the "Dark Side of the Agrarian Myth." In another area, Gladys Baker of

the U.S. Department of Agriculture gives a fascinating inside view of that

agency and profiles the leadership in terms of what was accomplished for

farmers and collisions with particular interest groups.

The conference also took a hard look at two areas in agriculture which

have aroused much concern and criticism in America today. The con-

troversy over the use of agricultural chemicals, for which both solutions and

conclusions are still awaiting the verdict of time, has been growing since

World War II. The economic connection between pesticides upon which the

farmer depends and the total amount of crops produced affect the American

consumer who wants cheap, plentiful food but questions the chemical re-

quirements needed to attain such goals. No less vital to the American

consumer are the pricing and marketing of commodities. In a perceptive

paper, Jonathan Lurie examines the regulation of commodity exchanges in

the 1920s, while Harold Breimyer shows that such marketing since the

New Deal has split into two groups: that which assembles and prices prod-

ucts from the farm, and that which engages in processing, wholesaling and

retailing farm products to the consumer. Breimyer concludes pessimistical-

ly that the two marketing system groups are basically incompatible.

The editor of this collection of papers and commentaries, Trudy H. Peter-

son, has enhanced the excellent arrangement of topics with eye-catching

agricultural illustrations, photographs, maps and charts. Biographical

sketches of the conference's participants and a competent index contribute

to the usefulness of this work. Both agrarian and non-agrarian historians

will find food for thought in these papers which help plow new furrows in

American agricultural history.

 

Texas A&M University                                David E. Schob

• 41
 

130                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

Cleveland Landmark Series. Volume I. The Terminal Tower Complex, 1930-

1980. By Jim Toman and Dan Cook. (Cleveland: The Cleveland Land-

marks Press, Inc., 1980. 82p.; illustrations, $8.50)

The Cleveland Union Station. Reprint ed. (Cleveland: Robert J. Liederbach,

1979. 30p; illustrations. $4.50.)

The Tower. Reprint ed. (Cleveland: U.S. Realty Investments, 1980 ³²p.;

illustrations. n.p.)

 

The completion of the Terminal group on Cleveland's Public Square in

1930 was of enormous importance to the life of the downtown. Not only did

the city now have a centralized station serving all railroad lines entering its

limits, but also a rapid transit line bringing commuters into the business

core. In addition, Cleveland utlimately gained a new hotel, department

store, office facilities, and post office as a consequence of the remarkable

development by the Van Swearingen brothers.

The official opening of the Terminal was recognized at the time as a major

event in the city's history, and two important publications were produced to

commemorate it. The Cleveland Plain Dealer published a special supple-

ment on June 29, 1930, (reprinted as The Tower) and the developers of the

complex, the Cleveland Union Terminals Company and Cleveland Termin-

als Building Company, jointly printed a booklet on the structures (reprinted

as The Cleveland Union Station). The fiftieth anniversary of that historic

event was recognized by the reprinting of both of the volumes, the former by

the present owners of the Terminal and the latter by Cleveland publisher

Robert Liederbach. The Terminal Tower Complex, the first in a proposed

"Cleveland Landmarks Series," was published during the golden

anniversary year by Jim Toman and Dan Cook. The editors and authors of

each had particular goals in mind and the three provide an unusual oppor-

tunity for some intriguing comparisons.

The editors of the Plain Dealer naturally had an obligation to represent

the impact of the Terminal complex on the entire city and approached their

subject from that perspective. By characterizing their supplement as an

"Epochal Number," the newspapermen made it clear that they felt the city

was being reborn and that the Tower represented that nativity. There was

an unabashed use of superlatives, along with analogies like "the Van's Taj

Mahal" in the text. It focused on the Union Station and discussed the major

role of the railroads in the projected renewal of the city. The Tower was seen

as a "height-meter" of Cleveland's "rise" and progress into modern twen-

tieth-century society.

Ostensibly, the purpose of the Terminal companies booklet was stated in

the brief foreword by C.L. Bradley, president of both firms. He indicated the

desire to first describe the facilities, and secondly "to acquaint the public

with the vision of Cleveland's growth upon which this development is

based." In reality, the goal behind the publication was far more straight-

forward: to promote the use of the facility by the general public. The text

underscores the convenience, safety, accessibility and great extent of its

facilities. As can be expected in a developer-inspired publication, there is

also an obligatory statement of appreciation for the "vast labor" expended

by the engineers, architects and contractors in erecting the complex.

The recent volume on the Terminal Tower complex by Toman and Cook,

• 42
 

Book Reviews                                                    131

 

both natives of the city, starts from the premise that Cleveland has obtained

a negative reputation in recent years. They conceived the "Cleveland Land-

mark Series" to present the "positive attributes of the city." Unhappily, the

authors make no effort to take advantage of their fifty-year perspective. The

fact-laden text does not reflect the synthesis or analysis of the historian and

touches only lightly on the questions of architectural styling, building tech-

nology, and urban development concepts. The result is a volume which

reads much like a developer's promotional brochure, but surpasses even the

original Terminal companies booklet. There is far too much space devoted to

dimensions and facts for each of the buildings in the complex. The authors

have, for example, even included the speed of the elevators in the Tower and

Department Store.

These should be contrasted with the wide-ranging story in the Plain

Dealer in 1930 when not only the Union Station facilities were outlined, but

also the development, operations, and management of the station and rail

lines, as well as a historical perspective on the area, including detailed

discussions of the buildings razed for the project. Finally, since the use of

electric engines within the Terminal was considered an innovation, a his-

tory of the railroad locomotive was provided.

Illustrations comprise a significant portion of all three volumes. The pen-

and-ink line drawings designed by the Terminal companies for their booklet

are especially handsome and by themselves make the reprint a worthwhile

investment. A centerfold of the whole complex, as well as illustrations of

smaller portions of the station, features cut-away sections of the rail facili-

ties which are particularly enlightening as well as artful.

The cover of the Plain Dealer supplement reproduced a painting entitled

"Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" by S. Gordon Barrick. In it the artist

represented the future growth of the city with a horizon filled with a multi-

tude of towers. Today the Terminal Tower still holds this same type of

symbolic value for Clevelanders like Cook and Toman. Unfortunately, that

resulted in the inclusion of more than twenty very similar photographs of

the Tower.

Like the editors of the Plain Dealer, Toman and Cook see a contemporary

rebirth occuring in downtown Cleveland. To them the transformation of the

1918 Hotel Cleveland into Stouffer's Inn on the Square late in th 1970s is

characteristic of the city's spiritual and economic revival and marks a re-

turn to the "civic pride" that the authors feel motivated the Van Swearing-

ens in the original development. Perhaps the most telling comparison be-

tween the earlier newspaper supplement and the present volume is that an

escalation of financial and construction difficulties has placed the renova-

tion of a sound old building on a par with an enormous development from

the 1920s that involved the demolition of over a thousand buildings and the

erection of structures of unprecedented scale and size in the city.

It is the latter aspect of all three volumes that provides the most fascinat-

ing collation: their view of the buildings destroyed to erect the new complex.

Predictably, the Terminal companies felt it was necessary to discredit the

earlier buildings in order to justify the construction of their great monu-

ment. In a revealing case of overstatement, this booklet heralded the re-

moval of the old buildings that represented "the erstwhile squalor" of "the

city's worst disfigurement." A far more honest viewpoint was presented by

• 43
 

132                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

the Plain Dealer. In discussing the Old American House, a five-story mid-

nineteenth century hotel, it was noted that it was "rich in historical lore"

and that "Many of the great men of the nation" spoke from its balcony. It

also showed pictures of fine Classical and Gothic architectural examples of

residences and churches removed for the development. Here Cook and To-

man are again in the developers' camp, since to speak in anything but

disparaging terms of the earlier buildings would be to minimize the positive

attributes of the present Terminal complex. Thus they contrasted the

"grime-coated collection of aged buildings disfigured by ugly billboards"

with "the soaring Terminal Tower."

Although separated by fifty years, the three works were aimed at the

same audience: Clevelanders with a general, non-scholarly interest in the

Terminal Tower complex. The terminal companies booklet reprinted by

Liederback is visually the highest quality because its original drawings

lent themselves best to reproduction. The Plain Dealer reprint within new

covers of striking color photographs has an advantage in the soundness of

its overall concept. The original editors narrowed its scope by dealing with a

smaller portion of the total complex, and yet were very broad in their

general approach to the topic. A close examination of the pictorial and

textual elements of all three volumes suggests that the earlier tabloid and

booklet were probably more successful in both arousing the interest of and

communicating to their readers.

 

Ohio Historical Society                            David A. Simmons

 

 

Prehistoric Architecture in the Eastern United States. By William N. Mor-

gan. (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1980. xxxix + 197p.; illustrations,

bibliography, notes, index. $25.00.)

 

An attractive and useful presentation of eighty-two prehistoric earth-

works in the eastern United States, this volume is essentially descriptive,

with the sites grouped into three major chronological subdivisions. The bulk

of the sites are Late Prehistoric in age, and this section is subdivided geo-

graphically-Upper Mississippi and Ohio, Lower Mississippi, Caddoan,

Tennessee, Appalachian, Piedmont, and Florida areas. Ohio, naturally, is

well represented, with such Hopewellian sites as Newark, Marietta, High

Bank, and Cedar Bank included.

It should be noted that the title of the book is somewhat misleading, in

that no attention is given to the study of wooden prehistoric structural

remains (post mold patterns, wattle and daub construction, log tombs).

Some archaeologists may question a few of Morgan's cultural identifica-

tions, notably his labelling the West Bend, Wisconsin, lizard effigy mound

as Adena, but the book is generally free from error. Little new data is

provided, however, and there is far too much reliance upon the Nineteenth

Century work of Squier and Davis and Cyrus Thomas. There are some

interesting calculations interpreted to mean that even the largest prehis-

toric earthworks could have been built relatively quickly by small popula-

tions utilizing simple construction methods. A selection of seven of Dache

• 44
 

Book Reviews                                                  133

 

M. Reeves' aerial photographs made in the 1930s adds to the attractiveness

of the volume, but inclusion of "comparable" sites such as Stonehenge, the

Acropolis, Angkor Wat, and the Piazza San Marco adds little to the useful-

ness of the book.

Aimed at presenting "an overview of prehistoric American architecture

by synthesizing what is known," Morgan's book does that, but with a mini-

mum of actual synthesis.

 

Ohio Historical Society                          James L. Murphy

 

 

Paved With Good Intentions; The American Experience and Iran. By Barry

Rubin. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. xii + 426p.; illustra-

tions, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $17.50.)

 

Paved With Good Intentions helps to place the recent criss in Iranian-

American relations in historical perspective. Barry Rubin has made thor-

ough use of offocial documents (regrettably, all too few are available for the

post-1950 period), public statements, newspaper reports, and writings by

journalists and scholars to trace the development of the mutual dependency

between Iran and the United States, which was manifest in the generally

close relationship between the Shah and a succession of American presi-

dents from Truman to Carter. The Middle Eastern strategy of the Nixon-

Kissinger years cast Iran into a "pillar" of regional stability and brought

the alliance to its heady peak in the early 1970s. While he is frequently

critical of American policy, Rubin avoids the tendency in much recent writ-

ing on Iran to blame the United States, especially the Carter Administra-

tion, for failing to "save" the Shah; rather the Iranian revolution resulted

from internal causes which were influenced, but certainly not controlled, by

American actions. Yet the account also reaffirms that Carter simply lacked

decisiveness and purpose in dealing with the Iranian revolution; his vacil-

lating and inconsistent policy confused all of the political forces in Iran.

Perhaps the expectation that Iran in 1978-79 lent itself to an American

solution was the memory of the CIA-assisted overthrow of the Mossadegh

revolution in 1953 which resulted in the restoration of the Shah to power.

But as is evident from Rubin's full and cogent analysis of the 1951-53 crisis,

the United States at that time capitalized upon mounting disillusionment

with Mossadegh; indeed, "(o)verthrowing Mossadegh had been like pushing

on an already-opened door." A quarter of a century later, however, the

hatred of Iranians, with good reason, was directed against the Shah.

A large part of the American failure in Iran, Rubin argues, can be traced

to the failure of American intelligence and the media to report fully and

accurately on domestic developments. In particular, the most influential

newspapers and the networks focused attention on the personality and often

superficial attainments of the Shah to the virtual exclusion of the economic

conditions of the vast majority of Iranians, the repressive features of his

regime, and the growth of substantial opposition. The revolution itself was

commonly seen as being led by ineffective black-robed mullahs; rarely did

analysis penetrate beneath reporting of riots and demonstrations. General-

• 45
 

134                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

ly a pro-Shah bias prevailed until he was forced to flee Iran. The hostage

crisis, of course, became an "overwhelming national fixation" largely due to

saturation coverage by the media and its skillful manipulation by the Car-

ter White House in a presidential election year. Few thoughtful observers

would question Rubin's conclusion that American frustration can be largely

traced to a failure to understand the history and culture of the Iranian

people.

Tracing fully and fairly the American-Iranian relationship from World

War II to the hostage crisis, Barry Rubin has written an important and

thoughtful book.

 

Bowling Green State University                       Gary R. Hess

 

 

Industrial Influence in Federal Regulatory Agencies. By Paul J. Quirk.

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. xi + 260p.; tables, appen-

dices, notes, bibliography, index. $19.50 cloth, $5.95 paper.)

 

In this imaginative, clearly written, and well organized study, Paul J.

Quirk, a political scientist at The Ohio State University, presents new

evidence bearing on the question of industry influence in regulatory agen-

cies. He is concerned in particular with the claims that such agencies persis-

tently served the interests of regulated industries because those selected to

head them have tended to hold pro-industry attitudes, to value industry

support in the appropriations process, and to have their eyes on well-paid

jobs in regulated industries. These he labels the "pro-industry appoint-

ments," "pro-industry budget incentives," and "industry job incentives"

hypotheses; and on the basis of what he found in fifty carefully planned

interviews, conducted in 1976 with high ranking officials of the Federal

Trade Commission, Civil Aeronautics Board, Food and Drug Administra-

tion, and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, he concludes

that the hypotheses do not have the kind of universal validity often

assumed in regulatory literature. The great majority of Quirk's officials had

anti-industry, middle-of-the-road,or no policy attitudes prior to their

appointments, not pro-industry ones. Budgets were perceived as being

shaped primarily by agency needs, adverse public reactions, or the alloca-

tional priorities of the administration and Congress, not by industry action

or pressure from organized interest groups. And future career opportunities

were seen primarily as a function of professional competence and effective-

ness, equated in some minds with besting industrial adversaries, not as

rewards for taking pro-industry policy positions. Support for the "job incen-

tives" hypothesis consisted chiefly of acknowledgements that those whom

industry comes to regard as "harassers," "extremists," or "illegitimates"

were unlikely to be offered well-paying industry positions.

Quirk's findings suggest that several widely held assumptions about pro-

industry favoritism may need reexamination; and, as his final section

makes clear, they do have important implications for the reform of regula-

tory administration. One wishes, however, that they were grounded in

something more substantial than the fifty interviews. Those interviewed,

• 46
 

Book Reviews                                                   135

 

after all, had images and reputations to maintain; and while Quirk makes

some allowances for this, both in interview design and his classification of

responses, one comes away with the feeling that he has accepted too much of

this image maintenance at face value and that his findings correspond too

closely to the way his interviewees would like to appear in scholarly studies.

Full acceptance of them is difficult without more knowledge of the indi-

viduals involved, how they behaved, and how others saw them.

The author's acknowledgement that his findings may not apply to other

periods or to regulatory agencies in general also needs to be underscored.

Their shape, one suspects, is in large measure a reflection of unusual and

nontypical periods in the histories of the FTC and CAB. The former agency

was expanding in response to new demands for antitrust action and con-

sumer protection, an expansion that would soon be brought to an end, and

one accompanied by agency attitudes markedly different from those accom-

panying its more customary missions of protecting small business and

promoting industrial self-regulation. And the latter agency was involved in

the deregulation controversy, a matter of importance because advocacy of

deregulation in Quirk's classification scheme becomes an anti-industry

position. It seems likely that a similar set of interviews conducted in the

1920s, ¹950s, or 1980s would yield dramatically different findings.

Still, there is much in this book that students of regulation will want to

read and ponder. A short review cannot do justice to the complexities that

Quirk describes and analyzes. Nor can it do justice to the nuances, sophis-

tication, and thoughtfulness with which he orders his material and relates

it to current controversies and the existing literature.

 

University of Iowa                                   Ellis W. Hawley

 

 

Here the Country Lies: Nationalism and the Arts in Twentieth-Century

America. By Charles C. Alexander. (Bloomington: Indiana University

Press, 1980. xiv + 336p.; notes, index. $32.50.)

 

Charles C. Alexander, Professor of History at Ohio University and a

specialist in twentieth-century American thought, is one of those historians

interested in the mutual and reciprocal influence of ideas and thought in

our country's history, some of them diverse and contradictory, and at other

times complimentary. In this volume he is especially concerned with the

theme of nationalism and how that pervasive force affected the arts. Alex-

ander's contention is that authentic, endemic nationally "represented artis-

tic expression" was the most vital commentary on American culture from

the fin de siecle to the end of World War II, and that it emanated from a

radical artistic modernism that was a revolt against the complacency of

Gilded Age pristine and genteel culture. This work, then, is a treatment in

part of cultural nationalism in our own century. Alexander describes well

the tensions between America's artistic heritage and her desire for what

could be called a national style of expression.

In essence, what is depicted here is the growth and evolution of artistic

nationalism. Alexander provides a detailed, sensitive compendium and

• 47
 

136                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

complex of values, thoughts, tastes, traditions, and trends-all of which

comprise the arts. His analysis of the inter-relationship between the arts

and nationalism in the twentieth century shows how it was always an

intimate one no matter whether the era was one of reform and progressive

thinking, conservative thought, prosperity, depression, war, or peace.

This work is a veritable repository of material, ideas and names, some of

which might even be considered trivial but nevertheless fascinating. A

cursory investigation of the index reveals the richness and variety of Alex-

ander's examples. Names such as Gershwin, Copeland, Joplin, Ives, Stieg-

litz, Benton, Henri, Burchfield, Wright, Mumford, Waldo Frank, O'Neill,

Brooks, Mencken, Lewis, Isadora Duncan, and Seldes are but a few of the

intellectuals whose work signalled the changes that occurred as American

thinking was affected by nationalistic fervor. Periodicals like The New

Republic, Vanity Fair,Harper's and Atlantic Monthly are consulted for

source materials as well as for their contribution to the artistic expression

Alexander is studying. Incidentally, it is interesting to note that diverse

and relatively obscure journals, especially to the generalist, such as Art

World, Educational Review, Craftsman, Seven Arts, Musical Quarterly,

Broom, Architectural Record, Arts and Decoration, Industrial Education

Magazine, and Theatre Arts Magazine provide much unusual information.

Still another contribution of this study are the concise, helpful, stimulat-

ing and provocative summations of the important aspects and achievements

of the life of the mind in the current century, such as in the fields of art,

dance, literature, music, architecture, the mass media, and drama.

At first glance, Alexander seems to have written a simple history of the

arts. But, upon reflection, one sees clearly another of his main tenets-the

striving for an artistic emancipation from the European model and inspira-

tion. He makes clear that the idea of nationalism remains the overriding

reality and practice of nations, despite the sincere, laudable, and utopian

hopes on some levels for a more internationally, global orientation.

Another interesting aspect of the Alexander treatment is his emphasis on

the popular culture of the masses as well as of the expressions of elite

culture that are usually highlighted. He is concerned, then, with all of the

arts, both high and low, and the wide spectrum of cultural communication.

In a very real way the author sides with those who feel that popular culture

is a valid discipline and has something meaningful to say about compre-

hending the totality of the arts.

In any listing of works on American intellectual history and its stress on

artistic forms, Henry May's The End of American Innocence stands as a

seminal example. Alexander's earlier work, Nationalism in American

Thought, 1930-1945, and this present volume can be similarly classified.

Legitimate treatments of ideas and thought and the interplay between

them and creative activity are not that common, and Here The Country Lies

is a most significant contribution in this context.

Also, in addition to important and imaginative substantial contributions,

one is also impressed by the tight organization, and the excellent research

based on accounts by actual participants, on a myriad of secondary mate-

rials such as biographies, autobiographies, scholarly and popular journal

accounts, manuscripts, and theses and dissertations. The latter very helpful

sources are often lost on library shelves, and Professor Alexander is to be

• 48
 

Book Reviews                                                  137

 

commended for utilizing important, lucrative, and oftentimes buried trea-

sures.

The scope of this volume is large and it establishes convincingly the

dictum that American cultural history can be at once both intricate and

engrossing.

 

State University of New York at Buffalo               Milton Plesur

 

 

Screening Out the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture

Industry. By Lary May. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. xv +

304p.; illustrations, notes, epilogue, appendices, index. $19.95.)

 

This ambitious book is quite marvelously conceived and at the same time

disappointing in its execution. In Screening Out The Past, Lary May

announces that his subject is nothing less than, as stated in his subtitle,

"the birth of mass culture and the motion picture industry." He argues that

films and film culture, which includes such things as movie palace

architecture and fan magazine journalism (for instance, a Vachel Lindsay

ode which begins: "Oh Mary Pickford, Doll Divine . . .") in fact determined

the contours of modern mass culture, that movies were largely responsible

for, as well as active participants in, what should be called the modern

invention of leisure.

Screening Out The Past is most exciting and interesting as it sifts through

the ephemera of late nineteenth and early twentieth century contexts of

popular culture: long forgotten municipal political wrangles concerning

blue laws, disputatious public moralizing regarding the drinking habits and

sexual proclivities of the working class, and codes and protocols of conduct

for secretaries in the new offices buildings in the new cities. With all this

and a good deal more, as well as brilliantly selected passages from a memoir

of Henry Seidel Canby, Professor May evokes the undertow feel of the tidal

change in America from Victorian rural to Corporationland urban contem-

porary. Those parts of the book which deal with the interaction of early film

and the society which consumed it will remain as a major contribution to

the literature of "bottom up" social history.

When Professor May turns his attention to the early history of film, to the

obligatory central chapter on Griffith, for example, matters become much

less interesting. The book at this point becomes indistinguishable from any

of the half dozen standard film history texts in use in university classrooms

throughout the country, for the reason that Professor May has almost no

sense of how to treat the aesthetic developments and accomplishments of

early film. As a consequence, May repeats many of the critical cliches even

as he demolishes or radically revises many of the cultural stereotypes of

"official" film history. He often sounds uncomfortably like Gerald Mast with

sentences such as, "At the heart of Griffith's drama was the struggle of

mankind to protect (the) female ideal." It is not that the idea is wrong, but

that it comes out sounding mechanical, sausage-ground textbookese.

Perhaps this major problem with the book also indicates the area of its

most compelling insight and originality: Professor May has a wonderful

• 49
 

138                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

grasp of the inherently mixed nature of the film product and, further, that

film has been inextricably woven into the entire national cultural fabric

almost from the very beginning. May writes confidently about film as a

commodity; advertised, publicized, marketed, consumed. But he also makes

the mistake of all too exclusively considering the commodity dimension of

film as its meaning.

An important chapter of the book is entitled "The New Frontier:

'Hollywood'" and explains in some remarkable detail some of the reasons

that Hollywood became the home of the newly flourishing film industry, not

from the beginning but only some twenty years after, when conditions were

right for the ultimate democratization of wealth and leisure. Hollywood was

(and still is) a real place from which to project the reel myths of a new

corporate order and morality, available to all, as May says, who "have

money and white skin." May's explanation genuinely advances our under-

standing of exactly how Hollywood became the "dream factory."

Finally, it is Professor May's devotion to the smallest facts of social his-

tory which allows him to generalize powerfully about the rise of the film

industry and its impact on contemporary life. A quote from a young actor

named Stephen Stills, delivered before a panel of film executives at the

Harvard Business School in 1925, at the invitation of Joseph Kennedy,

summarizes what is at the heart of Screening Out The Past and why histo-

rians as well as aestheticians and critics have much to learn from this book.

Stills told the panel that movies helped "avoid any revolution against our

economic system" and that the film industry had become an "indispensible

industry" because people now needed release from "monotonous work."

What is fascinating about the quote as well as much of the book is the

degree of self-consciousness in the diagnosis of the new American condition.

 

 

State University of New York                       Stefan Fleischer

at Buffalo

 

 

A Dream of Wings: Americans and the Airplane, 1875-1905. By Tom D.

Crouch. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1981. 349p.; illustra-

tions, notes, bibliography, index. $15.95.)

 

The invention of the airplane-the fulfillment of man's age-old dream of

being able to fly with the birds-is surely one of the major technological

developments of modern times, but historians, while noting that the suc-

cessful flights of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903,

went largely unnoticed in the newspapers of that period, have not done

much better in seeing that this subject receives the attention it so obviously

merits. Tom Crouch, a native of the Wrights' hometown of Dayton and the

Smithsonian's curator of astronautics, goes far to bridge this strange gap in

historical literature with this fascinating account of the numerous indi-

viduals and their work that were part of the lengthy gestation period pre-

ceding Kitty Hawk.

Crouch's study suggests that one reason most of the nation's press ignored

• 50
 

Book Reviews                                                 139

 

the Wright brother's startling achievement was that they had been burned

too many times during the preceding months and years in covering the

activities of others whose claims to have solved some or all of the problems

connected with flying usually were proven to have been exaggerated or

unfounded. The most recent case in point was the ignominious and total

failure earlier in December 1903 of Samuel P. Langley's "Great Aero-

drome," an event that was thoroughly covered by the Washington papers

and widely discussed in Congress and elsewhere in the following months.

Even before he became head of the Smithsonian in 1887, Langley was

recognized as probably America's leading scientist, and thus it was natural

that when he turned in the 1880s to the problems of achieving manned

flight, his work received the maximum attention among his fellow scien-

tists and journalists as aeronautics became a popular subject of discussion.

Langley did not work alone. His reputation and position made him the

center of a group of men who worked with him on the experiments.

A second rallying point for experimenters was Octave Chanute of Chica-

go. Like Langley, Chanute's great fame as a civil engineer led to his being

accorded front rank among aeronautical pioneers when he too, in the 1880s,

began to encourage and sponsor experimentation. In the nineties Boston

was for a time the center of still a third circle of experimenters and enthu-

siasts.

Perhaps the best part of Crouch's study is the manner in which he shows

that the Langley, Chanute, and Boston groups were in frequent com-

munication, exchanging ideas and sometimes personnel, as, for example,

Augustus Herring who, at various times, worked for Chanute and Langley.

All three groups were also in touch with leading European experimenters,

such as Otto Lilienthal.

All this makes the Wright brothers' achievement all the more remark-

able for, although they started their work late in the nineties and received

information from Langley's staff and encouragement from Chanute, they

essentially worked by themselves, relying on their own modest resources.

Quickly discerning the fallacies and misdirections in much of the work of

the established circles of experimenters, they tested their own theories and

within four years made their first flights. That two obscure residents of

Dayton could do what such eminent scientists as Langley and Chanute had

been unable to do undoubtedly created some skepticism regarding the reli-

able nature of the initial reports coming out of Kitty Hawk late in 1903 and

could help explain why the Wrights' work was largely ignored for so many

months.

If there is one major criticism of this otherwise fine book, it is that the

author is so concerned with providing a detailed account of all the aero-

nautical research that took place prior to December 1903 that there is too

much emphasis on the work that failed and not enough on that which

succeeded. A de-emphasis of the wrong-headed work of Langley seems espe-

cially called for to allow more space to explore the development of the

Wright brothers' breakthrough which made a dream a reality.

 

Eastern Michigan University                        George S. May

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