history

Well, I'm glad I tackled it! I rank it alongside biographical masterpieces like Edmund Morris's two-volume biography of Teddy Roosevelt and Ron Chernow's biography of Rockefeller. Simply put, this is one of the best books I've ever read.

For anyone interested in the WWII era, or generally the history of America in the first half of the 20th century, this is MUST reading.

James B. Hagerty
Cincinnati Ohio

Frazier's style is almost telegraphic through certain passages where each consecutive sentence includes a story in miniature about some member of the family during a particular historical time-slice. For the most part this works as a way of imparting a lot of information in a condensed package and suggesting much more than is actually told.

The chapters of the book that I found the least interesting were those concerning the Civil War. Two of Frazier's Wickham ancestors happened to be participants in several pivotal battles, most notably Chancellorville. Frazier devotes a great many pages to Stonewall Jackson because the Confederate general's deathbed words ("Let us cross the river and find rest in the shade of the trees") come to represent the most important theme in American history for Frazier. He makes a case for the hypothesis that a belief in salvation and a promised land were the organizing principle for his ancestors and the gradual dimunition of that faith is at the root of our collective modern malaise. It seems like a hypothesis worth fleshing out, although not by supplying so many details about several Civil War battles.

It's pretty hard to say why, but let me give it a shot: the way his writing conveys his affection for his near family and his ancestors without losing his sense of humour about them. (Ian Frazier started out as a humor writer.) His beautiful descriptions of the countryside he travels through, country you might otherwise think was much worth looking at. His wonderful details about his family history make you feel like everyone's family is important.

Since I first read this book, I have developed a true genealogy fixation, trying to recapture the feeling Frazier invokes in this wonderful book. I wish he would write more.

Maj Lee had to scrounge supplies from the Army, Air Force, Navy, the CIA, and even rations from the Australians.
The bravery of the helicopter pilots is described in some detail. He rode with one pilot on a mission that got the pilot the Navy Cross. Maj Lee got no award, even though he was right behind the pilot the whole time.
Maj Lee went on several missions himself, so has detail memory of those events. A tiger was around on one of their patrols, keeping everyone awake.
The lack of security of B-52 missions was discussed. Many were wasted as the North Vietnamese were told days in advance that a target was to be bombed, so they got out of the way.
Effects of B-52 raids is described, as his unit went to see the after affects of the bombings in his sector. When they did hit something, the carnage was great.
The book describes a group of very brave men, doing a very difficult mission. They knew that the U.S. was pulling out of Vietnam, and could have coasted, but did not.

The second half of the book, while still engrossing, is a less comprehensive historic analysis of drug use and prohibition. Courtwright concentrates on economics at the expense of culture, emphasizing production and commerce rather than demand and moral opposition. Given the enormous social influences in the modern world, such as the American cultural war against 60's drug use and the pervasive use of alcohol and tobacco as social tools, the emphasis on money and power over cultural forces in the past strikes me as an incomplete analysis. It leads the author to unconvincingly argue that American prohibition and its repeal were primarily the results of economic interests (a "contradiction of capitalism"). Oddly, the same events in the Soviet Union are attributed to "popular resistance", without any comparative discussion of the two nations. Finally, the value of pleasure and the concept of individual rights are generally neglected.

In the end, my main problem with is that Courtwright doesn't give culture the excellent and amusing treatment he gives commerce. I can think of worse things to say about a book.

Courtwright also doesn't fail to mention that, even though with best intentions, scientists around the 1800's and the turn of the century were also responsible for some of the most addictive substances. Your jaw will drop when you read who devolped heroin and what is was originally used for.

Fun, informative, and mind blowing reading.

Teach your children well....

These are not fancy dancy books, but basic down to earth helpful information that the modern homesteaders we know still use. And the section on snake lore is informative as well as enchanting. Same with the section on moonshine.

And for those like ourselves who have designed and are in the slow process of building our dream homes or cottages the section on chimney building is one of the best we have ever read or used.

I also will add that the used copy we bought via Amazon,com to replace another copy we gave away, arrived in mint condition. If you haven't bought used books via Amazon.com you are missing out on a money saving gem.

Thankfully, the old ways of Appalachian country living are preserved in these interesting and relevant instructional books. If you've ever been interested in how rural Americans survived before the days of Wal-Mart and Shoprite, you only have to look to the Foxfire books.

These books are very useful and informative. They come with plenty of diagrams and photos to teach you how to live off the land. Before the advent of trailer homes and double-wides, rural Americans had to build log homes. Before satellite TV and Playstations we had banjos and ghost stories. And before welfare, people were self-sufficient and could live off the land.

Not only can these books teach you about country living, they are handy for any writers or researchers who want details on Appalachian mountain life. There are lots of monologues and stories told by old-timers here. In many cases the living language of these folks is preserved quite well, and by reading their stories you almost feel like you're with them.

-- JJ Timmins

The text is Don Lynch at his story-telling finest. His comparison of the 1912 sinking to the disaster of September 11, which occured while the Cameron dive was in full swing, is especially powerful.

This book is likely the best that will ever be published on Titanic as she is today - alone, rusted and dead on a seabed, yet wonderfully alive, lost but fantastically found, inhabitated now only by ocean life and, yes, as one is convinced from the extraordinary images, by a great many ghosts.

Having previously read the detailed accounts of lunar surface activities contained in the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal -- a web resource that documents the mission transcripts with a commentary -- it was a delight to read Harland's travelogue-style approach. The extremely lucid narrative really succeeds at putting the astronauts activities into context, with lunar geology being the scientific theme. One feels at times as though one is standing just a few feet away from the moonwalkers as they cope with the pressures of trying to perform work in the limited time available, the frustrations of apparatus not working as planned, and the exhilaration of surprise discoveries.

Supplementing the text are numerous maps, photos and some excellent assembled panoramas mosaicked specifically for this book. Appendices list the missions, the crews, and the moonrock samples described in the text. A glossary of geological terms and a description of all of the lunar surface experiments will be helpful to the non-geologist, non-scientist reader alike.

One will not likely find a better book on the subject of planetary field geology. Perhaps this ought to be required reading for the people who will someday return to the Moon.

Astronomer Patrick Moore provides the Foreword, and Apollo 15 Commander David Scott the Afterword to this exceptional work. Even the learned Dr. Moore, who has studied the Moon for many years, admits that he's learned new things from this book.

Having studied the lunar surface activities of the Apollo astronauts for some years now, I must say that this book is a must-have for any serious

Apollo buff. I'm sure that I'll be referring to my dog-eared copy for many years to come.

If you want to know what people did on the Moon, and why they did those things, read this book. I very highly recommend it.

Overall a really terrific book, but nevertheless, I agree with some other reader's criticisms:

1. The basic geological terms and principles should have been explained to laymen throughout the first half of the book. So much of the wonder and excitement of the adventure is dependent on a thorough understanding of what the scientists were searching for. Patient readers (like me) will wade through and learn "the hard way" (checking the glossary often) but Harland could have made the book a smoother ride with a little more "teaching."

2. The pictures could definitely be better. In particular, every mission should have a detailed traverse map up front with all craters and landmarks noted that are mentioned in the text. I found that I had to supplement the book with charts and photos from the internet in order to properly follow along.

That's it! I've learned a tremendous amount and am grateful to the author for making me into more of an expert on a subject that I have always loved.

It is true that a lot of geological concepts are thrown at the reader from the beginning and those (like myself) who have no previous background in geology might be intimidated but I find that a careful reading of the excellent glossary contained in the book should give enough background to make the science generally accessible. Harland makes clear why the various landing sites were chosen and what the geological issues were that were to be investigated. Traverse maps showing the various geological features to be explored are included for each mission. The many photographs presented illustrate the main discoveries and their significance. Of special note are the panoramas personally assembled by Harland (which are also available on the internet's Apollo Lunar Surface Journal) which give a stunning view of the Lunar environment as the astronauts saw it.

Finally, I strongly urge someone who finds himself becoming more interested in the subject of Lunar geology to also read Don Wilhelm's "To a Rocky Moon" which presents the historical development of our ideas about the Moon up through the famous Kona Conference in 1984 which determined that the Moon was probably created due to a giant body impacting with the fledgling Earth and also Paul Spudis' "The Once and Future Moon" which gives a summary of our state of knowledge up to the mid-1990's and directions for future exploration.

In addition, historically important works of art (engravings and paintings) are reproduced - although unfortunately none in color. The captioning is - for a work of this scope and size, and for illustrations of such power - inconsistent and therefore disappointing, though.

Because it's published by an academic press, I expected a more careful and rigorous treatment. Books of this scope and ambition are few and far between, and one treasures the illustrations - the historic visual record - in and of itself. It's dicey to criticize a collection that has as its focus such a compelling (and neglected) subject: the history of African American women.

The subject matter is terrific - but the book is less so. One wishes that the editors had had an editor. (Why, for example, is the "b" of "black" capitalized? To my knowledge this is not conventional usage, and it detracts.)

So what happened? At times the work seems rushed. For example, three people are photographed, two are identified by name, the third called "unknown." In fact, the writer means "unidentified." Accompanying a photo of a shoeless farm worker is the caption telling one, redundantly, that she is barefoot. A number of captions identify the subject as "Unidentified woman, [location, date.]" That seems lifted directly from states' historical societies' archives. One expects more - or less - but not words that merely interfere with one's experience. One does not need to be told that a photograph is a "photograph."

Occasionally, the editors engage in assumptions regarding the illustrations that, in my view, interfere with the power of the imagery, and reduce the value of this compilation. Guessing as to the subjects' activities in a photograph by Jack Delano, they write that a woman and several children are "possibly waiting for the husband and father to get his hair cut." In fact, one cannot know, and do not need to know, what the people were doing that day. The photo is about much more than that. Another incredible photo of a woman and a girl is accompanied by more guesswork as to the relationship of the subjects (mother and daughter?). There is wordiness to many of the captions. Worst case, there is sometimes unintentional patronization: subjects are identified as "lovely young women," (p. 81) or "fashionable," "attractive" (p.4). The end result is a sense that this book was rushed, and that - despite the impressive pool of archival material from which it was assembled - some corners were cut. The editors use interesting and illuminating quotations in places - but meagerly. There is brief index of names of subjects, and names of quoted women, omitting place names and more.

I wish that the authors of this work either done more, or less. Mostly, I wish that they had more convincingly respected the ability of these powerful and important illustrations to speak clearly to the reader, and had also trusted readers to make the connections between text and visual imagery that is so satisfying and essential to the meaningful experience of organized archival material.

This is the book that describes this and many other pictures of the Gettysburg battlefield, many depicting dead men or horses. Many of these photographs are famous in the sense that they are used frequently in civil books and now in documentaries. Frassanito demonstrates convincingly that several of these frequently used photographs are mislabeled, generally to make the photographs seem more interesting and therefore more saleable.

Frassanito was an intelligence analyst during the Vietnam War and won the Bronze Star. I feel that only from a lot of practice analyzing photographs during the war could he have developed the skill needed to make the many clever observations in this book. Clearly, his wartime experiences left their mark in other ways as well. He frequently loses the detached air of a historian and reminds his readers of the horrors the subjects of the photographs must have experience. For example, he describes how rapid decomposition bloated the bodies immediately after the battle and how in some instances forced open the corpses' trouser buttons. "Thus the trousers on the soldier seen here were most likely open before his body was dragged to this position, the dragging action forcing them down below his hips. Here then was a young man who, only three days prior... full of life...But by July 5... was just another nameless corpse, his faced pressed against the earth, his exposed buttocks, once carefully hidden in accordance with the vanities of civilization, a sign of war's ultimate glory."

This book has the potential to make you feel like an expert on the battle of Gettysburg. If you read this book, you will recognize misidentified photographs in even some of the best documentaries. Further, you will be able to find the locations most of these photos with the aid of this book, even those in less frequently visited portions of the battlefield.

I would recommend all of Frassanito's books to Civil War buffs, but this one above all. The section on the Rose Woods photographs is brilliant, more so than even the passage that earned a marker at Devil's Den.

William Frassanito raised such issues to the level of scholarly inquiry, and through painstaking research wrote the story of the Gettysburg photographs. We now know what and who we are looking at, and on which portion of the battlefield. This book and his companion volume on the Antietam photographs are indispensable for any serious student of the Civil War in the East.