In The Night Battles, Carlo Ginzburg looks at a small group of northeastern Italian people from the area of Friuli who claimed to be ‘benandanti.’ The benandanti, according to their legend, were people born with “the caul,” and battled witches to protect the harvest and people, and to heal people bewitched. A second strand of benandanti claimed to be witness to processions of the dead. Using a small set of inquisition documents to do his microhistory, Ginzburg claims that he can reconstruct the progression of benandanti identity from their perspective from those who battle witches to those who are witches. This new identity was imposed, according to Ginzburg, by the inquisitors who used leading questions and other devices such as fear to convince the accused benandanti into altering their confessions to fit the new model of witchcraft, which can be traced through the confession transcripts. The book contains four chapters and an appendix with a few of the transcripts included for reference. Chapter one introduces the benandanti, their beliefs, and the inquisitors; chapter two describes the benandanti who associate with the dead and traces possible links of origin; chapter three returns to the benandanti and the inquisitors, and to the evolution of the benandanti identity; and chapter four sees the conclusion of the benandanti fitting themselves into the accepted mold of witchcraft.

There is no way Ginzburg can support, with his available evidence, what the true intentions of the benandanti were when they confessed to witchcraft practices. Was it that they became convinced of their own evil, or simply became indoctrinated out of fear and insistence to change stories to fit what they knew the inquisitors wanted regardless of what they knew to be truth? There is simply no way to know if the benandanti were only saying what they felt needed to be said, or if they actually accepted it as truth. Ginzburg does, unfortunately, make a lot of claims that cannot be substantiated. For example, he tells the story of a woman named Anna la Rossa who he admits never claimed to be a benandanti (35). Yet later on, Ginzburg refers to her as one of the benandanti (41 & 43) without ever proving that she was one. If anything, Ginzburg is merely reasserting that many different beliefs had origins in the same pagan traditions, or that ideas filtered through geographical space. In another case, Ginzburg claims that the trances during which benandanti left their bodies were ointment induced or caused by illness (59). Again, this is not something he can adequately support and therefore cannot state it as unquestionable. Regardless of this, Ginzburg’s greatest achievements are two. First, he does a good job in his outlining of the various pagan traditional origins of witchcraft and other cults. Second, he has great success in showing how the inquisitorial process was able to impose beliefs with such effectiveness that people would admit to them even when they knew giving the answer that was desired would surely bring harm to them. It sheds light on the nature of the witch hunts and trials, and the confessions rendered.

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1. The following review was done as part of an assignment and turned in for a grade.

In Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice, Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks examines how Christian and Protestant ideas altered and defined sexuality and sexual behavior. The geographical focus of Wiesner-Hanks extends beyond the European continent. She writes about the colonial experience of Europeans bringing Christianity into Latin America, Asia, Africa, and North America, all of which were already inhabited by groups possessing their own native beliefs about sexuality, the changing of which was not done without challenge and compromise. Reconstructing the pre-colonial world of Latin and North American presents a problem, as Wiesner-Hanks notes, because documents are scarce, and as a result she cannot give a complete description of native beliefs. The first three chapters of the book are loosely chronological within topically based chapters, beginning with Christianity before 1500, then moving on to Protestantism, and finally to Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy. The final three chapters shift to the overseas colonies discussed above.

In investigating sexuality, Wiesner-Hanks looks at how earlier civilizations influenced later ideas of early Christian writers, and then in turn how these Christian writers shaped opinions on marriage, divorce, fornication, prostitution, sodomy, and witchcraft, to name a few. As Wiesner-Hanks traces how these ideas evolved over time, she also compares them to one another, letting readers see not only how ideas shifted over time, but how Catholicism differed from both Protestantism and Orthodoxy. The chapters are short and succinct, but detailed enough that in every case there is a clear picture of the time and group change. The book is more than a mere generalized overview even though its length is small, though some generalization is necessary and involved, because Wiesner-Hanks looks at specifics and fills her pages with one detail after another. As a result, very little space is given to stories or narratives, which perhaps would have been a nice addition to break up her dense fact-based approach. In fact, it is all too easy to get lost or confused within the barrage of facts and details as, for example, Wiesner-Hanks moves from infanticide to women’s bodies to unmarried women and men to craft guilds all in the same two page spread.

That being said, there is a lot that Wiesner-Hanks does not say or does not explain, which leaves one with many questions. For instance, when Wiesner-Hanks discusses the Roman model of marriage and sexuality, she fails to mention that the Romans too had their own form of spiritual virginity in the Vestal Virgins, which would be an interesting parallel to Catholic convent life. In another part of the book, Wiesner-Hanks states that religious wars increased the number of people, both men and women, who worked in prostitution (89). Yet she does not explain how that link is made. In many places she describes a situation or a law but then finishes up with the note that the event was rare or the law was rarely enforced, which makes one wonder why it was ultimately significant to mention. It would be a lot to expect one writer to include every detail or point, so the unstated or unanswered in no way mitigates what a good book Wiesner-Hanks has written on the topic of sexuality and religion.

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David J. Garrow has provided an extensive study of Martin Luther King Jr. and his work within the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in his book Bearing the Cross. With a title that portrays the religious and spiritual aspect of King’s personal civil rights vision, as well as the exhaustive extent of the undertaking that would take its toll on King both physically and mentally, Garrow too has undertaken quite a task in writing his in depth and fact filled study. Using hundreds of sources, in fact over 600 interviews alone, Garrow has compiled a complete record of King’s civil rights journey from the moment he entered the Montgomery Improvement Association’s (MIA) bus boycott all the way to his death. However, the book is about more than just King, and that is one of the greatest strengths of Bearing the Cross. The story is really the story of a wider Civil Rights Movement, one in which King would become a leading figure and icon of. Bearing the Cross is undoubtedly a personal story, and everything within is connected to King in some form be it through his participation, association, support, or opposition. King had so many connections in the Civil Rights Movement that to tell his story is to tell each individual story, which Garrow attempts to do when he delves into subjects such as the Freedom Rides, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Selma, the Voting Rights Act, Northern ghettos, and Vietnam, just to name a few. Not only does this portray just how much momentum the movement had, which grew in fervor and activity as the years progressed, and how large it grew, but also what King himself took on when he shouldered the responsibility of becoming one of the major leaders.

As reviewers David Herbert Donald and William C. Stinchcombe have noted, Garrow misses occasional opportunities to analyze King, and we are therefore sometimes made to take King at face value with just a selection of his decisions or quotes to flesh out his intentions and feelings.² While there are moments when we can see the personality and intentions of King come through his words as he speaks for himself to explain his motivations, especially when he talks about his passion for the Civil Rights Movement and his willingness to die for it, other times are a bit more obscure and we are left to wonder why King did some of what he did. For example, Garrow writes that King had expressed some hesitation to be included on a petition to help activist Carl Braden out of a charge of contempt of court. The wife of Carl, Anne, was disappointed that she would likely not get King’s support. However, King changed his mind and phoned her to ask that she place his name on the petition because he had prayed over it and decided it was right (155). This would have been a perfect time for Garrow to attempt an analysis of the whys of King’s action, yet he does not take advantage of the opportunity to use his vast knowledge of King to explain this change of heart, or why King would put himself in such a politically precarious position by association. Perhaps in the cases where Garrow did not analyze, he hoped that his facts would speak for themselves and he was wary of trying to get into the head of King for fear of making too many assumptions that he could not support.

Yet Garrow attempts to create a narrative out of the intense amount of facts he includes, and this leads him in some cases to make a few assumptions of King that he cannot, or rather does not, substantiate. For instance, in one of the many discussions of the SCLC’s financial mismanagement, Garrow writes that King brushed off the accusations made at the SCLC’s leaders, but felt they were accurate when he truly thought about it (469). Garrow leaves the statement at that and does not attempt to follow up with any evidence to support it. It seems that Garrow is trying to create a more enjoyable story by including elements of intimate understanding, yet they are not always satisfactory and the text is still dense with dates and an intense volume of fact. That is not to say that a reader will come off not knowing who King was. In fact, Garrow is very adept at including aspects of King’s personality and life that many people do not know or consider. There is a definite evolution of character from King’s kitchen revelation (58), to his trip to India where he refined his own method of resistance as he learned more about Gandhi (114), all the way to his ultimate loss of faith in white men and democracy (604). It is also surprising to learn that King, known as such a great rhetorician, often had others write his speeches and chapters in his books. This aspect almost makes it seem as if King was a popular figure speaking out the ideas of groups, and more pessimistically, a pawn of other thinkers since so many of his ideas were molded by others who could influence or persuade him (139). This does not, of course, tarnish his reputation or his much deserved respect, it merely opens up a new facet to King’s overall focus on collectivity. King did, after all, assert many times that he acted for his people and that the movement did not depend on him and would continue on without him, which means there were other thinkers in the background. Also surprising were the revelations Garrow made about King’s misogyny and views on sex (141 & 374-376). King is an icon, certainly, but now also a man who had his own faults, and at times very fatalistic (232).

One other objection to be taken with this novel is its treatment of the NAACP. Garrow is in no way objective when he discusses the animosity that began to grow around the NAACP and King/SCLC. As described by Garrow, the NAACP on various occasions attempted to smear the SCLC or hinder them in their progress in voting rights. The NAACP would naturally take a special exception to King’s assertion that attempting to change the country in front of a judge and appealing for change was not the proper approach, but rather that resistance such as they had been done in Montgomery was vital (87). The two groups had a natural ideological difference. Garrow is unfair in his language, and even goes so far as to include the statement, “With allies like the NAACP, SCLC’s effort had little chance of success” (103). Granted, the NAACP was in conflict with King, Garrow should have exercised a little more neutrality and fairness when discussing these occasions.

A final thing must be said about Garrows endnotes. Though he provides a glossary of his abbreviations in the back of the text, his endnotes are still confusing and hard to sift through. Maybe it is his sheer volume of sources that complicates the system, but it does not help that much of his citations are made up of letter and number combinations. When perusing through to find a source, one must flip back and forth to try to make sense of what is being identified and where to finally find it. Though the short form of the citations clears up space, it leads to too much confusion for students and scholars who may want to follow up on his research. It may seem as if there is nothing good about this book since most of what has been written about it so far has been critical, but the sheer extent of Garrow’s research should be praised. When writing on a figure as big and as important as Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who has had much already written about him, one naturally has an understanding of him that they approach studies of him with. Even lacking in the occasional analysis, Garrow provides a vast array of information that pieces together King’s life into one continuous and chronological story. Even if we do not come off understanding the finer details of King’s mentality, we still see how events flowed along a never ebbing, but wavering line, and how ideas melded and split. It is this dynamic that is important to understanding the larger picture of the Civil Rights Movement. So much is encompassed in Garrow’s story that it is almost too much to read and remember in one reading. Despite some of its faults, it is without a doubt a vital book to the history of African Americans, Civil Rights, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Disclaimer(s):

- More can be found in my Reviews section or on my Biblio page. If you would like to see my book list for 2009, go here.

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1. The following review was part of an assignment and turned in for a grade.
2. David Herbert Donald, “Review: [untitled],” The Journal of Southern History 54, no 1 (February 1988): 135-137; William C. Stinchcombe, “Review: [untitled],” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 19, no. 2 (Autumn 1988): 367-369.

Historians writing of Marcus Garvey and the Garvey movement, according to Claudrena N. Harold, have paid scant attention to the work of the organization in the South. Though the Jim Crow South is not entirely ignored by historians, Harold states that there has yet to be a systematic study of Garveyism’s successes and failures in the urban South (3). Her effort to do so in her book The Rise and Fall of the Garvey Movement in the Urban South, 1918-1942 focuses on three major urban areas in the South: New Orleans, Louisiana; Miami, Florida; and Hampton Roads, Virginia. Not only does Harold intend to document the rise and fall of Garveyism in the three locations she has selected, but also to describe how each branch became individual entities within the larger movement as local communities and culture influenced the manner in which Garveyism was accepted and followed. It is the reception of Garvey’s ideals of racial purity, repatriation, race solidarity, and self-reliance in a cultural context as described by Harold that shows she made an attempt in each case to understand the political and social atmosphere Garveyism was entering as it flowed from its Parent Body in New York down South. Organized on geographical lines rather than chronological, Harold examines her cities one at a time, beginning in each where Garveyism takes off and following through until decline makes fall imminent.

While Harold shows an aptness for understanding cultural context and how this fit within the development of the movement, parts of The Rise and Fall of the Garvey Movement lack in information or description that would provide useful for understanding some of what that cultural make up was. For example, when describing the racial tensions in New Orleans, Harold states that American blacks were in conflict with Creoles of Color, yet she does not expound her point in the text itself to state why there was this racial fission, which would have helped the reader understand the complex scope of the social context UNIA members were enmeshed in (31-32). Instead, Harold pushes back her explanation to the notes for readers to dig out. Yet not every case of the unexplained is satisfied with note page clarification. Harold makes a point that elections of John M. Parker and Andrew McShane created tensions between the government and those working for better labor conditions (33). While it can be derived from this point that Parker and McShane had something to do with the labor movement, and in fact negatively, there is no further information given to explain how and why. It leaves a gap in understanding and Harold does not include information in her notes to fill in the gap left by these men’s names; we have their names and the setting, but not their true significance and therefore must question why they are important to mention at all.

In fact, a good portion of information is placed in the notes section, which varies in length from small sentences to at times being as extensive as multiple paragraphs per note. For the most part it appears that Harold made this a rational choice to keep her story on topic by placing explanatory information in the notes and leaving it out of the text lest the reader begin to lose focus of her intent. She manages to balance a delicate line between telling her story fluidly and fleshing out details by utilizing her endnotes to their purpose. For example, Harold tells the story of a woman named Laura Kofey who becomes quite popular among the Miami Garveyites for her own message of racial purity and repatriation (78). It is stated that there were issues about her fundraising schemes, but then without explanation as to where the controversy lies, Harold moves on to how Garvey and Garveyites reacted to Kofey. It is ultimately unimportant the exact problems people had with Kofey’s fundraising, so Harold leaves it out of her text. However, to satisfy the curiosity of those who want to fill in the blanks, Harold describes in her notes section just where the conflict was centered (149). Though this does not always work for Harold, and in some cases adding the information in the notes to the text instead of leaving in the back of the book would aid in understanding some of the importance of what is being said, as stated above with the example about the NOLA conflict between American blacks and Creoles of Color. Another example comes in when Harold makes mention of Garvey meeting with members of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan group in 1922 (38). She does not illuminate what the meeting was about or what happened, only that it causes contention. The reader must flip back to the notes to find out what the meeting was all about (139). Considering that Harold later places a lot of importance on blacks working with white supremacists in Virginia, it would have expanded on that point more to express that Garvey and Garveyites had been working through this route since early on and more widespread.

Harold leaves a lot of questions unanswered. It is certainly unfair to expect an author to be able to answer every question, especially since not every question can be addressed with available historical evidence. Yet to recognize the existence of the unanswerable question leads historians to new fields of study and sates the curiosity of readers who will ask the questions themselves and feel that the book has left out answers. In acknowledging the questions that still exist for which there are no satisfactory answers, Harold would have closed gaps that may arise in the minds of readers. Yet, effort must be made to fulfill the expectations of readers by giving answers that do exist. For example, Harold writes of the community medical project initiated by NOLA Garveyites of the NOD. In the relatively short section, Harold explains why the project was started and how, but she does not bother to detail ultimately how successful the project was (53). The issue of unaddressed questions and contradictions becomes more problematic later on in the text. Early on in her section on Miami Garveyites, a group made up mostly of Bahamians entering Florida, she points out that a cultural divergence existed between the immigrants and the native African Blacks. The Bahamians saw the natives as submitting to the power of whites because the native blacks were more likely to work within the white power structure (66). Harold does not address how the Miami Garveyites could reconcile this conflict with the fact that they too adopted conservative views in certain respects (72-73). She also fails to recognize the contradiction and difficulty Miami Garveyites faced within their mission statement, which claimed to desire the uniting of Africans all over the globe. Yet, they could not breech the gap between them and native African Americans (82). Her story is therefore a narrative and lacks analysis. The bulk of her sources are secondary, and her major primary source is an edited volume of the Negro World paper, which leads to the question of how much editing was involved in its compiling and how correct her information is

Ultimately, Harold’s greatest achievement is in the way she fused three different stories together as unique examples on one hand, but on the other hand part of the same movement and influenced by some of the same situations such as the end of the Black Star Line and Garvey’s arrest. In all three cases, her argument is that pervading difficulties aside, it was the Great Depression that acted as the true catalyst to the end of Garveyism. In each of the three cases, according to Harold, the Great Depression left such an economic mark throughout the country and changed ideals so much that Garvey’s organization could not be monetarily sustained and people fell out of line with many of Garvey’s points such as self-sufficiency and economic power. The message became irrelevant. The Garvey movement was damaged not only by the internal influences chronicles throughout, but one of many victims of an economic disaster that hurt many. This, of course, calls into question the scope of the title, dates which promise to trace events from 1918 to 1942. Since the Great Depression caused a general decline in the first portion of the 1930s, Harold continues the chronology of her narrative beyond to show how Garveyites used their political training to move on to different causes. Some formed new groups, some joined radical groups, and some grew increasingly supportive of the NAACP. According to Harold, it was the activity of the Garvey movement that trained participants for a political, activist life. In this way, Harold shows the lasting legacy of the Garvey movement to later pushes for civil rights, placing her work within this historical chronology.

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1. The following review was part of an assignment and was turned in for a grade.

The three Punic Wars Rome fought against Carthage were as iconic to the Romans as they are to us. Romans passed on the stories as part of their historical tradition and even threatened their misbehaving kids with Hannibal the way that we do the boogeyman. The most popular of those three wars saw Hannibal crossing the Alps with his elephants, and then proceeding all the way to Rome. Collecting old Roman allies, Hannibal proves that while he is a good tactician, his strategy skills are lacking. Nevertheless, he is the sort of leader than the Romans can respect even as they fear him. Livy pays homage to this war in typical Livy style, less about the battles and maneuvers than about the dynamics and implications. This text is a great deal easier to read than some of Livy’s other writings, complete with dramatic battle scenes and impressive tactics. It is at times emotional, at times heated, and at times you will wonder who the good buy and bad guys are regardless of Livy’s intent (he does, after all, say there is nothing better than being a Roman). Clearly, in the end, the Romans win and fight the good fight.

But before you begin to think that this is a mere make believe story loosely based on fact, think again. You will get a distinct sense of what it means for a Roman to be a Roman, and come to understand the virtues they prized and vices they condemned. Livy also, whether intentional or not, shows us how the Romans saw the outside world and the other peoples surrounding them. Also, within the social and political context, we see events taking place that were true to life and will have lasting impacts on the political order of Rome later. For instance, the ending of the law that limited terms to once every 10 years. By necessity of war, the law had to be thrown out of the proverbial window. This will have a very negative impact on the Republic and contribute to the later chaos with men like Marius.

You’ll love the Romans and feel nothing but awe for Hannibal despite his overall failure… Livy certainly does!

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What can one possibly say about one of the classics of Roman history? Writing in the time of Augustus, Livy was an imperial historian writing about Roman’s foundation and early history. His writing is a combination of truth, rumor, legend, and personal interpretation. To say that Livy has given a direct history of Rome is to give him too much credit, but one has to take into account how history was told then as compared to today. Though Livy’s various stories are interjected with made up speeches and events, and he now and then slips in a statement to legitimize his contemporary world, he still exercises a distinct awareness of source use and interpretation of evidence. Countless times throughout the text Livy compares different accounts of the same event to reach a conclusion, which shows he had a concern for portraying the relative truth to his audience.

Is it sitting around the house pleasure reading? No, definitely not. The audience is students and scholars of Roman history. The language in the text can get a bit confusing and you will find yourself now and then flipping around to sort out the details and events. However, there is a lot going on that is exciting if you can get through the language. You have founders disappearing is clouds, animals dropping from the sky, and Kings killing each other off. It’s exciting! And, of course, it is essential to the study of Roman history. If you want to know Roman history, you have to read Livy sooner or later.
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Gary Forsythe looks at the disputed beginnings of early Rome, tracing its archaic roots through the age of kings and finally to the illustrious Republic. Evidence for much of what he recreates is scarce, and that is particularly what Forsythe wants to address in his very critical work. What we have available, as Forsythe notes, is archeology lacking context and sources such as Livy that contain as much fiction as they truth. Sifting through the sources, Forsythe weights evidence against truth, compares documents, and disputes much of what we know about early Rome.

The book is invaluable to anyone who wants to learn about Rome, and moreso, Roman historiography. However, I think that Forsythe was a bit too extreme in his critical analysis. His constant discussions of reputable sources and information leads one with a wholly unsatisfied feeling. He disputes entirely too much, yet historically we know that he must. In the end, though, as a reader and a student of history I felt like I knew nothing more about Rome. All I knew were the various interpretations and no final conclusion to sum it all up. While this without a doubt speaks to the complexity of early Roman history and the complications of sources to creating an historical narrative.

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Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950 by Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore redefines the standard chronology of the Civil Rights movement, popularly known for its post-WWII activity. Post-WWII civil rights action would culminate in achievement with Brown v. Board of Education and the 1964 and 1965 Acts of President Johnson. As the title of the book indicates, and according to Gilmore, civil rights in fact had far earlier and far more radical origins in Communism, labor, Fascism and anti-Fascism, and the Popular Front. She substantiates her thesis by tracing the activity of these movements, and by placing within them the African Americans and whites involved who both worked together and in opposition to one another to end or continue Jim Crow. The issue of black civil rights is typically isolated to the United States and is considered to be historically a distinct American problem. By highlighting the involvement of radical movements that found their roots in Europe, Gilmore places African American civil rights on an international stage and redefines it within the context of what the world was experiencing and how this weaved into American culture.

Gilmore shows that in America there was an active Communist Party that was focused on illuminating how racism created class differences, and had a purpose to overcome this class inequality by organizing Southern black laborers into a force white supremacists could not reckon with. The CPUSA would become a major player in calling for an end to Jim Crow and white supremacy, and would operate at the same time of the NAACP, whom the communists considered too conservative and bourgeois. The distinction between the two is one where the Communist Party favored direct action and the NAACP preferred legal means to solve issues, and Gilmore states that when placed alongside Communism, the conservative nature of the NAACP is stark (7). In emphasizing this simplistic distinction between the two, Gilmore slights the NAACP of some of its own influence and early contribution. Though less radical in comparison to a system like Communism, the NAACP nevertheless operated within a legal system that was hostile to them. When placed within the cultural context of America in the early 20th century, the NAACP was also radical in its own way because it defied the ‘place’ of the African American, and the organization enjoyed many successes of its own. For example, the NAACP played a major role in the 1923 Moore v. Dempsey decision that strengthened due process and African American’s Constitutional rights. It was not only the Communist Party that took an interest in labor either, though Gilmore makes it seem as if labor was a CPUSA concern only and does not mention that the NAACP was involved in the creation of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first African American labor union (52). Though these successes are certainly not as radical as labor marches through the streets of Gastonia, they are still significant to early civil rights radicalism.

In keeping with the international scope of civil rights and the importance of the Communist Party, Gilmore brings to light that Africa Americans even went to Russia, had audience with Stalin himself, and many even let out sighs of relief to be in a country where they could, for the first time, enjoy life without fear. African American civil rights and Communism are two movements not typically linked together. In placing them together, Gilmore effectively rewrites civil rights history to include world wide involvement. She does similarly with Fascism in the United States. Gilmore reveals that Fascist ideology was intertwined with white supremacy (106), yet Gilmore does not adequately make the connection between the ideologies of Fascism and white supremacy to explain how white supremacists co-opted Fascism into their beliefs. Additionally, Gilmore splits up the influence of Fascism into two different sections, one in which she describes how some Americans embraced it early on, and then how later Fascism became linked with Communism and Nazi policy, and was thereafter largely rejected within America. Gilmore skips from one to the other without describing the intermediate years and how white supremacists that were once Fascist came to reject the ideology. Gilmore makes it clear why they did, but does not trace how or what happened to the former Black Shirt white supremacist American Fascists.

Gilmore focuses her narrative on select people and groups, which allows her to make her points without filling pages with names and events that would have made the monograph dense and less fluid. Through the experiences of her select characters, Gilmore documents the progress of movements and is then allowed to move on with her point made by their examples. As she admits in her introduction, she leaves out a significant portion of people in the South who played major roles in the Civil Rights movement (11). As reviewer Michael Dennis points out, the people ignored “forged precisely the kind of political linkages that defined the popular front and did a good deal more grass roots organizing in the South than Fort-Whiteman.” While leaving out these groups of people and their contributions does not weaken the argument Gilmore is trying to make, adding them would have strengthened her narrative by illustrating the scope of the work the Popular Front involved itself in. While she leaves out some groups and people, she includes other often overlooked players such as Truman’s committee on civil rights, adding another layer to the retelling of conventional civil rights history (409).

Gilmore’s limited focus allows her to incorporate an element of familiarity that makes her story easier and more enjoyable to read. The people involved in the movements she writes about become more than just names, but people with personalities. The emotional connection forged with these people give the book a sense of intimacy. Much like in her previous book, Gender & Jim Crow, Gilmore uses this feeling of familiarity to make assumptions about people’s feelings and motivations that cannot be supported by evidence. For instance, Gilmore assumes that Louise Thompson must have been hiding something about her feelings for African American Communist Lovett Fort-Whiteman (143). She does the same when she attempts to psychoanalyze the reticence of Alain Locke and attributes it to an attraction to the charismatic Langston Hughes (137). These are things that Gilmore herself simply cannot know without personal testimony. In some cases, Gilmore is able to more successfully pull off her personal narratives. When she describes the death of Fort-Whiteman, she adds a touching reflection of his last moments that closes up the extraordinary life of this very unique man (154). It is in moments like those that Gilmore fosters a true emotional connection between her book and the reader. The combination of humanization and the personalization of events with a unique historical interpretation make Defying Dixie an essential book on the civil rights movement. Defying Dixie adds a new layer to the understanding of how the civil rights movement progressed, and what influenced the later movement. While it does not rewrite the entirety of the movement, it inserts a new level that should not be overlooked.

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Sweet Smell of Decay bt Paul Lawrence (Won in a contest)
With The Sweet Smell of Decay, Paul Lawrence introduces us to a memorable fictional creation, Harry Lytle, in the first of a new series entitled The Chronicles of Harry Lytle. Firmly located in Restoration England, these are universally enjoyable novels which combine wonderful period detail and atmosphere with a riveting page-turning quality. It’s London,1664, and Harry has a big problem. He’s just discovered he has a young cousin, Anne Giles, and he’s had the pleasure of meeting her for the first time – mutilated and laid out on the slab for an autopsy. His father has tasked him with job of tracking down Anne’s murderer. Harry has some robust assistance from one David Dowling, a resourceful and impressively well-built, but equally hygiene-deficient, butcher. Together they follow a trail of blood, conspiracy and corruption that takes them to the dark and murky corners of Restoration London, featuring a great cast of ne’er-do-wells, cheeky wenches, harmless witches, likeable villains, and not a few unsavoury fellows keen on sending Lytle and his companion to an early grave.

Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis (Paperbackswap)
If Travis McGee traveled in time back to treacherous, civilized Rome in 72 A.D., he might be something like Marcus Didius Falco. Appearing in his sixth adventure, the resourceful, bantering court investigator, who is graced with more humor than his south Florida counterpart and who hates injustice without being a drone about it, is such a regular guy that it’s easy to forget he’s not speaking figuratively when he talks about the latest model of chariot. Falco was denied a promised promotion into the upper class by the emperor Vespasian after his last escapade (in Poseidon’s Gold), a promotion required for him to marry his lover, the patrician Helena Justina. To get out of town with Helena, he takes on a job for one of the emperor’s less trustworthy underlings, heading for Syria to do a little snooping; at the same time he’s also on the lookout for a runaway girl who may have been kidnapped by a Syrian. While sightseeing, Falco and Helena discover, in a cistern, the body of a playwright who had been with an acting troupe out of Rome. For various reasons, Falco and Helena sign on with the troupe in order to find the killer, with Falco taking on the little appreciated duties of the playwright for cover. Accompanying the troupe on their travels, readers get a history lesson they may wish they had had in high school, all the while being treated to a polished narrative.

Voodoo Season by Jewell Parker Rhodes (Paperbackswap)
Medicine and voodoo may seem at odds, but Marie Levant, first-year resident at New Orleans’s Charity Hospital, discovers she has a gift for more than one kind of healing. Rhodes develops this theme to full advantage in her second book (after Voodoo Dreams) about this descendant of Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen. Strange forces are at work in the humid heat, and Marie is plagued by disturbing dreams and the sense that she has lived this life before. She employs her inner strength and feminist powers in pursuit of the murderer of the gentle and handsome young man who shared her bed one evening, awakening feelings she had too long ignored. Marie’s mother fled to Chicago when she was small and cleaned houses to survive. When the mother died mysteriously, the daughter went into foster care. Events intensify with Marie’s delivery of a dead girl’s living baby. She feels herself the mother and resolves to find the baby’s origins. Rhodes’s tale of spiritual empowerment and prophetic vision reveals the practice of voodoo as good as well as evil. Nonbelievers along with the initiated will be riveted throughout.

Signora Da Vinci by Robin Maxwell (Paperbackswap)
Maxwell (Mademoiselle Boleyn) re-creates Renaissance Italy in splendid detail, but fails to deliver a convincing narrative in her tale of da Vinci’s mother, Caterina, an apothecary’s daughter who is schooled from an early age in the art of alchemy. At 14, Caterina falls in love with Piero da Vinci, an older man above her station. After he promises to marry her, they make love, and the seed of the great artist is planted. But their plans doesn’t work out: Piero’s family forbids him from marrying Caterina and later takes baby Leonardo from his unwed mother. Leonardo is not treated well by the da Vinci family, but in his occasional visits to the apothecary shop, precocious Leonardo thrives. Soon his skillful drawings compel Caterina to seek an artist’s apprenticeship for Leonardo in Florence, where he matures into a highly accomplished artist. Caterina misses him so terribly that she plans a hard-to-imagine reunion that changes her life in unbelievable ways. While the setting and known events of the artist’s life are meticulously rendered, the plot relies too much on suspension of disbelief.

Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz (Paperbackswap)
Cruz has revamped traditional vampire lore in this story featuring a group of attractive, privileged Manhattan teens who attend a prestigious private school. Schuyler Van Alen, 15, the last of the line in a distinguished family, is being raised by her distant and forbidding grandmother. Schuyler, her friend Oliver, and their new friend Dylan are treated like outsiders by the clique of popular, athletic, and beautiful teens made up of Mimi Force, her twin brother, and her best friend. What they have in common is the fact that they are all Blue Bloods, or vampires. They don’t realize that they aren’t normal until they reach age 15. Then the symptoms manifest themselves and they begin to crave raw meat, have nightmares about events in history, and get prominent blue veins in their arms. Their immortality and way of life are threatened after Blue Blood teens start getting murdered by a splinter group called the Silver Bloods. This novel constantly name-drops and is full of product placements, drinking, drugs, nonexplicit sex, and superficial characterizations, but the intriguing plot will keep teens reading. De la Cruz’s explanation for the disappearance of the Colony of Roanoke is unique and the idea that models don’t gain weight because they are Blue Bloods rather than anorexic is unusual.

Cicero by Anthony Everitt (Paperbackswap)
Using Cicero’s letters to his good friend Atticus, among other sources, Everitt recreates the fascinating world of political intrigue, sexual decadence and civil unrest of Republican Rome. Against this backdrop, he offers a lively chronicle of Cicero’s life. Best known as Rome’s finest orator and rhetorician, Cicero (103 -43 B.C.) situated himself at the center of Roman politics. By the time he was 30, Cicero became a Roman senator, and 10 years later he was consul. Opposing Julius Caesar and his attempt to form a new Roman government, Cicero remained a thorn in Caesar’s side until the emperor’s assassination. Cicero supported Pompey’s attempts during Caesar’s reign to bring Rome back to republicanism. Along the way, Cicero put down conspiracies, won acquittal for a man convicted of parricide, challenged the dictator Sulla with powerful rhetoric about the decadence of Sulla’s regime and wrote philosophical treatises. Everitt deftly shows how Cicero used his oratorical skills to argue circles around his opponents. More important, Everitt portrays Cicero as a man born at the wrong time. While Cicero vainly tried to find better men to run government and better laws to keep them in order, Republican Rome was falling down around him, never to return to the glory of Cicero’s youth. A first-rate complement to Elizabeth Rawson’s Cicero or T.N. Mitchell’s monumental two-volume biography, Everitt’s first book is a brilliant study that captures Cicero’s internal struggles and insecurities as well as his external political successes.

(Paperbackswap)
In this Edgar Award-nominated mystery, John Maddox Roberts takes readers back to a Rome filled with violence and evil. Vicious gangs ruled the streets of Crassus and Pompey, routinely preying on plebeian and patrician alike, so the garroting of a lowly ex-slaved and the disembowelment of a foreign merchant in the dangerous Subura district seemed of little consequence to the Roman hierarchy. But Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger–highborn commander of the local vigiles–was determined to investigate. Despite official apathy, brazen bribes, and sinister threates, Decius uncovers a world of corruption at the highest levels of his government that threatens to destroy him and the government he serves.

The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova (Won in a contest)
The Swan Thieves revisits certain themes and strategies of The Historian, chief among them an academic hero who is drawn into a quest for knowledge about the central mystery, only to develop an obsession that becomes the driving force of the plot. Each chapter marks a point of view shift from the previous one, with the narrative shared among a variety of characters telling the story in a variety of ways. The events range from the present moment back to the 19th century of the painters Beatrice de Clerval and her uncle Olivier Vignot, whose intertwined lives, letters, and paintings are at the heart of the story.This time out, Kostova’s central character, Andrew Marlow, has a license to ask prying questions as he unravels the secrets and pursues the truth, because he is a psychiatrist. (Before Freud, genre quest novels depended on sleuths like Sherlock Holmes to play this role.) Even though Marlow comes across as a sensible, trained therapist, after only the briefest of encounters with his newly hospitalized patient, the renowned painter Robert Oliver, Marlow develops an obsessive desire to solve the mystery of why Oliver attempted to slash a painting in the National Gallery. Marlow is himself a painter, and the Oliver case has been given to him because of his knowledge of art. But Oliver is uncooperative and mute, though he conveniently gives Marlow permission to talk to anyone in his life before falling silent. Oliver’s inexplicable behavior, which includes poring over a stolen cache of old letters written in French, triggers what I can only call a rampant countertransference response in Marlow, whose overwhelming obsession becomes a strange and frequently far-fetched journey of discovery as he persists to the point of trespass and invasion. Is this the crossing of the ultimate border promised by the ARC’s jacket copy, the enactment of the fantasy of one’s therapist developing an obsessive fascination that blots out all other reality?

Gender & Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920 by Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore approaches the postbellum disenfranchisement of African American men and the accompanying racism and violence through the lens of gender history. Though the title is misleading in that it speaks of women and their involvement with politics and white supremacy, it is not merely a work of women’s history. Gilmore actually encompasses more than just the stories and accounts of women in her study. In staying true to gender history, Gilmore constructs narratives that illustrate the changing social perceptions of femininity and masculinity in North Carolina following the Reconstruction, and then further divides gender by race lines. In doing so, she presents an illuminating image of how gender and race became linked, describing how it defined both whites and blacks, and how race came to define gender expectations and cultivated racial stereotypes. Finally, she describes how racist ideas became the backbone for an exclusionary policy that would remove political power and much upward mobility from blacks, ushering in the age of Jim Crow law. Gilmore’s study gives to historians a new way to look at the justifications of Jim Crow because it establishes an evolving social perception of what separated blacks from whites and how ideas of race were constructed to the disfavor of black Americans. Throughout, she links everything to women and how they were perceived, treated, and personally acted, which makes this book a good addition to women’s history, as well as to the wider scope of gender history.

The narrative in Gender & Jim Crow focuses on a prominent African American family, the Petteys. From humble origins, Charles and Sarah Pettey were icons of the promises of Reconstruction and freedom. Educated and bold proponents of black enfranchisement and rights, they encompassed the hopes of their generation that they too could obtain an equal standing with whites, and are representative of that overall optimism. One of the greatest strengths of Gender & Jim Crow is how Gilmore uses the Pettey family to illustrate just how divergent the social ideals of blacks and whites were at the time, and how Jim Crow stunted the progress of many deserving and intelligent blacks. Gilmore expresses perfectly the dynamics of how social ideas come from history and experience by stating that blacks shared a tradition of relative gender egalitarianism, which allowed black women to become more prominent than white women were allowed to be within the patriarchal restrictions of their separate society. In doing so, Gilmore is able to present a very telling picture of how both distinct groups defined their own identity, and just what elements made up those identities. While these concepts are by no means new, Gilmore is clear cut and yet unique in her gender and sexually based approach.

By paying enough attention to the workings of the Pettey family, their ups and their downs, the book is intimately presented and is a compelling and interesting read. The firsthand accounts within give life to the story rather than have it rendered through fact and theory alone. However, limiting the focus of a book to a small group can distort the scope of the facts and lead to misinterpretations of the general overall experience since not everyone shared in the same events, emotions, and fortunes. One person’s experiences are not common to all. Gilmore avoids that trap successfully by incorporating the firsthand accounts of other blacks and whites, so her book neither distorts the scope of her subject nor presents a severely limited picture too small in scale to be a major part of larger political and social happenings. There is a range of personalities, conflicting and coming together, to round out the Pettey family. Lower class African Americans are, however, severely unrepresented. So much less vocal, and often times unable to leave behind a documentary trail through writing, the volumes of information left behind by educated, higher class African Americans dim their voices. The hardships endured by the lower class, and the natural limitations of people without money or sufficient education, would make their stories much less dramatic, but they were still impacted by Jim Crow and certainly had something to say. After all, the title of the book does not say it is only about middle class blacks, and lower class whites are discussed in depth. Gilmore does the same by including details about the black experience throughout the Deep South, letting readers know that her focus remains in North Carolina, which was not representative of the entire south.

In working with people and their intimate experiences, there are other traps. One of these traps Gilmore succumbs to, but is largely able to justify doing so. When becoming close to a group of people in such a personal subject, there is a tendency to make assumptions about people’s feelings and motivations, which cannot be known unless explicitly stated and not confirmed because these people cannot be asked. For example, with a flair of psychohistory, Gilmore states that white supremacist Thomas Dixon Jr. focused so much on sexuality and the mixing of races because he could not come to terms with the sexuality of the pure white Southern woman, especially his mother. There is no way for Gilmore to know the inner insecurities of Dixon. In other cases of these assumed motivations and feelings, Gilmore is amply able to substantiate them with quotes and actions that illustrate how inner feelings were projected into outward action. For instance, Gilmore looks at the actions of more aggressive blacks and attempts to get into their heads to define the root of their anger and what they hoped to achieve. While Gilmore can never know their inner workings, she does validate her insights by using examples of how blacks defied the limitations placed on them and acted contrary to what was expected of them as an outlet and a show of their own freedom and rights, even if this meant walking on a sidewalk or jabbing with an umbrella.

Gender & Jim Crow is well documented with a vast collection of primary and secondary sources. Personal papers, interviews, and newspaper articles make up the bulk of primary sources, but there are also annual reports, directories, convention meeting minutes, legal documents, and official reports used. Primary sources make up the majority of her sources, which allows her analysis to be driven by original interpretation. Context is strengthened by the use of many secondary sources, and Gilmore makes good use of the scholarship available to corroborate her facts with setting. However, there is not a great deal of recent scholarship used, at least very little within the decade that had preceded the book’s publication. Gilmore neglects what recent scholars may have said on her subject and could have enriched her own study with more updated findings.

So many people assume that Jim Crow was an almost immediate after effect of the freeing of slaves. It is thought that a nearly instantaneous disenfranchisement stopped the possible progress of promising African Americans before they even had a chance to start. Gilmore’s study turns this understanding around and presents a different perspective: African Americans enjoyed a brief period of progress, albeit never entirely unrestricted or without negative feelings from whites. This insight is vital to understanding Jim Crow because it makes even more devastating just what was taken away from African Americans, and just how far they were marginalized. It shows what was truly denied them, and in doing so, it humanizes the subject. Gilmore is also adept at showing how African Americans created new political avenues to give to history an understanding of how blacks adapted to their surroundings and fought for influence such as black women did with Progressive community action. One of the greatest strengths of Gender & Jim Crow is that Gilmore really makes a reader feel the sadness, the frustrations, and the anger coming from both sides. It is not merely a history text, but a story full of unique people. This makes Gender & Jim Crow something that both a scholar and a casual reader can enjoy and understand.¹

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Disclaimer(s):

- More can be found in my Reviews section or on my Biblio page. If you would like to see my book list for 2009, go here.

- If you would like me to review your book, send an email to me at morbidromantic@gmail.com. Read my Book Review Policy for more information.

1. The following review was done as part of a graded assignment and was turned in accordingly.