Deadly Diamonds by John Dobbyn - Book Review

Deadly Diamonds by John Dobbyn (Oceanview Publishing, September 3, 2013, 304 pages, $26.95) is the fourth in the Knight and Devlin series of mystery thrillers set in Boston. The plot revolves around the abduction of Kevin O'Byrne, the spoiled son of a Boston Irish mob boss Frank O'Byrne, who has apparently taken a joy ride in the new Cadillac of an Italian gangster only to discover the dead body of one of the thug's capos in the trunk. Kevin is soon indicted for the murder, placing Knight under greater pressure, as Kevin's attorney to free him. Soon, a beloved Monsignor named Matt Ryan, a long-time associate and friend of Lex Devilin, is maliciously accused of child molestation. A former mafia Don and friend of both Devlin and Ryan, Dominic Santangelo, helps the two lawyers understand some of the dynamics of the hot situation. The plot reveals itself through relatively snappy, idiomatic crook-lawyer-priest dialog seeming to ape that learned at Mario Puzo's knee with maybe a little Dennis LeHane, before he learned to write, thrown in. There are also at least two specific nods in the text to writer Lee Childs and his literary character Jack Rusher. The writing is pretty derivative, devoid of real tension and excitement. As the plot develops, Knight determines that the crime cannot be solved without his taking a trip to Ireland.

Change of scene and flashback to Sierra Leone. Yes, you read it right, Sierra Leone in West Africa. A nine year old village boy named Bantu is kidnapped by a rebel militia and put to work as a slave in the diamond pits of eastern Sierra Leone, where he works under hellish conditions for nine years before taking a chance to escape to Mogadishu where he finds a sponsor and is suddenly on a plane to London to help negotiate the sale of a million dollars worth of blood diamonds to an Irish dealer. Yes, the native boy is now a cool, collected, and competent negotiator in million dollar deals which fuel his hopes of rescuing his enslaved brother and father, neither of whom he's seen in ten years. Not exactly a credible transition.....

Meanwhile, back in Boston, Michael takes time off for a romantic evening with his true love Terry O'Brien, adding an unnecessary complication and a signal of more episodes to come as they spend a dreamy evening becoming engaged. Terry never makes another appearance in the book, probably saving her from some sort of indignity. Dobbyn hits all the Boston hot button issues – race, religion, ethnicity and even takes a swipe at sports. It's probably worth a few hours on the beech, especially if you're out on the Cape. Otherwise, the plot defies verisimilitude at so many levels it's difficult to take seriously. This is too bad, since the issue of the human suffering growing from the harvest of illegal diamonds in West Africa is serious and needs both good journalistic and fictional approaches to realizing its horrors.

John F. Dobbyn

 

John F. Dobbyn went to Boston Latin School and Boston College School of Law. A native of Boston, he has served as a professor of law at Villanova Law School since 1969. He and his wife, Lois, live in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Dobbyn is also the author of Frame-Up.

Deadly Diamonds by John Dobbyn (Oceanview Publishing, September 3, 2013, 304 pages, $26.95) was made available to me as an electronic galley through Net Galley. I read it on my Kindle.

The Men Who Lost America by Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessey - Book Review

The Men Who Lost America: BritishLeadership, The American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire (The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-C) by Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy (Yale University Press, 2013, 480 Pages, $37.50) approaches the history of the American Revolution from a perspective few Americans ever get a chance to see, understand, or appreciate. The reader is introduced to a number of military and political personalities usually seen as representing a tyrannical government far removed from nation growing out of thirteen separate colonies owing allegiance to the British crown, governed lightly by mother land dependent upon it as a market as well as a source of raw materials who primarily sought to garner enough taxes from it to recoup the costs of maintaining a presence there and protecting its frontiers from marauding Indians, the French, and the Spanish. It asks and answers the questions “Were we a good as we think were?” and “Were they as bad as we've been led to believe?”

In order to tell the story through the lives of a number of British leaders, the author must cover much of the same ground from slightly different perspectives several times, making the narrative somewhat repetitive. By looking at King George III, Parliament, and several military and naval leaders, he details the problems each faced as well as the commitments they sought to maintain as they undertook to serve the interests of their nation. He also pictures the degree to which many of those men felt deep sympathy towards America, led important and productive careers which were illustrious before the Revolution and continued afterwards, and were thoughtful, resourceful, skilled men operating in a difficult economic, military and political environment. He shows the degree to which heated political rhetoric and personal ambition, so familiar to us in our our own sharply divided political environment today, often does not serve the purposes of effective problem solving.

King George III

 

In TheMen Who Lost America, the narrative reveals King George III as a knowledgeable and thoughtful person who believed strongly in the prerogatives of his position and the primacy of the British Empire. He viewed retaining the colonies as essential to maintaining the strength of his Empire. He was, nevertheless, aware of where his political strength lay, demanding and earning the respect and obedience of his ministers in the government. His early career shows him as a man of the enlightenment with many of the beliefs and attitudes similar to those fomenting revolution in America. He was deeply conservative, personally frugal, relatively approachable, acting as the defender of national honor and the role of the monarchy. He was the last politically powerful monarch in Britain. Lord North, George III's Prime Minister through much of long reign, emerges as a brilliant debater and parliamentary tactician filled with doubts about the war and his ability to conduct it. He sought to resign from the government a number of times due to his doubts about pursuing the American adventure.

Military and Naval figures like brothers General and Admiral Howe, Burgoyne, Clinton, Lord Cornwallis, Admiral Rodney, and others are shown as innovative and creative military leaders who had deep experience and great expertise. Contrary to what we are often taught, the British military had developed fighting skills to counter the guerrilla style warfare of the rebels, were well trained, and often quite effective. With few exceptions, British military won more battles than they lost, successfully capturing Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, and Savannah. Their success, however, often became a problem as they were not provided with the personnel or material resources to maintain garrisons in all the places they occupied. Their major losses (Saratoga, Kings Mountain, and Yorktown) occurred where their supply lines were stretched too far. Meanwhile, George Washington brilliantly fought a war of attrition. The book emphasizes the lack of unanimity in prosecuting the war at all levels of power and influence in Britain. There were mixed levels of support in Parliament, the military, the press, and amongst the populace for what the British saw as a civil war.

Frederick Lord North

 

The British loss of America was a result of a number of causes. The size of the American territory made it impossible for the British Army and Navy to occupy and blockade the entirety of the continent given their scarce and divided resources. They believed they would triumph with the aid of what they believed to be significant loyalist support, which turned out not to be present and to become less fervent as the war continued and the intrusiveness of the British military became more odious. The Revolution became increasingly popular in America as time wore on. The unconventional warfare waged by citizen soldiers became increasingly difficult to oppose. The increasing effectiveness of the central government added strength to the American cause. The British forces were active in too many many theaters (America, the Caribbean, India, Gibraltar, France, Spain, etc.) to concentrate sufficient forces in America and their supply lines back to Britain and to the beleaguered Caribbean islands were too long. The increasing power of the press in England weakened support for a foreign war, while General Washington's skill wore down the British forces in America. Finally, O'Shaughnessy suggests that the loss of America preserved the rest of the British Empire in India, Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean into the 20^th century.

Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy

  Author Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, a dual citizen of both the United States and Great Britain, is the Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello and Professor of History at the University of Virginia, providing him with a unique perspective from which to view the development and history of both countries. While the title of the book and its organization emphasizes the men (and they were all men) involved in the struggle to maintain a united British Empire, O'Shaughnessy recognizes and discusses at length the complex and difficult Geo-political environment these men had to function in, their character and ability, and the problems of communications and resources which made the Revolution such an earth shaking event. By structuring his narrative around the lives, careers, and personalities of ten individual British leaders, he has created a difficult to solve problem that tends to make his narrative somewhat repetitive. Nevertheless, this highly detailed and fully annotated volume is worthwhile reading for the general reader interested on gaining a new perspective into the roots of America. It is also instructive in helping to understand today's problems as it shows a nation stretched to the breaking point trying to manage world crises in too many theaters.

The Men Who Lost America: BritishLeadership, The American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire (The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-C) by Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy (Yale University Press, 2013, 480 Pages, $37.50) is a highly readable account offering an unusual perspective for the reader of American history. I read the book as a pre-publication galley provided to me by the publisher through Net Galley. I read it on my Kindle.

Book Reviews - A Note of Explanation

During the past year,  I have been featuring increasing numbers of book reviews on my blog. Some have dealt with the primary interest of the blog, bluegrass music or more widely selected music materials which I see as having relevance to bluegrass. Others are books I read because they attracted my interest when I discovered them, so I requested them as pre-publication galleys from the publishers through several different web sites providing such a service.

Books, like bluegrass festivals, seem to come in seasons. We're in the midst of the run-up to Beach Reading - mysteries, thrillers, light reading ideas for the summer. They come in June with release times suitable for people to purchase for summer reading, thus I've posted several recently and have several more in the pipeline. Fall reading often consists of heavier fiction and more political and social commentary before Christmas season arrives with a bunch of blockbusters. These galleys are released to reviewers anywhere from four to six months in advance of publication dates, permitting plenty of time for reading and reflection before publication of reviews surrounding the release date. Reading is a major part of my recreation and entertainment interests, and I enjoy writing book reviews and criticism. It seems to be pretty well accepted, and I post my book reviews on the blog with shorter versions on Amazon and a reader's web site called Goodreads.

I've been considering re-formatting my blog to separate book reviews of more general interest from my bluegrass material and book reviews pertaining to bluegrass and more general music related topics.  I've been reluctant to undertake this because I think my readers are comfortable with my format, and many bluegrass readers are also book readers, although certainly not a majority. What do you think about this? Are my book reviews interesting and useful to you. Would you prefer that they have their own section on the blog? Please comment here or on Facebook. I look forward to your opinions? - Ted

Pretty Good for A Girl by Murphy Hicks Henry - Book Review

The genesis of Pretty Good for a Girl: Women in Bluegrass by Murphy Hicks Henry (University of Illinois Press, 2013, 456 pages, $29.95) grew from a comment intended as a compliment but experienced by women musicians as the ultimate put-down. Henry decided to create a data base of women in bluegrass as well as to begin distributing a newsletter on the same topic which continued to be published until 2003. Her master's thesis on Sally Ann Forrester, the first woman in bluegrass, became the basis for the first chapter in this cyclopedic account of the increased presence and influence of women in bluegrass from its beginning in (and before) 1945 to the present. Pretty Goodfor a Girl, ten years in the writing, provides the reader with a perspective putting the lie to the marginalization of women in the assertion that bluegrass was, and continues to be, largely a boys' club. Murphy Henry not only sets the record straight, she does so in a witty, engaging manner (sometimes with a slightly bighty edge) that entertains as it informs. For any student of bluegrass history, tradition, and culture, this book is must reading!

As Murphy Henry became involved with bluegrass as a performer, the bands she “worshipped” consisted entirely of men. She notes that she was “culturally conditioned to dismiss women and their accomplishments as unworthy.” before presenting a long list of bands she “worked shows with.” Early definitions of bluegrass reinforced this stereotype in both academic and popular publications. The stereotypes were contradicted early in print by Alice Gerard, but still tend to echo down the hallways of bluegrass music despite the prominence of so many women in bluegrass today. It is now, thankfully, unremarkable to see women in every position in a band, although bands consisting of all women are still, sadly, referred to as “girl bands.” (Within the past few weeks, I've heard a promoter say he sought to book at least one band fronted by a women, while another promoter was quoted to me as saying he already had his “woman band.”)

Sally Ann Forrester: the First Woman in Bluegrass

a Bluegrass Boy - 1944

 

Pretty Good for a Girl sets out to render the accomplishments of women in bluegrass from the very first, and succeeds on all fronts. Although this book concentrates on women who have made recordings, it acknowledges the contribution of those who never played professionally or played for only a short time. Henry writes throughout the book about the difficulties of being on the road while being both a wife and mother. She also discusses the suspicion women on the road encountered when they were neither married to a member of the band nor members of a family band. These limitations on women as touring performers increased the difficulty for them in achieving recognition. Furthermore, the kind of musicianship demanded in bluegrass, fast and hard driving, was seen as being “masculine” play which was difficult or impossible for members of the “weaker” sex to achieve. Many women were hired for their singing ability and relegated to playing bass or rhythm guitar because the showier fiddle, mandolin, and, especially, banjo were not where they were seen to excel. Numerous women today put the lie to these stereotypes as we see Laurie Lewis, Kimber Ludiker, Sierra Hull, Rhonda Vincent, and especially four time banjo player of the year Kristen Scott Benson as well a Gena Britt emerging as leaders on their instruments. The word “testosterone” is used much more often in this book than the word “estrogen,”although the effects of the latter on women's careers is evident throughout. The choices women must make because they are charged with the responsibilities of child rearing dominate the book and the careers of professional women.

 Gloria Belle

Henry defines bluegrass music as featuring Scruggs style banjo, which she admits is quite limiting. The book is extremely banjo-centric, but as strong women have emerged during the development of the singer/songwriter era of bluegrass, she actually admits bands which don't necessarily adhere strictly to her early definition. Nevertheless, she goes out of her way to feature female banjo players. The book is limited, too, by the emergence of bluegrass music, defined by the addition of Flatt & Scruggs to Bill Monroe's band in 1945, and the space available to her. Nevertheless, she nods admiringly to the many women who performed and recorded in the formative days of folk and country music, an age when genre differentiation was less clear than it apparently is today. She acknowledges this disparity and bluegrass's uneasy relationship to both its ancestors and related descendants, as well as country music in many forms.

Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard

 

Structurally, Pretty Good for a Girl is divided into eras in bluegrass music. The 1940's begins with a profile of Sally Ann Forrester, the first woman in bluegrass and continues with Wilma Lee Cooper, Rose Maddox, and Ola Belle Campbell Reid. The decade of the fifties emphasizes family bands, focusing on the Lewis Family and the Stonemans. The sixties is particularly strong in its consideration of Hazel (Dickens) and Alice (Gerard) as well as Martha Adcock, who apparently contributed quite profusely. Lynn Morris and Laurie Lewis's contributions to the seventies era are interesting and important. In the 1980's, women began to emerge as band leaders with Alison Brown and Alison Krauss highlighted. In the nineties, and on into the twenty-first century the number of women become, as the chapter title says, “Too Many To Count.” Kristin Scott Benson and Rhonda Vincent are profiled in detail as well as the Dixie Chicks, perhaps bluegrass derived, but much too interesting to be left out of this account. Murphy Henry's decisions about who to include in her book suggest that importance as a women performer in bluegrass and country music is more important than purity in adherence to her definition of bluegrass as Brown's and Missy Raines' jazz influenced music attests. Too many women of importance to bluegrass music are included to name them all here. Scant attention is paid to the Daughters of Bluegrass projects, but decisions had to be made to complete this project.

PrettyGood for a Girl is well-researched and meticulously annotated. Many of the women featured in the book made themselves available for extensive interviews. The files of Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine, for whom Henry writes a monthly column, were extensively quoted. The change in the magazine's overall attitude towards women has changed for the better with the times. Her sources are nearly as interesting to read as the text, giving credit where credit is due and attesting to the sisterhood of music. I might quibble with the use of liner notes as a source, since in many cases they are, at least, puff pieces for the featured artists, and thus questionable as a resource. Web site references are increasingly seen in reliable research, and they are referenced here. The index is extensive and inclusive, as is the list of other sources. Not only is this an extremely useful book, it is an essential source book for the further research that needs to be done in the important issue of women in bluegrass.

It would be easy to nit-pick this magnificent compendium for being too banjo-centric in its definition and exploration of bluegrass music while at the same time edging towards being too broad in its effort to include all women who would reasonably fit within its covers. However, this bifurcation mirrors the problems confronting bluegrass itself as it seeks to remain relevant in contemporary music while remaining true to its founders and roots. One little remarked phenomenon made clear in this work is the growing importance of higher education in bluegrass, which has apparently caught on more among women players than among men. This increased amount of schooling has often led to more balance between music and business as well as greater lyrical and musical sophistication. The influence of folk music on the women included here cannot be overestimated. Murphy Henry writes, when discussing the Dixie Chicks, “Bluegrass Music has long had an uneasy relationship to its business side, preferring to pretend that most musicians play for love, not money.”

Murphy Hicks Henry

 

Muphy Hicks Henry is a professional banjo player, teacher, and writer living in Virginia. She founded the Women in Bluegrass newsletter and has written regularly for Bluegrass Unlimited and Banjo Newsletter. She is also the co-creator of The Murphy Method, a series of instructional videos on playing the banjo and other bluegrass instruments.

Pretty Good for a Girl by Murphy Hicks Henry (University of Illinois Press, 2013, 456 pages, $29.95) is an important, consistently interesting, and useful book detailing the influence and presence of women in bluegrass throughout its history. It is written with grace, style, and wit, remaining consistently interesting. It was provided to me by the publisher for review by Net Galley.

Junius and Albert's Adventurres in the Confederacy by Peter Carlson - Book Review

Junius & Albert's Adventures in the Confederacy: A Civil War Odyssey by Peter Carlson (Public Affairs, 2013, 288 pages, $26.99) tells of a harrowing journey through the Confederacy by two newspaper reporters both working for Horace Greeley's abolitionist newspaper, the New York

Tribune. Written from the unusual on-the-ground perspective of two newspaper reporters rather than the elevated one represented by great Civil War chronicles like The Battle Cry of Freedom, Grant's Autobiography, or Shelby Foote's great three volume history of the Civil War, Junius & Albert depicts both the adventure and the suffering of life for a Yankee newsman held captive in the Confederacy during its long decline and eventual fall. As employees of Greeley, the two intrepid newsmen were incarcerated in horrific prisons, but often received somewhat better treatment than the average soldier might. The book captures the early insouciance as well as the dawning horror of being prisoners behind enemy lines through the eyes of two very good writers who could tell the story better, perhaps, than a soldier writing home to his wife.

Junius Henri Browne, born in Cincinnati, attended the local Jesuit school and college where he developed the rhetorical skills and requisite skepticism to become a reporter. He studied philosophy for fun. Albert Dean Richardson came from Franklin, MA, growing up on the hereditary family farm, which he gratefully left when he was seventeen, heading west. A voracious reader, he became a reporter in Pittsburgh before moving to Cincinnati. The two met in 1853 as 19 year old reporters for rival Cincinnati newspapers and became fast friends. Richardson covered the emerging conflict in “bleeding” Kansas, and was later hired by the Tribune to cover the west.

On Lincoln's election to the Presidency, Richardson became an undercover reporter for the Tribune in the South, covering Memphis, New Orleans, Jackson (MS), and reported on a slave auction and the secession convention. When Ft. Sumter fell, he was the last Tribune reporter to return to New York, whereupon he was assigned as Tribune chief reporter in the West. When he moved to Cairo, IL, he immediately hired Browne. The two men covered Grant's campaign on the Mississippi, the fall of Ft. Henry and Ft. Donnelson, and then tried to join Grant south of Vicksburg for the coming campaign. Perched on a hay barge trying to run the Vicksburg heights, the two men were bombarded off their barge and captured by the Confederate army, beginning their long sojourn.

Unlike many Civil War accounts, both military and political, this book views the war through the eyes of two war correspondents who were both adventuresome and fine writers. It adopts a tone of adventure while not stinting the drama, danger, and death on the battlefield, nor boredom between engagements. Richardson's ability to gain access to high ranking people through his charm often meant that they were in a privileged position to watch and report on officers in key moments. Richardson was at Antietam and wrote later about McClellan's reluctance to chase Lee across the Potomac, which may have hastened Lincoln's firing of the general and issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation. After Sherman ejected a journalist who was writing about the army, Richardson appealed directly to the President for freedom of the press. He wrote a portrait about their meeting which successfully painted a picture of Lincoln's subtle political skill as well as being a man of great humility and humor.

After Browne and Richardson were paroled from prison in Vicksburg, they were sent to Libby Prison in Richmond to await exchange for Confederate prisoners and return to Union territory. They were treated relatively well, however, the Confederate agent of prisoner exchange, Robert Ould, consistently refused to exchange the Yankee journalists who worked for archenemy abolitionist Horace Greeley at the New York Tribune. From this point on, Richardson and Browne's incarceration become increasingly difficult as, after the fall of Vicksburg and the Battle of Gettysburg, conditions in the Confederacy continued to disintegrate. The two journalists were transferred to the prison at Salisbury, NC,  where, after Andersonville in Georgia, the prison with the worst conditions in the South for Union prisoners existed.

At Salisbury, Richardson worked in the prison hospital, while Browne cared for the sick and dying soldiers outdoors where they lived under light tents or dug holes to burrow into for some relief from the bitter cold. While, as usual, their circumstances were somewhat more comfortable than the average prisoner of war, life at Salisbury was never easy. As conditions worsened the need to escape to freedom became ever stronger. They soon discovered an underground organization of Union sympathizers called The Heroes of America. Salisbury lies on the western edge of North Carolina's Piedmont region, not too far from the foothills of the Smokey Mountains. The mountain region of western North Carolina and Virginia as well as East Tennessee and eastern Kentucky had never been slave territory and was deeply divided about the Confederacy. Throughout this region, small militias of slave catchers, bushwackers, pro-Union soldiers, and others criss-crossed the mountains, fighting and pillaging. The story of their journey across the mountains to Knoxville shows both their courage and determination.

Peter Carlson

Presented with both a both a sense of adventure, devotion to a cause, and high good humor, this riveting tale is well worth reading. Peter Carlson is the author of K Blows Top, which has been optioned for a feature film. For 22 years, he was a reporter and columnist for the Washington Post and is now a columnist at American History magazine. He has also written for Smithsonian, Life, People, Newsweek, The Nation, and The Huffington Post. He lives in Rockville, MD.

 Junius & Albert's Adventures in the Confederacy: A Civil War Odyssey by Peter Carlson (Public Affairs, 2013, 288 pages, $26.99) provides readers with an exciting view of life in the South during the Civil War through the eyes of two journalists who traveled and were later imprisoned there. I received the book in electronic galley format from the publisher via Net Galley. I read it on my Kindle.

I Invented the Modern Age by Richard Snow - Book Review

Richard Snow has written a love story; a love story between Henry Ford, the model T Ford, and the American people that changed the world and created the twentieth century. In I Invented the Modern World: The Rise of Henry Ford (Scribner, 2013, 384 pages, $30.00) Snow presents a narrative filled with Ford's ability, his monomania, his shortsightedness, his venality, his charm, and his genius. It reads like a novel, yet is clearly the result of careful and serious scholarship. Reading this book is essential for anyone seeking to gain a clear understanding of the twentieth century as well as the times we live in today.

Opening with a portrait of the elder Henry Ford accumulating memorabilia from his childhood to recreate what he imagines he remembers of the late nineteenth century at Greenfield Village, near Darborn, MI, the book quickly moves to Ford's childhood on the family farm. Born on July 30, 1863, just three days after the battle of Gettysburg, Ford's life spans from the height of the industrial revolution to the end of the greatest war the world has experienced. His world view, nurtured by the homilies of the McGuffey Readers, was formed in a time of simplicity and charm which became more easy and more complicated because of his creative engineering and organizational genius. The book spans his life and career from the time of his birth until the release of the Model A Ford in 1927. 

1910 Model T Ford

Early in life Ford showed a mechanical aptitude combined with a questing spirit and a tendency to view problems in a way that would provide new solutions. He was resistant to work on the family farm, always seeking ways to avoid it or make it easier. Even as a child he quickly learned to disassemble and reassemble mechanical things such as watches and steam engines. He chafed at farm work and left Dearborn for nearby Detroit when he was sixteen years old. He seems to have been an extremely likable young man, one whom others were eager to be associated with and complete tasks for. He quickly moved through several jobs, always learning as he moved. He was soon recognized for his mechanical skill and engineering prowess, attracting employers and investors willing to put money behind him. As his success increased, many of his early advocates lay scattered behind him, maneuvered out of being in any position to control him. With the founding of the Ford Motor Company in 1903, Ford gained complete control of his enterprise. 

Henry Ford 1919

Ford introduced the Model T Ford, after a number of prototypes, in 1908, producing and selling it for the next nineteen years with relatively few major changes. The model T became the first low cost, affordable automobile, creating a need for improved roads and access to the developing world for farmers and other rural people across the United States. This was made possible through his pioneering work in developing mass production on the production line, enabling him to constantly lower prices on his vehicles. He also instituted the $5.00 a day wage, holding that the people who made his cars should be able to afford to buy them. Ford's early social awareness and concern for working people, waned as his paternalistic management style was later challenged by industrial unions, to which he was bitterly opposed. He enforced his will at the great Rouge production plant using thugs and goons to discipline and terrorize workers. As Ford aged and became more successful he became immersed in poorly thought out schemes to end WW I and in bitter resentment of what he believed was a Jewish conspiracy of bankers and lawyers to destroy America. His spreading of the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion did his reputation irreparable harm. 

1925 Model T Ford

 

Ford was, at best, an elusive and difficult character to capture and understand. He seemed to have a variety of instincts functioning within him. His capacity for extreme cruelty emerged early through the practical jokes he delighted in. Later, he seemed capable of jettisoning even the most loyal lieutenants without a look backward. He expected absolute loyalty while only caring for his own and his company's advancement. He remained married to his wife Clara, whom he married in 1885, while apparently maintaining a mistress and an illegitimate (and never acknowledged) son for over thirty years. Many of those responsible for his success were left in the dust as he became the world's first billionaire. Ford's attachment to his greatest accomplishment, the Model T, kept the Tin Lizzie in production for a longer period than was good for his company, however his achievement of making the car available to people of all incomes changed the world in significant ways. Snow's fine biography catches these opposing forces and incongruities in his character with rare insight. This biography has the flow and narrative drive of a novel while clearly hitting all the right scholarly buttons. It is admiring and clear-eyed about Ford's flaws and defects at the same time. 

Richard Snow

  

Richard Snow was born in New York City and he graduated with a B.A. from Columbia College in 1970. He worked at American Heritage magazine for nearly four decades and was its editor-in-chief for seventeen years. He is the author of several books, among them two novels and a volume of poetry. Snow has served as a consultant for historical motion pictures—among them Glory—and has written for documentaries, including the Burns brothers’ Civil War, and Ric Burns’s award-winning PBS film Coney Island, whose screenplay he wrote. Most recently, he served as a consultant on Ken Burns’s World War II series, The War.

I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford by Richard Ford (Scribner, 2013, 384 pages, $30.00) is available from all the usual sources at a substantial discount. For readers interested in the man, the age, industrial history, or the development of the automobile culture in America, this book is must reading. It was provided to me by the publisher through Net Galley as an electronic galley. I read it on a Kindle.

Beyond War by David Rohde - Book Review

David Rohde, a distinguished journalist who has covered the Middle East extensively, has written a book examining US policy and behavior in the Middle East with a particular emphasis on post 9/11 activity. In Beyond War: ReimaginingAmerican Influence in a New Middle East (Viking, 2013, 240 Pages, $27.95) David Rohde explores the systematic failures of policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan which have led to worsening relations in the Middle East. He concentrates on the extensive reliance on employing military contractors to undertake activities which should be dealt with by the military, intelligence, and diplomatic arms of the government, but which have become relied upon because of reduced funding and the difficulty of responding to specific needs posed by the arcane hiring practices in today's underfunded government. The examples he presents are chilling in their depiction of the devolution of U.S. influence where success would have been achievable under different circumstances.

Military and diplomatic decision making during the G.W. Bush administration by the neo-cons influencing the President hampered military and civilian agencies from achieving their goals. Rohde's on-the-spot observation and interviews leave a feeling of the difficulties experienced by Americans on the scene, especially concerning our support of corrupt officials and reliance upon authoritarian and military solutions requiring long-term diplomatic negotiation, listening, responsiveness, and cultural respect rather than abrupt American action.

Rohde details ways the process of hiring contractors wastes money, reduces trust, weakens U.S. Policy efforts, and undercuts the direct efforts of government agencies. He describes how the contractors' profit motive led too much money to return to the U.S. while too few operational personnel were on site to achieve the difficult goals of nation building. Contracts are let on a “cost +” basis insuring that the corporations owning them make profits regardless of outcomes. Companies like Dyn Corp were referred to as “body shops,” because they provided bodies to fill slots without regard to experience or background and often based on political considerations of the Bush administration's neo-conservative leadership, undercutting goals established as policy. He says, “In the end, Dyn Corp and other contractors had little responsibility for actual outcomes of US government efforts but continued to profit enormously.” Essentially, these contractors had the “government's credit card in their pocket.”

When Barack Obama became President, he appointed Richard Holbrooke as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Holbrooke accomplished much in improving matters by redirecting contractors and improving outcomes before working himself to death in 2010. However, Holbrooke's abrasiveness, driving style, and work ethic was a mixed blessing to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Obama. It also turns out that the difficulty of achieving US goals lies beyond partisan politics, but more in the government structure and interagency in-fighting at home and in the field. For instance, the efforts of USAID, staffed by long-term professionals with in-country experience, local language skills, and cultural sensitivity were undercut by Congress and other agencies. Rohde points out that building on-the-ground relationships requires time, patience, and understanding. None of these qualities characterize US efforts, which are often short term and politically driven. He also takes a look at the drone program which he says has proven to be neither reliable nor accurate.

In Part II, called “A Way Forward,” Rohde considers the ways in which Islam, Democracy, modernism, and capitalism can co-exist in a contemporary society. He uses the examples of Prime Minister Erdogan in Turkey, the leader in Tunisia, and the current tensions and uproar in Egypt as examples, seeing much of the current disruption as part of the revolutions of rising expectation within the Arab world. In each he sees the promise and peril of democracy to Islam. Perhaps, above all, he calls for showing respect for decisions made in a democratic fashion, regardless of whether the decisions themselves are ones which fit with US policy. He points out that we are perceived in the Arab world as having been in support of autocratic dictators for generations and are now reaping the results of that support. Meanwhile, a strong entrepreneurial spirit among the huge cohort of Muslim youth in the Middle East is going almost unnoticed. The education of women is proceeding at a hitherto unrecognized pace, and the economies, where they're working, are hi tech and media driven. He quotes Turkish moderates as arguing that the strongest weapons against militant Islam are “engagement, investment, and technology.” This is best accomplished through private-public partnerships involving businesses and USAID. He says that private sector investment supporting indigenous start-up companies is more valuable to nation building than large scale government development aide.

In discussing the tragic death of Ambassador Chris Stevens at the Benghazi legation in Libya, Rohde places it within the context of the country itself and the emerging US pollicy of limited engagement. Because the Libyans had specifically barred security contractors and US resources have been stretched to the breaking point through Congressional withholding of funds, he suggests the Benghazi incident may have been an inevitable outcome in an emerging moderate country. He says that

Ambassador Stevens opened doors and we should follow his example.

Similarly, in Egypt we face the consequences of forty years of having backed military dictators to the tune of over forty billion dollars, much of which went to create and maintain a corrupt military system of payoffs, nepotism, and favoritism which resulted in the destruction of the middle class and the neglect of education and business enterprises. The now ruling Muslim Brotherhood emerged as a counterweight to military corruption where a literate, entrepreneurial, middle class had, at best, been discouraged. The Muslim Brotherhood has become a model for Erdogen in Turkey, Ennahda in Tunisia, and Hamas in Palestine in providing health services and education for the poor where the ruling government did not do so, being propped up by the US government.

The issue of large, high profile development projects like dams, roads, and electricity versus smaller, locally needed and requested projects remains a major one. USAID and local NGO's represent the smaller approach, while US policy is often oriented to supporting the interests of congressional members' constituents through grants and programs requiring purchases from companies in their districts rather than encouraging and facilitating the efforts of local businesses. Through introducing individual USAID officers and local entrepreneurs and telling their stories, Rohde makes a strong case for encouraging local efforts through encouragement and funding. He comments that taking risks is part of the culture of business, while avoiding risk, and the attendant publicity of the media and Congress has become characteristic of US policy efforts. He describes government workers as smart and able people beaten down by constant changes of policy and lack of support. The seeding the government agencies with right wing ideologues during the eight years of the Bush neo-con ascendancy also led to a large cadre of civil service protected employees dedicated to undermining programs and policies of the new administration from within. Politics always trumps policy. 

David Rohde

 

Beyond War: Reimagining American Influence in a New Middle East (Viking, 2013, 240 Pages, $27.95) by David Rohde who has born closer witness to the debacle of the American experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan than most other observers —a former foreign correspondent for The New York Times for fifteen years, eight spent in Afghanistan and Pakistan—where he was held captive  by the Taliban for seven months.

David Rohde is currently a columnist for Reuters and the Atlantic. His work is also published in the International Herald Tribune. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the author, with Kristen Mulvihill, of A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides and Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica. He lives with his family in New York City.  Because of his captivity in Pakistan, he has not recently returned to the Middle East, but has relied on his extensive sources there to help in fill in necessary details. This book is essential reading for both policy makers and those interested in the dilemmas we face in the Middle East. It is written in a clear, incisive, and impassioned style that's persuasive without being ideological. I read Beyond War on my Kindle in galley form provided by the publisher through NetGalley.

Acting White? by Devon W. Carbado & Mitu Gulati - Book Review

Imagine that you've grown up in a small rural village in northern New York state. Your father has spent his life establishing a career in the relatively high salaried position as a corrections officer in the regional state penitentiary. His father worked as a jack-of-all trades doing logging in winter and working for members of the summer community as a care taker for their homes. Your mother, the daughter of subsistence farmers, cleaned cottages and worked in the local grocery stocking shelves in summer when the owners needed extra help. You attended the local school, where the average graduating class varied between fifteen and twenty members, and helped your mother with the housekeeping in summer cottages from as early as you remember. You were a bright and pretty girl, and one of the “summer people” took a liking to you as you reached adolescence, offering to pay your tuition at an elite boarding school in Massachusetts. Your parents jumped at the opportunity and off you went to school.

On the first day there, you saw the other kids coming to school in large SUV's and unloading clothing, computers, and stereos, as well as strange long sticks with baskets on the end and several pairs of skis each. You saw them greeting each other after the summer with casual affection and tremendous enthusiasm. You felt out of place, disconnected from all that was familiar to you. At the same time, you realized you had been handed an opportunity to change your circumstances and future beyond anything you had previously imagined. You were bright and observant, soon realizing that in order to fit in and succeed, much about you would have to be altered. You'd need to learn to speak, walk, dress, eat, and interact differently than you had ever seen others do or imagined for yourself. How would you become a part of this environment without losing your previous self? Could you find ways to fit in? Did you really want to make yourself over? Would it be possible for you to accomplish? Now, imagine that rather than being a cute, curly haired blond, you were an African American or a Latina/o with an clearly recognizable accent applying for admission to an elite college or university, seeking employment in a law firm or corporation, and trying to earn a promotion or partnership. How would you work your personality? This, roughly, is the supposition of Acting White?: Rethinking America in a Post-Racial America by Devon Carbado and Mitu Gulati (Oxford University Press, 2013, 240 pgs. $29.95).

Written in the sometimes dense language of legal scholarship, this small and important book uses actual cases and numerous hypothetical situations (and alternatives) to clarify and complicate the nuances, misunderstandings, and complications of race, ethnicity, and gender in the American academy and workplace. Devon Corrado and Mitu Gulati are law professors, at UCLA and Duke respectively, who have been thinking about the issue of “working identity” as they affect how people assimilate or seek to maintain their identity while advancing in the American workplace. They place racism into a different perspective by acknowledging that situational factors and deeply held stereotypes contribute to creating a double bind for those wishing to advance when they are not viewed as insiders in an organization. By using thought experiments as well as real world examples, the authors clarify the legal and social issues confronting minorities in a changing world.

One of the governing ideas found in Acting White? is the “double bind.” As an example, they use President Barak Obama, who, when running for President, had to present himself as being “black enough” to be acceptable to the African American voters while being “white enough” to earn the votes of white voters. When he was confronted with the inflammatory language of the pastor of his church, he gave the famous speech on race that managed to negotiate these shoals sufficiently to allow his election. This example serves as a metaphor for the tricky landscape all minorities must master in the 21^st century. So, for instance, an “employer who wants his African American employee to be black enough to function as window dressing for the firm ...but not so black as to create racial conflict or discomfort within the institution” is posited. (location 343 of 3788). The various examples and cases present the choices individuals make as being largely conscious strategies minority employees might utilize to fit into the position or institution. While the authors' argument is logically organized and tightly argued, it may be that they assert a consciousness (and perhaps cynicism) about decision making for employee and employer that may often be present, but more subtly than overt racism or sexism would be.

Arguments throughout the text raise (and confirm) that the issue of racism and sexism is both more pervasive and more subtle than the law or most discussions admit as well as more difficult to counter than outright hostility would be. The relational and internal calculus of joining, fitting in, and prospering in any organizational setting places outsiders, whether their outsiderness is attributed to being new or being different, within a context of working to fit in. Such work is more fraught with potential stumbling blocks for outsiders who are different in race, gender, or sexual orientation, as well as possible physical handicaps, religion, or national origin. This raises the issue of intra-group differences in addition to inter-group differences. For instance, what do black women signify by their decision to wear their hair in braids, as natural, or smoothed? The case of Darlene Jesperson vs. Harrah's Casino was an interesting study involving a woman working as a cocktail waitress refusing to wear makeup. Such considerations have implications beyond racial or sexual discrimination.

Devon W. Carbado - UCLA Law School

 

Mitu Gulati - Duke Law School

Devon W. Carbado graduated from Harvard Law School and teaches at UCLA School of Law where he specializes in Constitutional Law as well as Critical Race Theory. He has twice been named Professor of the Year. Mitu Gulati teaches at Duke School of Law where he specializes in Corporate Law and employment discrimination and critical race theory. One of his colleagues refers to him as “a Renaissance man.” They have been writing together about race and gender discrimination in the workplace and organizations for a decade. In Acting White?: Rethinking Race in a Post-Racial America they have provided a valuable discussion for legal professionals and interested lay people discussing the issues of race, gender, gender orientation and the ways that those people must “work their identity” in order to experience success. At times, the argument gets a little deep in the weeds of complex legal argument, but is worth the effort for the nuances it emphasizes and the difficulties in making decisions for people seeking to overcome long-standing workplace and school discrimination. Acting White? (240 pages, $29.95) will be published by the Oxford Univeristy Press March 1, 2013 and may be available earlier. It was provided me for review through Net Galley in an electronic edition.

Eighty Days by Matthew Goodman - Book Review

Eighty Days: Nellie Bly andElizabeth Bisland's History Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman (Ballantine Books, 2013, 480 Pages, $28.00) uses the lives and careers of two nineteenth century women and a trumped up “race around the world” to develop a picture of the late nineteenth century in America and around the world as they hurry by ship and train to surpass the time established by Jules Verne in his novel about Philias Fogg, Around the World in Eighty Days. The natures of the two women, their differing backgrounds, and the choices they make about how to travel each shed light on them as interesting personalities and upon the the world they lived in. The race and the social context Goodman provides to create a portrait of the world in 1889 – 1890 provide fascinating reading and an enjoyable adventure.

Nellie Bly

 

Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Jane Cochran), born in western Pennsylvania in 1864, had to strike out on her own after her reasonably prosperous father died when she was young and the family's circumstances changed radically. Moving to Pittsburgh, she responded to an article in a newspaper, writing a spririted rebuttal which turned into her being hired as a reporter. Soon, seeking greater challenges and opportunities, she moved to New York and was hired by the World, owned by Joseph Pulitzer. She established a reputation as an investigative reporter. Having had remarkable success, she was motivated to propose a trip around the world seeking to beat the eighty days supposed by Verne. After some time spent convincing the paper it was a good story for a woman to write, the paper accepted her proposal and she quickly arranged to leave headed East and vowing to take only transportation available to all. The World soon realized the publicity value of the adventure, and in an environment of falling circulation, began to ballyhoo the “race.”

Elizabeth Bisland

 

Elizabeth Bisland (born on a plantation in Louisiana in 1861) had to endure the privations of the reconstruction period in the deep south post Civil War period. A deep and perceptive reader from childhood, she moved to New Orleans to accept a position with The New Orleans Times Democrat when some of her essays were accepted for publication. Because of her beauty and literary writing, she soon became a part of the literary world of the polyglot city. Seeking greater opportunities, she moved to New York and was soon hired by monthly magazine The Cosmopolitan to write about women's matters. John Briben Walker, editor and publisher of The Cosmopolitan, quickly recognized the publicity value of Bly's journey and recuited Bisland to turn Bly's trip into a race. Bisland, at first reluctant to undertake the trip, was convinced to leave, assembled a wardrope, and left by train headed West only nine hours after Bly's ship left the harbor headed East. And so the race around the world, that was to capture the imagination of the country in this period a rapid change in economics and women's roles, began.

In 1889 jobs for women in journalism were few and highly circumscribed to “women's” topics like the society page, fashion, and the kitchen. Bly's work specialized in putting herself into difficult circumstances (an asylum, a prison) and writing investigative reports from them. The narrative of the “race” around the world provides Goodman with a framework for examining the rapidly changing technology in the heyday of the age of steam and improved communications via international telegraph. Perhaps more centrally, because of the sharp contrasts in interest and background between the two women, he can look at developing attitudes towards gender. Bly and Bisland, coming from markedly different backgrounds and sharing little in terms of education, experience, or style were, nevertheless, young female journalists who had made a mark at an early age and would carry off the rigors of their round the world tours with courage and elan. Their progress around the world attracted great excitement as people followed their paths and entered contests to guess the exact time of Bly's arrival leading to a remarkable increase in the World's circulation.

Matthew Goodman

 

A generous amount of time is devoted to each of the women's lives after their return. As with their differing characters and personalities, their lives covered very different arcs of success and productivity afterwards. Although there are times when the book drags a little, the two women and the world in which they lived create interestingly useful personal and cultural portraits. Goodman creates sufficient tension in the contest between the two women and the vagaries of world travel to retain the readers attention. Goodman is the author of three books of non-fiction. His essays, articles, and short stories have appeared in The American Scholar, Harvard Review, the Village Voice, the Forward, Bon Appetit, and many other publications, and have been cited for Special Mention in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Short Story anthologies. He has taught writing at various colleges. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife and two children.

EightyDays: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History Making Race Aroundthe World by Matthew Goodman is published by Random House/Ballantine Books (2013, 480 pages, $28.00) and is accompanied by copious notes and references as well as a number of photographs. It is available at all the usual outlets. The book was supplied to me as an electronic galley by Net Galley.