Book Description
A groundbreaking work that exposes the twisted origins of affirmative action.
In this "penetrating new analysis" (New York Times Book Review) Ira Katznelson fundamentally recasts our understanding of twentieth-century American history and demonstrates that all the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s were created in a deeply discriminatory manner. Through mechanisms designed by Southern Democrats that specifically excluded maids and farm workers, the gap between blacks and whites actually widened despite postwar prosperity. In the words of noted historian Eric Foner, "Katznelson's incisive book should change the terms of debate about affirmative action, and about the last seventy years of American history."
Customer Reviews:
Good research, presentist thesis.......2007-07-08
An excellent synthesis of research on the bigoted application of New Deal era programs, marred by a presentist, polemical determination to characterize this as "affirmative action" for whites. This was not affirmative action for whites, this was unfair exclusion of blacks from programs that were supposed to be open to all. At the end, we are still left with the philosphically dubious assertion that discrimination against whites is needed to make up for past discrimination against blacks. I can see the appeal of this argument, but I think perpetuating government racism, even for compensatory purposes, is a mistake that creates more social problems. In this respect I think the title is unfortunate, but no doubt it got the author much more attention and increased book sales. And there is much worthwhile information in the book, especially for conservatives still in denial about the extent of the racism from which blacks suffered in the twentieth century.
Affirmative action for White people, at least alot of white people .......2007-05-05
This book, written in a formal manner, in the style of a political policy paper, touches on that most sensitive of American subjects, race, specifically the responsibility of American society to provide compensation to African Americans for the centuries of slavery and severe publicly and privately enforced economic and psychological misery.
The main focus of the book is on the increases in the disparities in terms of wealth, health and other indicators between black and white Americans that began during the New Deal period. It was this disparity that President Johnson noted in his speech to the Howard University graduating class in June 1965. LBJ noted that since 1947 white poverty had decreased by 27 percent while non-white poverty had decreased by only three percent. He declared that etween 1952 to 1963 the average percentage of the income of white men that black men earned, fell from 57 to 52 percent. The infant mortality of non-whites in the U.S. was 70 percent greater than whites in 1940. By 1962, it was 90 percent greater. LBJ stated that white and black unemployment rates were about equal in 1940 but by 1965 black unemployment was twice as high.
LBJ's speech is the foil for the exposition of the learned professor in this book........
For Katnzelson, as others have pointed out before him of course, the shaping of such New Deal policies of Social Security, public works jobs, housing mortgage subsidies, the Wagner act empowering workers to organize, minimum wage laws, and so on were dependent on the votes of Southern Democrats. They worked to insure that agriculture and domestic work were excluded from the minimum wage law of 1938 and the Wagner Act and the Social Security Acts of 1935. Agriculture and domestic workers, of course, were very disproportionately in the South represented in their work force by African Americans. The majority of African Americans lived in the South, the poorest people in the poorest region in the country. They worked to ensure that benefits and subsidies of these Federal programs would be distributed by local officials--thus in the South officials worked with a great deal of success to exclude blacks from the programs that whites had access to. Southern politicians wanted to keep Blacks in semi-slave conditions and so succeeded to a very large extent in excluding blacks from income accumulating opportunities that were available to Whites, such as the government guarantee of organizing for higher wages, benefits and conditions guaranteed by the Wagner Act and the programs of subsidies to the poor. When Blacks did receive subsidies from these programs in the South, they were considerably less than the same benefits accorded to Whites.
Blacks had considerably less access to the training programs offered to white service men during World War II. They were often placed in menial jobs. The Republican Secretary of War Henry Stimson believed that blacks should be kept from the battlefield as much as possible because of their alleged inherent incompetence at those tasks. Some black servicemen did have access to literacy training, combat experience and vocational training. Unionized black workers in the North benefited and blacks in the South were pulled along in the new prosperity but at very small distances compared to the benefits won by white veterans. In an endnote, he quotes Eisehnower that rural working class Britian lacked the strong race consciousness of Americans--thus white GIs stationed in England during the War were horrified by the sight of white British girls dating Black GIs and often responded violently. According to Ike, they were also upset that the British press seemed not at all perturbed by this dating.
Funding for college education, housing mortgages on easy terms, superior vocational training and so on were provided in massive amounts by the GI bill. The latter has been declared by Freddie Mac advertisements and Democratic politicians, quite plausibly as significantly contributing to the creation of the post-War middle class in this country. Once again, the programs of the GI bill were run by local VA officials and others in the South, the home of the majority of black veterans. The house mortgage and educational loans were distributed by private lenders in the north and south who at best loaned the money to black veterans infrequently but of course did so regularly for whites. Blacks eligible for higher education were either not allowed access to education or directed towards Southern Black universities and vocational schools that received much less funding than comparable white schools and were otherwise bad jokes as educational institutions. Northern white colleges, of course, engaged in extensive unofficial racial discrimination in admissions and student housing.
The subsidies and education which the families of white veterans and their descendants have benefited from show up in contemporary statistics, Katznelson shows. Many whites who took advantage of the GI bill were able to subsequently accumulate fairly comfortable assets in terms of stock ownership, retirement funds, savings and so on. Home ownership, providing by easy GI bill mortgage loans, was a major key. Such benefits, of course, have passed down through the generations. According to Katznelson, by the end of the 20th century, the median household net worth was $81,000 for whites but $8,000 for blacks.
Katznelson turns to the interesting question as to how a real affirmative action program should be implemented, even one that can be technically color neutral, getting away from the feeble arguments of Jesse Jackson & co. The affirmative action programs that have been implemented, Katznelson argues, have reduced significantly the inequalities between Black and White middle class incomes, if not net worth. But the large majority of African Americans have had their fortunes decline....
Of course, we need a popular movement to force our neoliberal politicians like Edwards, Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, and the rest to even begin to seriously address the issue.
LBJ was the one who really freed the slaves.......2006-07-30
Just finished an outstanding book by Ira Katznelson on the untold history of racial inequality in America. Those who oppose affirmative action should get it and see who has really benefitted from The New Deal, the Fair Deal, Social Security and the GI Bill after WWII. I cannot see how anyone can read this book and not agree with me that Lincoln did not free the slaves. The slaves were not freed until 1964 and LBJ should be credited with that action.
Of course, this information cannot be taught in Florida schools. The education bill has a provision that History must be taught as inerrant gospel. No revisionist thought allowed in Florida schools. They plan to keep the children ignorant of what Southern politicians did from 1864 to 1964.
Rooseveltian politics and patricianism, Southern (and Midwestern) white racism, collude; OH, IGNORE THE TROLLS.......2006-06-16
For those who are either accidentally ignorant of -- or, more likely, willfully in denial about -- the dark side of the New Deal, many of these things have been documented before. James Loewen touches on a few of them in his well-written "Sundown Towns."
Signing off on Southern Democrats' demands in this and many other things, especially involving the Fair Labor Standards Act before the war, was part of the price FDR was willing to pay to keep his job for four terms. (Several goverment-created towns set up during the Roosevelt years, including Hanford, Wash., one of the cruxes of developing our nuclear weapons power, were deliberately founded by the government as sundown towns.)
Using control of the GI Bill, and of federal housing funds, was an easier, smoother, quieter way of keeping many of these sundown towns all-white (other than the occasional live-in maid) than the cross-burnings, white race riots, etc.
Speaking of those sundown towns, how many were there?
"I believe at least 3,000 and perhaps as many as 15,000 independent towns went sundown in the United States, mostly between 1890 and about 1930," Lowen says. Again, very few of these were in the South. The vast majority were in the West and Midwest.
Unfortunately, many people from these towns -- and even entire sundown counties, in some cases -- are in denial about this part of the racism that was common in America's past and still exists today. That's both how and why their denial may extend to their own racism.
Tell the Truth!.......2006-05-11
Without trying to engage in a polemic, it does need to be pointed out in reference to Mr. Matlock's review that the cause of truth would be better served if one avoids popular and media accounts and made the effort instead to access real historical data. The fact is that during the debate on the Declaration of Independence there was indeed a conflict over one of Jefferson's accusations against King George III that took His Majesty's government to task for its support of the slave trade. The issue of slavery itself was NOT seriously debated. Indeed in 1776, all thirteen states had slavery, while the New England and to a lesser extent the Middle States (New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) based their economies in part upon the slave trade. It was on this basis that this particular point in the Declaration by Jefferson was omited. The Declaration, like the Constitution, was, therefore, in effect a pro-slavery document, which is not nearly as shocking as some would have it as the entire world at that time(with the small exception of a very few Western intellectuals and religious
extremists) was pro-slavery. Slavery, which predated written history (and was found in all preindustrial cultures until the West forcibly ended it), only became "wrong" when Western Civiliation so decreed, and in 1776 that had as yet to happen. All of which is to remind us that those who seek to promote a political agenda inevitably do so by distorting history, a practice amply exemplified by this very weak and ultimately silly book.
Book Description
The H Block protest is one of the strangest and most controversial issues in the tragic history of Northern Ireland. Republican prisoners, convicted of grave crimes through special courts and ruthless interrogation procedures, campaigned for political status by refusing to wear prison clothes and daubing their cell with excrement.Were they properly convicted criminals, or martyrs to political injustice? In a masterpiece of investigative journalism, Coogan provides us with the only first-hand account of the protest. His investigation led deep into the social, cultural, and economic maze of Northern Ireland's history to give readers an unmatched analysis of a troubled place and its sorrowful history.
Customer Reviews:
STANDING UP FOR WHAT YOU BELEVE IN.......2002-12-26
THIS BOOK IS ABOUT THE DIRTY PROTEST BY THE IRA PRISONERS IN H BLOCK OF THE MAZE PRISON ONE OF THE PRISONERS WAS BOBBY SANDS. WHETEHER YOU AGREE WITH THE IRA OR NOT IT IS A TRAGIC INCIDENT AND SHOWS THE WILL AND DRIVE OF THESE 10 MEN AND ALL THERE SUPPORTERS AND THERE STANDING FOR THE THINGS THEY TRULY BELIEVE IN ESPECIAALY IN SUCH DEPLORABLE CONDITIONS. SOME BOOKS ABOUT THE TROUBLES ARE A LITTLE DIFFICULT TO GET THROUGH BUT THIS WAS A PRETTY GOOD BOOK
Unflinching Journal of the IRA's "Dirty Protest".......2002-11-19
Published just prior to the hunger strikes of 1981 which claimed the life of ten IRA prisoners, "On The Blanket" details the so-called "dirty protest" that led up to the horrors of that year. With several first-hand accounts from prisoners and actors in the struggle, Coogan presents an unflinching account of the events in Long Kesh (the Maze) and Armagh prisons. The descriptions of the conditions in both prisons will move even the most cold-hearted reader. Coogan puts forth an important work that will stand as testiment to this troubled period in Irish history.
Book Description
Long considered a classic, A History of Islamic Societies is now that much more useful a reference for general readers and scholars alike. Widely praised for its balanced and comprehensive account, Ira Lapidus' work has been fully revised in its coverage of each country and region of the Muslim world through 2001. It incorporates the origins and evolution of Islamic societies and brings into focus the historical processes that gave shape to the manifold varieties of contemporary Islam. The concluding chapters survey the growing influence of the Islamist movements within national states and in their transnational or global dimensions, including the Islamic revival, Islamist politics and terrorism. An updated discussion of the roles of women in Islamic societies is added, with new sections about Afghanistan and Muslims in Europe, America, and the Philippines. Ira M. Lapidus is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California at Berkeley. His many books and articles include Islam, Politics and Social Movements (University of California Press, 1988) and Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1984).
Download Description
Long considered a classic, A History of Islamic Societies is now that much more useful a reference for general readers and scholars alike. Widely praised for its balanced and comprehensive account, Ira Lapidus' work has been fully revised in its coverage of each country and region of the Muslim world through 2001. It incorporates the origins and evolution of Islamic societies and brings into focus the historical processes that gave shape to the manifold varieties of contemporary Islam. The concluding chapters survey the growing influence of the Islamist movements within national states and in their transnational or global dimensions, including the Islamic revival, Islamist politics and terrorism. An updated discussion of the roles of women in Islamic societies is added, with new sections about Afghanistan and Muslims in Europe, America, and the Philippines. Ira M. Lapidus is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California at Berkeley. His many books and articles include Islam, Politics and Social Movements (University of California Press, 1988) and Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1984).
Customer Reviews:
A good introduction but half propoganda.......2006-12-19
Like most books on Islam written in the west this is an introduction written from a Muslim perspective with no critique and no willingness to question traditional Muslim accounts. For an example of this one must go no further than the first chapter where Muhammed is referred to as "the prophet". But this characterization is strange, books on Western Christian history do not refer to Jesus as 'the son of god'. So why must one implicitly accept the tenants of Islam in order to read its history? Muslims beleive Muhammed was 'the prophet' but others do not. The early history of Islam is covered with competance and the later history is truly helpful for it covers Islam in far off places such as Southeast Asia, central asia and africa, areas not usually covered in histories of Islam.
But then there is the other strangely titled chapter: "colonialism and the defeat of Muslim expansion." How is it that 'colonialism' defeated Muslim expansion in Africa? Muslim expansion in Africa was colonialistic and it was built on the trade in slaves for profit. Much of Islamic expansion was based on the same colonialistic and racist models as the west, except that Muslim colonization of Europe, Africa and India began in the 10th and 11th century whereas Europeanc colonialism didnt begin until the 15th. Thus this book is full of semantics which are pure fabrications and it is because this book, like most on the subject, refuses to exact the same rigorous critique of Islamic history that western history is subjected to.
Seth J. Frantzman
An excellent comprehensive survey.......2006-11-27
This book is absolutely essential for any historian interested or concerned with Islamicate societies. It is certainly more readable than Hodgeson's 3 volume Venture of Islam and on the same level of scholarly mastery. Consider this the product of a top historian reflecting upon a career of work within this field. Each paragraph is like a synthesis of ideas from across the field.
For me, this was an invaluable book for preparing for my minor field exam in medieval Islamic history (a graduate level exam). While it is never a replacement for more detailed studies, it serves as an "all you need to know" for many topics/ or a great launch pad for further research depending on what your purpose for reading is. There are more accessible books available for somebody only casually interested in the field, and I would be hard pressed to recommend it for in that case. Berkey's 'Formation of Islam' is a slimmer and easier to handle introduction, though his writing style is a tad dense even for somebody already introduced to the field.
Overall, I highly recommend it for any historian as a go to book. As my focus is Europe in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it is perfect since enables me to have a huge field on hand without consulting numerous individual studies. As one reviewer remarked, though, this is most definitely a history book and so do not come looking for a poetic and emotional read.
History is not pretty.......2005-11-28
This is an excellent book of history. It was not intended, I am sure, to be an explanation of "true Islam" as called for by another reviewer. I have a reservation or two about Lapidus's conclusions, but his presentation of the material stands as the best overview of the course of history from Arabia to the entire globe you can buy today. For a more general introduction to the religion of Islam, try Carl Ernst *Following Muhammad* or Frederick Denny *An Introduction to Islam* and THEN dig into history with this book.
NOT for beginners or the mildly apathetic.......2005-03-04
This book is very comprehensive, which is either a blessing or curse depending on your background. As someone who knew nothing about Islam prior to reading this book, I was frequently overwhelmed by the mass of information that Lapidus has arranged. As you may notice by the sheer volume of this 970 page book, it is VERY wordy. Like most history texts, it is also very dry and devoid of emotion. The author does, however, provide a complex view of Islam that is fair and accurate.
Detailed and Readable.......2005-03-01
This is a classic work on the history of Islamic societies. I'm not a historian, but found the book very readable. Its 900+ pages present an in-depth analysis of the history of North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, leading up to the rise of Islam. Interestingly, Lapidus reveals the rise of Islam did not happen in a sudden, broad sweep, as I had been led to believe. Rather, Islam was adopted by Bedouins, merchants, etc. one tribe and village at a time. According to Lapidus, Islam has been marked with internal strife from the beginning when numerous civil wars over doctrine, leadership, and interpretation of the Prophet's message, led to the division of the faith into its Sunni and Shi'a sects. It is an incredible story that every westerner should read. The book covers the periods prior to Mohammed's revelations through the 20th century, and is divided into three parts:
The Origins of Islamic Civilization: 600 to 1200
The Worldwide diffusion of Islamic Societies
The Modern Transformation
As a Christian, I found the depiction of Christianity's role in the Middle East, especially in the early days of Islam, interesting. Lapidus is a noted scholar and has done us all a service by writing this book. I highly recommend it.
Book Description
Authoritative and concise, Warfare in the Western World concentrates on selected campaigns and battles, showing how political and military leaders in the West have used armies to wage war effectively over the last four centuries. The text moves through the centuries, discussing how operational developments, as well as such technological improvements as the rifled weapon and the railroad, eventually led to the concept of total war, first approached in the American Civil War and culminating in the twentieth century's two world wars. The authors then demonstrate how the nuclear age has ushered in a new era of limited warfare.
Customer Reviews:
according to a military history student.........2003-02-08
This book (and its second volume: Military Operations since 1871) are both required texts for my Military History class. Most students claim to only rapidly skim required reading for classes, but I've managed to read everything so far (if that tells you anything). As far as material is concerned, this text is both wide-ranging and thourough, describing the invention and development of military techniques as well as discussing the society and government of the time, and how all these factors influence eachother. Highlighted areas include the Thirty Years War and the development of limited war, and the progression though the Napoleonic Wars to almost complete total war during the War Between the States. This book does an excellent job in tying all these early battles together and showing the overall development of warfare. However, if you are interested in nitty-gritty facts on Waterloo or Gettysburg, find a book specific to that battle instead of the sweeping panoramic view this book provides.
Excellent Survey of Western "Military Art".......2000-05-12
This book is the result of the collaboration of a number of the best military historians in the US today, including Mark Grimsley, George Herring, John Lynn, and many others, skilfully tied together by the editors (who are also major contributors), Professor Ira Gruber of Rice University and Colonel Robert A. Doughty of West Point. The result is an outstanding survey of modern Western military history designed for undergraduate history courses, but easily accessible to the general reader as well. The prose is exceptionally clear and the ideas lucidly presented. These two volumes are definitely focussed on the operational level of the "military art" (i.e. on the planning and conduct of campaigns), with some treatment also of strategy, tactics, and technology, but very litte material on "war and society" subjects (i.e. how wars and military developments have affected society and vice-versa). This makes it especially useful for ROTC military history classes, but it is also a very good introduction to the "sharp end" of military history for scholars or students whose main interests lie in the effects of war, rather than its conduct.
Book Description
Ira Shor is a pioneer in the field of critical education who for over twenty years has been experimenting with learning methods. His work creatively adapts the ideas of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire for North American classrooms. In Empowering Education Shor offers a comprehensive theory and practice for critical pedagogy.
For Shor, empowering education is a student-centered, critical and democratic pedagogy for studying any subject matter and for self and social change. It takes shape as a dialogue in which teachers and students mutually investigate everyday themes, social issues, and academic knowledge. Through dialogue and problem-posing, students become active agents of their learning. This book shows how students can develop as critical thinkers, inspired learners, skilled workers, and involved citizens.
Shor carefully analyzes obstacles to and resources for empowering education, suggesting ways for teachers to transform traditional approaches into critical and democratic ones. He offers many examples and applications for the elementary grades through college and adult education.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Course Material.......2007-05-30
Read during a course. Wonderful to discuss and chew over. The class was tough, but I thoroughly enjoyed the material.
This is book is the real educational reform.......1999-10-06
Professor Ira Shor, like his mentor Paulo Freire, denounces the current-traditional model of banking education--the practice of teaching where the instructor "deposits" information "into" the students. In the current-traditional model, the input is always selected by the authority, or teacher, and the student is a passive recipient of knowledge which has been preselected as both meaningful and useful for the student's future development. Professor Shor argues that this current-traditional model of teaching methodology not only places the "content" of the course beyond any control of the student, but it also prescibes the method of delivery for our students. I recommend the book to teachers and parents: we need empowered children and citizens.
Customer Reviews:
Weird and not much information.......2007-09-03
I was disappointed in this book, it was weird and I got very little information out of it. Maybe I thought it was going to be about something else but in my opinion, it's not very spiritual or informative unfortunately.
Fabulous book, difficult to explain........2003-04-22
This is a sort of humanistic psychology book that speaks of Western Christianity. Ira Progof has done just a fantastic job of captivating his audience. It is a translation of one of the classics of Christianity, but it is written in laymans terms and just absolutely brilliant. Ira Progof does the best job of translating this classic guide to spiritual experience that I am now looking for other books written by him. The translation speaks so well of inner depths and souls and things you may have always wondered but were never really sure of spiritually. I found myself staying up late at night, anxious to finish, but not anxious to end it! I may just read it again. There are passages that are so deep and so meaningful that I found myself reading them over and over. Some may find these passages I speak of vague, and they are. Yet they are worth understanding. This book takes effort and the pay-off is astounding.
Customer Reviews:
Kinda lame..........2004-01-28
Yeah I found this book to be really lacking in the whole "cool" category (and "sweet" category while I'm at it). I learn more from the history channel and old John Wayne videos. You should only buy this book if you go to West Point and they just closed book issue and your Professor is getting all up in your grill about buying one. If you buy this book for any of the following reasons...flog yourself:
1) You think you will enjoy it
2) To beef up your "professional library"
3) Cause your one of those "militant type" people that reads everything in the world about the Military, wear BDU pants tucked into your combat boots out in public, you have a "Semper Fi" bumpersticker on your car, and sport an extreme high and tight...yet your way too scared to actually join the military other than the Seacadets or Boy Scouts.
4) Any other brutally terrible reason that has not been previously stated.
(if you chose option three than feel free flog yourself (in the face) twice)
Thanks, and happy shopping
Excellent survey.......1999-09-09
For a clearly written, concise, reliable summary of Western military history with an operational-level focus, this is the book to buy. I use it to teach military history, and my students (cadets) rate it highly.
Book Description
A landmark chronicle of Civil War medicine, Bleeding Blue and Gray is a major contribution to our understanding of America’s bloodiest conflict. Indeed, eminent surgeon and medical historian Ira M. Rutkow argues that it is impossible to grasp the harsh realities of the Civil War without an awareness of the state of American medicine at the time.
At the outset of the war, the use of ether and chloroform remained crude, and they were often unavailable in the hellish conditions at the front lines. As a result, many surgical procedures were performed without anesthesia in the compromised setting of a battleground or a field hospital. This meant that “clinical concerns were often of less consequence,” writes Rutkow, “than the swiftness of the surgeon’s knife.”
Also, in the 1860s, the existence of pathogenic microorganisms was still unknown–many still blamed “malodorous gasses” for deadly outbreaks of respiratory influenza. As the great Civil War surgeon William Williams Keen wrote, “we used undisinfected instruments from undisinfected plush-lined cases, and still worse, used marine sponges which had been used in prior pus cases and had been only washed in tap water.”
Besides the substandard quality of wartime medical supplies and techniques, the combatants’ utter lack of preparation greatly impaired treatment. In 1861, the Union’s medical corps, mostly ill-qualified and poorly trained, even lacked an ambulance system. Fortunately, some of these difficulties were ameliorated by the work of numerous relief agencies, especially the United States Sanitary Commission, led by Frederick Law Olmsted, and tens of thousands of volunteers, among them Louisa May Alcott and Walt Whitman.
From the soldiers who endured the ravages of combat to the government officials who directed the war machine, from the good Samaritans who organized aid commissions to the nurses who cared for the wounded, Bleeding Blue and Gray presents a story of suffering, politics, character, and, ultimately, healing.
Customer Reviews:
The Practice and Progress of Medicine.......2007-06-10
Medicine was another major area where the combatants of the Civil War were ill-equipped to begin. Prior to the Civil War hospitals were by and large places where one did not want to go. Those who were pushed out of society were sent to hospitals whereas those to be saved were cared for at home. Critics of hospitals complained of grimy walls and foul air due bodily secretions. Prior to the Civil War hospitals were only sanctuaries for the destitute and insane.
Basically doctors were divided between allopaths and homeopaths. The orthodox view of medicine at 1860 was typified by Benjamin Rush who taught bleeding, blistering, and purging for every imaginable ailment. So when in 1862, William Goodell was knocked unconscious by an exploding artillery shell, and his doctor observed that Goodell could not speak and ordered that ice be placed on Goodell's head and that his neck was opened to remove blood. Vomiting was induced. Blisters were created "on his legs and behind his ears to allow 'poisonous' fluids to ooze from the body." Homeopathy was the non-orthodox view of medicine at that time. These doctors prescribed herbs, roots, and the like to cure every ailment. The regimental doctor was often the person best qualified from the town where the regiment had been formed even though he may not have had any real qualifications at all.
Ambulances... if you study EMS, you'll find that ambulance service began during the Civil War. For the most part, casualties had faced the prospect of being a liability to the army and the injuries they suffered were their own bad fortune. Perhaps their fellow soldiers would return to the battlefield... if they had been victorious. At the First Battle of Bull Run, the Union has very few two-wheeled ambulances and was forced to leave their fate in the hands of the Confederates... who had fewer resources of their own and so the wounded were hospitalized all the way back to Richmond.
Nurses, because they were women at a time when women had few rights, were largely ineffective. One of the orders from Washington put nurses at the whim of doctors. This created a situation which serves as a source for a lot of off-color jokes about nurses. Nurses were not the highly trained respected persons that they are today.
Most of Dr Rutkow's book is about the political battles which changed policies. Frederick Law Olmstead is a major figure in Rutkow's book as is the Sanitary Commission. Edwin Stanton dueled and juggled with these and the likes of William Hammond and others. Interestingly, Rutkow leaves Abraham Lincoln above most of these political battles.
During the Civil War, amputations were common due to the fact that the doctors had an anesthetic (since the 1840's) and knew that gangrene would spread unless amputated. So why amputate? Why hurry patients to hospitals? Why change ventilation? Why change linens? The answer to these questions lies in the work of previous doctors. In another book I read the story about a head physician in Vienna in 1848 who managed two maternity wards. In one the mortality of the mothers was five times that in the other. The head physician tackled the problem by wondering whether one ward was too crowded, was birth position a problem, etc. In a way, it was stroke of luck that a male doctor also lost his life with the same symptoms as the women in the first ward. The head doctor determined that "cadervic material" had found its way from a mortuary to the maternity ward.
It was such testing that led to the reforms of the medical system during the Civil War. Hospitals became more open aired and sanitary. Proper nutrition was emphasized. Linens were clean. Doctors and nurses began to develop a "shared practice experience" along with some certification of qualification. And ambulances began to be deployed in sufficient number to remove the wounded from the battlefield to the hospitals.
The Civil War occurred in the waning years of medicine before the scientific era. My one criticism of Dr Rutkow's book is that he does not do much to explain some of the efforts to control infection in the time before the discovery of bacteria.
Civil War medical issues.......2007-02-07
This book is an excellent look at a broad spectrum of Civil War medical issues. The author touches on the medical training of doctors in the 19th century, and even discusses the role of nurses in patient care at the time. Much of the information in the book was new to me, rather than a rehashing of common information, As a physician, I marvelled at how little the medical personnel of the time had to work with. The administrative structure of the Medical Corps is covered in almost too much detail, but this information is made more palatable by vivid portraits of some of the leading figures. I wanted this book to be longer-- I hope that Dr. Rutkown returns to writing soon!
Civil War Surgery.......2006-07-09
If you only buy one book on civil war medicine, this
is the book to purchase.
Excellent.
Bleeding Blue and Gray: Civil War Surgery and the Evolution of American Medicine.......2006-07-04
Excellent! What a research project that Dr. Rutkow undertook with this book and then gave it back to us in an interesting, informative read! Thought I might get bored with all the history details and names, but I did not. Funny how much of the major movements in healthcare came with our experiences with war. Thought Vietnam was primarily the determinate change, but the Doc shows us how medicine evolved during the Civil War, but stayed stagnant at the same time. Read the book!
Fascinating, gory and sad.......2006-03-18
It's obvious the author, an M.D. himself, has gone to great pains to research this subject exhaustively. I was riveted by the general Civil War history relating to and along with the medical history of the period. The personalities and politics were as interesting as the accounts of battles and medical cases. It's amazing that only a century and a half ago, medical professionals didn't know to wash their hands between patients or before performing surgery. I couldn't put this book down and finished it in two evenings. I recommend it heartily.
Book Description
This timely, persuasive, and hopeful book reexamines John Dewey's idea of schools, specifically community schools, as the best places to grow a democratic society that is based on racial, social, and economic justice. The authors assert that American colleges and universities bear a responsibility for-and would benefit substantially from-working with schools to develop democratic schools and communities.
Customer Reviews:
Dewey's Dream.......2007-05-14
Since the Post-World War II period, each decade has been marked by a book or two that shapes the discourse in higher education, not only in this country but across the globe. Benson, Harkavy and Puckett have captured a particular moment with this timely assessment of the essential democratic role of the modern university in an era of growing neo-liberalism, the commodification of knowledge, and the rise of the entrepreneural institutions across the world. The authors -- all noted historians with a commitment to public education -- have challenged the university and its supporters to re-claim their rightful catalytic and responsible function in building democratic societies, reforming the place and focus of higher education, and establishing a new spirit of civic responsibility through research, teaching and service towards community engagement. This is a powerful argument for how universities ought to more strategically impact society, local communities, and public education through the creative and productive application of the academic talent and assets each institution possesses. It is a inspiring and descriptive testament to what universities can do for society, for schools and to clearly demonstrate a deeper practice of democratic citizenship. I highly recommend this work for anyone who wants a renewed sense of hope and vision for our universities.
Michael Malahy Morris
Research Professor and Director
Community Learning & Public Service
University of New Mexico
Fulbright New Century Scholar 2007-2008
Amazon.com
Many great artists have had at least intermittent doubts about their own abilities. But The Education of Henry Adams is surely one of the few masterpieces to issue directly from a raging inferiority complex. The author, to be sure, had bigger shoes to fill than most of us. Both his grandfather and great-grandfather were U.S. presidents. His father, a relative underachiever, scraped by as a member of Congress and ambassador to the Court of St. James. But young Henry, born in Boston in 1838, was destined for a walk-on role in his nation's history--and seemed alarmingly aware of the fact from the time he was an adolescent.
It gets worse. For the author could neither match his exalted ancestors nor dismiss them as dusty relics--he was an Adams, after all, formed from the same 18th-century clay. "The atmosphere of education in which he lived was colonial," we are told,
revolutionary, almost Cromwellian, as though he were steeped, from his greatest grandmother's birth, in the odor of political crime. Resistance to something was the law of New England nature; the boy looked out on the world with the instinct of resistance; for numberless generations his predecessors had viewed the world chiefly as a thing to be reformed, filled with evil forces to be abolished, and they saw no reason to suppose that they had wholly succeeded in the abolition; the duty was unchanged.
Here, as always, Adams tells his story in a third-person voice that can seem almost extraplanetary in its detachment. Yet there's also an undercurrent of melancholy and amusement--and wonder at the specific details of what was already a lost world.
Continuing his uphill conquest of the learning curve, Adams attended Harvard, which didn't do much for him. ("The chief wonder of education is that it does not ruin everybody concerned in it, teachers and taught.") Then, after a beer-and-sausage-scented spell as a graduate student in Berlin, he followed his father to Washington, D.C., in 1860. There he might have remained--bogged down in "the same rude colony ... camped in the same forest, with the same unfinished Greek temples for workrooms, and sloughs for roads"--had not the Civil War sent Adams père et fils to London. Henry sat on the sidelines throughout the conflict, serving as his father's private secretary and anxiously negotiating the minefields of English society. He then returned home and commenced a long career as a journalist, historian, novelist, and peripheral participant in the political process--a kind of mouthpiece for what remained of the New England conscience.
He was not, by any measure but his own, a failure. And the proof of the pudding is The Education of Henry Adams itself, which remains among the oddest and most enlightening books in American literature. It contains thousands of memorable one-liners about politics, morality, culture, and transatlantic relations: "The American mind exasperated the European as a buzz-saw might exasperate a pine forest." There are astonishing glimpses of the high and mighty: "He saw a long, awkward figure; a plain, ploughed face; a mind, absent in part, and in part evidently worried by white kid gloves; features that expressed neither self-satisfaction nor any other familiar Americanism..." (That would be Abraham Lincoln; the "melancholy function" his Inaugural Ball.) But most of all, Adams's book is a brilliant account of how his own sensibility came to be. A literary landmark from the moment it first appeared, the Autobiography confers upon its author precisely that prize he felt had always eluded him: success. --James Marcus
Book Description
'Every generalisation that we settled forty years ago, is abandoned' As a journalist, historian and novelist born into a family that included two past presidents of the United States, Henry Adams was constantly focused on the American experiment. An immediate bestseller awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1919, his The Education of Henry Adams (1918) recounts his own and the country's education from 1838, the year of his birth, to 1905, incorporating the Civil War, capitalist expansion and the growth of the United States as a world power. Exploring America as both a success and a failure, contradiction was the very impetus that compelled Adams to write the Education, in which he was also able to voice his deep scepticism about mankind's power to control the direction of history. Written with immense wit and irony, reassembling the past while glimpsing the future, Adams's vision expresses what Henry James declared the `complex fate' to be an American, and remains one of the most compelling works of American autobiography today.
Download Description
As a journalist, historian, and novelist born into a distinguished family that included two past presidents of the United States, Henry Adams was inescapably a part of the American experience. The Education of Henry Adams (1918) recounts his own and the country's development from 1838, the year of his birth, to 1905, and became an immediate bestseller, awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1919. The Civil War, economic expansion, and the growth of the United States are among its subjects, as well as his own 'dynamic theory of history'.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting Read.......2006-04-30
This book wasn't the greatest book I've ever read, but I had huge expectations for it because the only reason I read it was because the "Modern Library" list ranked it #1, but I still thought the book was very good. I wasn't familiar with Henry Adams and didn't know why I should care what he did during his life, but the further I got into the book the more interesting it became. I've been traveling through Europe for a year and thought that Adams and I shared similar opinions about traveling and other things about Europe, so that was interesting due to the large time gap. But I enjoyed the story because I thought it was an interesting depiction of America, Europe and how one has difficulty understanding the world and the challenges one experiences during life. A book worth reading.
Not what I had hoped for..........2006-04-03
I had heard of the importance, and significance of "The Education of Henry Adams" for a long time. I finally determined I needed to read it.
I acutally read it twice, and found less in it the second time than the first.
I am sorry I missed the greatness of this book. I am sure there was something wrong with me, but I found it to be incredibly unimpressive.
Perhaps this came from the fact that Henry Adams was not a likeable man. He was famous for holding court in his home near the White House, and making caustic and negative comments about every President who lived there.
Granted, he lived in Washington at a time when there were plenty of second-rate occupants of the White House. But the thought of people wasting their time trying to please a blue-blooded snob like Adams depresses me. Why did anyone bother? He lived in an atmosphere of snobbery, sharp-tongues, clever remarks, and brilliant conversation. The world went on without him, truth be told, and he contributed less than the people who walked by his house each day.
He was a very good historian in his time. But who reads his books now? Not very many. In short, his own work was not as long-lasting as he would have wanted it to be. Maybe the influence of some of the Presidents he mocked lasted longer than the published and purchased work of Henry Adams.
"The Education of Henry Adams" does not have much real information. He got education in one place, none in others. Surely, the suicide of his wife provided some very painful education for Henry--but he wrote nothing about it in his book.
When Eric Sevareid wrote "Not So Wild a Dream," it was compared to "The Education of Henry Adams." That was meant as a compliment. Oddly, I think Sevareid's book is much, much better. Sevareid wrote of America, the common man, the war, and what it all meant to him. Adams needed to get out more. He did not see America--not the America built by the common citizen who put it all together, and defended it. I gained a trememdous amount from Sevareid. I cannot say the same for the work of Henry Adams.
Again, a lot of this might be me. Perhaps I read the book at a bad time. Maybe I needed to read it a third time. I do not know. I do know I do not think this is a great American classic. Forgive, please, my ignorance.
Anyone interested in American History will love this book!.......2005-10-25
In 1885, Adams wife Marion committed suicide. Upon her death, Adams took up a restless life in trotting around the globe and travelling extensively. For years, he spent summers in Paris and winters in Washington, DC. In 1907 he pubished this Pulitzer Prize winning autobiography. This work contains the birth of forces that Adams saw as replacing Chrisianity and has the reputation of being the the most important non-fiction work of the 20th century and I am hard pressed to disagree!
A meditation on an era.......2005-08-27
This books stands apart in autobiographies. Unlike autobiographies written in vanity at the crest of success, this one is written as a melancholic meditation on life, at the crest of what Henry Adams thought was his failure. Adams always refers to himself in third person and in the humorous and abject epithets giving the autobiography the character of a novel or a biography.
Henry Adams, was a historian, journalist and political private secretary, with intrests as varied as physics, chemistry, geology, evolution, mathematics, politics, history, and diplomacy. He was the son of a diplomat, Charles Francis Adams. His grand-father was John Quincy Adams the 6th president of USA and great-grand father was John Adams, the 2nd president.
Despite being one of the greatest American historians, with a successful career in history, journalism and literature, Adams regarded himself as a failure because he was inconsequential in politics and society as compared to his forefathers and his education based on eighteenth century principles of the founding fathers of USA, imparted through his relatives, peers, school, socity and the Harvard College, was unsuitable to meet the challenges of the world he was to grow into - the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Adams believed that the law of acceleration of forces in history lead to a situation where a person trained for a certain level of complexity finds himself at the mercy of forces of a higher complexity as he grows up. This was his theory of history, intimately derived from his experience of life.
He felt that all education through parents, school, college, work or life can never in its entirety prepare a person for life, because the society around you changes at an accelerating pace while your education rooted in your parents values and the value of the soceity of your childhood becomes obsolete by the time you need to put it to use. So at each stage of life man always needs to begin his education anew.
The merit of this books goes beyond just and insight into education, life or failure. It also illuminates the time from 1838 to 1905. Adams was close to political, literary, artistic and scientific circles in Europe and America and travelled far and wide visiting England, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Egypt, Mexico and Cuba, some of these countries again and again.
The books is rich in literary style and historical, literary, scientific, cultural, economic and sociological insights as it analyzes self, peoples, times and cultures.
The cold classic of an unlikeable genius .......2004-10-27
This is one of the great American books. The scion of one of America's most patrician families tells the story of his education. And his education is the story of his disillusionment with the time and world he comes to live in, and his idealization of a long lost medieval world. The Virgin of the medieval Catholic vision which represents for Adams an organic harmony is opposed and contradicted by the Dynamo of his own world. And that Dynamo is of scientific and technological progress accelerating at such an intense pace that the sense of the world, the center falls apart . And the Adams born to the heart of America's founding elite feels himself increasingly not at home in the world. The majestic tone, the third person narrative, the whole detached way he tells his own story prevents the reader from the most intense kind of sympathy with him. And yet his vision of a world somehow come apart in going too far and too fast in directions we do not understand does speak to us today.
There are of course other aspects of the richness of the work, including the insight into the political worlds of the Washington of his time.
But there is too a sense of an elite observer for whom the America of successive waves of immigration is not the real America . And there is a sense of Miniver Cheevy child of scorn cursing the day that he was born, of that is the ' old- line aristrocat ' who feel these new and other Americans have stolen his home and place from him.
This is a work which much can be learned , and which certainly has much to be admired in it intellectually. But it is not a work nor is it written by a person , that warms the heart, moves and inspires.
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General
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