The author answers his critics (cont.)

Regarding authors answering critics, Russell Bonds writes:

Another place to watch answering-the-critics car wrecks - on Amazon.com Customer Reviews. Some authors use the "Comments" function to answer/blast readers who give them a bad review. (The State of Jones folks are doing this to debate some of their one-stars.)

He adds, "It is tough to watch people trash your 'baby,' but arguing with them is a bad idea."

A good indicator of which authors might be prone to do this is to note which ones go into a state of rage when publishers turn down their manuscripts (see doozy here).

Francis Hamit adds:

That e-mail I sent you about bad book reviews was not a "press release". You were the only recipient. I don't mind having a dialog on this topic, but since I have over a dozen favorable reviews for "The Shenandoah Spy" a badly done one simply makes its author look bad and, frankly, I expect better from academics than a "once over lightly" approach which would earn any of their students a "C". As I said, I used to be a book reviewer for the Los Angeles Daily News. There are standards for reviews and rule number one is that you are supposed to read the entire book. Anything less is cheating. People rely upon book reviews for insights into the quality of the text and insights into what the book is about. My concern here is not whether or not the review might be negative or prejudicial, but whether or not it is accurate and fair. How can it be fair if the reviewer hasn't bothered to read the entire text and grasp the author's intention?

The author answers his critics

Way back, Ted Savas of Savas-Beatie, mentioned to me that Russel Beatie (right) was using his website to answer critics. I didn't think it was a good idea, so I am pleased to find no retorts on his site now.

My feelings are/were somewhat Beatie-specific. His more ardent critics almost drove me to write an extended series of essays on substantive criticism vs. frippery.

Major criticisms deserves a response but the author is too often tempted into overkill, chasing the critic's own smaller mistakes or errors in interpretation. Do you ever read magazines with letters colums where the author responds? Voila.

All this is to introduce a very interesting press release from Francis Hamit (right) in which he addresses critics of his novel Shenandoah Spy. I place the whole release below to provide context for the response to reviewers. Is Hamit in the zone where response is needed? Or is he in a lose/lose bargain?

Because of the economy, we continue to push "The Shenandoah Spy" and have put off the second book in the series, "Nest of Spies". That means we are still sending out review copies and doing book signings and interviews. Generally, the reviews have been excellent and the only ones that fail to be excellent are one where the reviewer has quite obviously not read the book fully and completely. When the review focuses on a very minor character and misses the main events of the narrative that define the characters, it's sort of a dead giveaway. This only seems to happen when reviewer is a historian rather than a novelist. Given how touchy these folks are about accuracy, it seems odd that they are so careless and quick to judge a historical novel based on a few selective readings of bits and pieces and not the whole. True, many historical novels are sloppy in their own research and many professional historians rightly scorn them for this Hollywood approach to the facts, but prejudging a book by its category and reading it incompletely is the kind of carelessness that professional book reviewers (if there are any left) get fired for. I used to be one.

There is not much an author can do about a badly done review, except take the hit and hope that the mass of favorable opinion will overcome it, but I do think that professional historians should recuse themselves from reviewing historical fiction if they cannot be bothered to read the complete work and understand, going in, that is is indeed fictional and creative choices related to the needs of an entertaining and enjoyable narrative for average readers, sans footnotes and other artifacts of the tradtional history are what will drive the storyline. These are not teaching tools, nor are they intended for immature or sensitive readers.

The essence of drama and fiction can be expressed in the question "What would happen if...." and fill in the blank. This takes a novelist places that a historian would never think to go. Currently I am looking once more in the exisitng primary sources for what the intelligence trade calls "indicators". Last night I discovered that the British were very worried at the end of the Civil War that America might use it's massive and experienced army to invade Canada and that British support of the Confederate Navy (almost entirely crewed by British sailors) would be the cause. The American merchantile fleet had been destroyed by the Confederate cruisers, either directly or ,more significantly by the 715 vessles that had changed their registration from American to British. The Confederate Navy was a secret service operation from beginning to end. I will be going to the Public Records Office at Kew in the future to see just whose secret service. And to Liverpool. Seems to me that there more than one PhD dissertation to be gotten here, but that's not my game, so regular historians should feel free to jump on this, if they like.

My book is available for review, but you have to read the whole thing. The attached file is the current book cover. By the way, the Amazon Shorts version is not the same. I did more research before the final publication. Mostly on Major Wheat, a very minor character, but every character in a novel is important.

Google: annoyance or menace?

One should not speak ill of a business partner but it used to be that when you Googled "Russel Beatie" (watch the spelling) his website appeared near the top of the results. Now you get a fairly random grab bag of mixed relevance with his site outta site (but his political contributions in the top four results!). You'll see this very blog in the top five, so it's not all bad news. On the other hand, I'm worried that this post will eventually index higher than the author's own web pages or any other contextually relevant site.

Which reminds me, any of you codgers notice a serious deterioration in the Amazon search output over the last decade? I have relied on it for 13 years of ACW book hunts but am getting better relevance from B&N over the last three years. It must be the expanded inventory that is degrading Amazon search quality. I'm seeing a major irrelevancy generator in the (Amazonian) textual analysis of various books' insides. (If a UFO book mentions Lincoln or Civil War, it's on your list.)

Where are all those fierce algo jockeys when you need them?

(Image result topside from Googling "fierce algo jockeys." They seem to be fiddling with some sort of iTunes interface device.)

Heard at a meeting this morning...

"That department is in the first 10 minutes of Pickett's charge..." I guess those were the better minutes.

Testing search engines

When I hear about new search engines, the first test I'll run is "Civil War."

Here are the results from Microsoft's new "decision engine" Bing. The good news for Eric Wittenberg is that his blog landed fourth on the list (but not the blog in general, one post in particular).

The rest of the showing is marred by duplicate entries (Encarta, Wiki, Civilwar.com) and scattershot relevancy. See for yourself.

Buchanan and the inevitability doctrine

This blog carried a post on how Buchanan's reputation reaps little gain from the Centennial doctrine that the war was inevitable. Mitch Hagmaier writes

I had a kid submit an inevitability & Buchanan paper for this year's History Day state semi-finals. He did, in fact, argue that Buchanan was blameless due to the whole Centennial "irrepressible conflict" line of argument, and generally blaming every negative event of Buchanan's term on somebody other than Buchanan. Shame he was more interested in the Sumner-Brooks beating & taking his analysis from contemporary political cartoons than in discussing decisions which Buchanan had actually made, but at least he took a slightly different tack than the usual line.

He's picking something up from pop political culture, I think: any accusation made against your guy can now be refuted by means of rationalization (or charge of hypocrisy). Could be the wave of the future in history...

I'm with Bynum

When I saw what they had done to her book, I felt the same sentiments author Victoria Bynum expresses here:

“I am appalled at the manner in which these authors have written what is touted as a scholarly work. I am also deeply hurt by the manner in which they have appropriated, then denigrated, my work.”

I had asked earlier how a the head of a Harvard department could do scholarship such a wrong. Sally Jenkins now stands a good chance of being profiled by the Cambridge police.

This blog got ahead of the New York Times, but the Times has caught up (and passed me) in grand style. Click the first link.

The genesis for a book

This is one of the oddest origins-of-a-book story ever.

A director is shooting a film.

He creates a team of two authors to write a book about the film's subject.

The authors enter a specific, deeply plowed ACW history field to compile a rockem-sockem narrative on the QT with almost no research: "we spent a number of weeks in Mississippi together, filling in holes in the research [!] and borrowing groundbreaking material from Jim Kelly, who is writing his dissertation on the subject."

Weeks of plugging and borrowing. You see, the research has been done to death, including in a trade hardback I reviewed 10 years ago which they disparagingly call an "academic monograph". The holes are to be plugged in other people's work and augmented with a new dissertation by a student.

OPM = Other People's Money. OPR = Other People's Research.

The authors include a sportswriter and the chair of a Harvard department.

In addition to cranking out hit history titles, sounds like these two could run a pretty good whorehouse.

Bloggers with books out

A surprising number of ACW bloggers had books out this summer.

Eric Wittenberg's Like a Meteor Burning Brightly: The Short but Controversial Life of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren was scheduled for release June 11 (by Amazon's reckoning) but was still in production as recently as July 10. I'm really looking forward to the accounts of political intrigue in this one.

I missed the release of Scott Mingus's book in March, Flames Beyond Gettysburg: The Gordon Expedition, June 1863. Hmm: Confederate general training militia on the march during and for an invasion of the North. Narrative history doesn't get much better than that. (Hat tip to Eric W for mentioning this.)

Brooks Simpson has put out his Civil War in the East 1861-1865: A Strategic Assessment. The publisher says, "At a time when the telling and retelling of the military narrative approaches Norse saga, Brooks avers that it is essential to question conventional wisdom, especially when it is questionable wisdom, without giving way to pure contrarianism."

J. David Petruzzi and mapmaker Steven Stanley saw their Complete Gettysburg Guide released by Savas-Beatie last month. This is a full-color production on slick paper with maps of the same quality as CWPT distributes in its mailings.

Back in April, Steven Woodworth issued a collection, The Shiloh Campaign, which included a piece by his co-blogger Brooks Simpson as well as Savas-Beatie author Timothy Smith.

Larry Tagg's Unpopular Mr. Lincoln was reviewed here Friday - please read that post.

Apologies to fellow bloggers for mere mentions. Will delve into content in future posts.

Lincoln's odium

The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln is a bold and difficult idea for a book.

In our circles (dear reader), everyone knows Lincoln was unpopular but his unpopularity is one of many bromides ("McClellan was a great organizer," "the ACW was the first modern war") on which no one wastes curiosity.

In fact, these bromides are designed as prophylaxis against subject development. "We all agree, let's move on." Put another way, lazy writers use these thought tokens so often as EZPass badges that readers are taught to accept them as the legal tender of scholarship.

Over the years, in my mind, I have thoroughly organized my own version of an Unpopular Mr. Lincoln. It is a book that would turn the firehose of contemporary Lincoln criticism into the face of thoughtless Lincoln-loving. Its vast number of chapters would be organized topically - by category of criticism, very heavy on quotes, progressing from the most substantive and credible complaints to the grumbles of partisans. The back of the book would be an examination of the best, sharpest criticism. An extended appendix would ask to what extent Civil War history has been organized to defend Lincoln's decisions, all of which we are currently told, were correct or the best under the circumstances; a second appendix would trace the phrases, ideas and memes of current historians back to their origins in the Republican newspaper editorials of the period. This imaginary book of mine would be the cure for "everyone knows Lincoln was unpopular but..."

Hearing of The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln, I oddly assumed Larry Tagg had written a book plotted out in my own mind.

Actually, The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln starts from an opposite premise: it seeks to correct the idea of Lincoln being popular, "the idol of the common people," presumably the view held beyond our ACW readership. Its organization has to be different because if someone's stock of Lincolniana is so miserably low that he thinks Lincoln was popular, then the author is going to have to take that reader by the hand and lead him along a timeline landscaped with deep context and summary information.

The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln, then, takes the form of a book of essays, each devoted to a phase of the Lincoln presidency and the controversies and criticism in that phase.

This approach is not to my taste; I expected to be bored and disappointed. Actually the essays are so well done, afer the first three I became so excited, I had to get up and walk around to calm down. The summaries of the presidency and the party system pre-Lincoln were superb - and I say this even in full rejection of Tagg's interpretation of Whiggery and the birth of the two-party system.

This brilliance may defeat the marketing ends intended. These are more like treats for advanced ACW readers than digestible foods for general nonfiction readers - unless I'm underrating the latter. I mean, think of the Larry Tagg "brand." What was Generals of Gettysburg? It had the outward form of a reference book but its content was that of delightfully pungent commentary by an entertaining and informed author for a knowing reader. Welcome dummies, welcome cognescenti! Myself straddling the dummy/cognescenti divide (at least re: Gettysburg) I read that non-narrative cover to cover, entry by entry when it came out and enjoyed it immensely.

Tagg here takes the insight and writing skill shown in his tiny biographical gems (in Gettysburg) and dispenses more, better in a much larger medium demanding of him much wider reading and much deeper thought. This is a tour de force demonstration of writing, reading, and thinking.

If old hands have a problem with this book it will be in Tagg's matter-of-fact treatment of Lincoln's mistakes; not that he dwells on them, rather the opposite. He relates an action or decision then goes to the public reaction without the usual elaborate rationalizations and justifications. (I sometimes think authors are terrified to leave the reader unchaperoned in a room with Lincoln.)

Personally, I think this book wasted on general nonfiction readers. We, however, are free to enjoy it and should do so in the knowledge that a work of this quality can rarely come out of an authorial pool as small as that of the ACW and Lincolnology. Bravo.

(Topside: Lincoln's Comedy of Death, a privately circulated cartoon scanned from the book; it's typical of the author's original research and good eye.)

Inspiring

Ted Savas knows what to do with interns - make 'em blog! And boy, does Parul Guliani blog. Let's see if I can get my summer-soaked attitude adjusted and inspired...

Back to blogging

After a lazy hiatus, this blog will be looking like Drew's for awhile as I plunge into the pile of books accumulated in the last weeks.

Kenneth Stampp has died

It's amazing to hear of people with big mid-century reputations dying now. Think of Stampp's peer group among Civil War historians...

Celebrating Lincoln, 7/4/09

Perhaps they were waiting for better weather, but a surprising number of venues postponed their Bicentennial observances from February to July 4. The weather was fine in some places, worse in others:

Rain didn’t prevent Abraham Lincoln from making a Fourth of July visit to downtown Springfield. Lincoln impersonator Michael Krebs was one of a large group of entertainers who performed Saturday as part of the Capital City Bicentennial Celebration ... Because of the wet weather, many entertainers had their performances moved ...

Notice how the writer conflates the performance of a vaudeville bit with an actual visit by the historic Abraham Lincoln. I guess history is the big winner when (similarly) an eight-year-old in Philly mistakes a re-enactor for an historical person:

"Awesome," Joey said, nodding. "I thought that Abe Lincoln was just a spirit, but he's right here."

There was not enough bad vaudeville availble to Sparta, Indiana, so Kiwanis there decided that "Children who dress-up like Abe or his wife, Mary Todd will be admitted to the park for free." This will help them get past the image of the man to penetrate his historical meaning, perhaps.

In Philadelphia, the art club Dumpster Divers strewed trash across damaged plywood on Independence Mall to "honor Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday." Sensing the kitsch imperative behind every Lincoln project, a spokesman said "Originally I wanted to make it look like Abe Lincoln's hat" but gave up for technical reasons. He was careful to use the word "whimsical" instead of "kitschy" but of course the "trash" content of the exhibit is immutable.

Another artist, Wisconsin cheese artist Troy Landwehr (top photo), sculpted a Lincoln form out of a 1,000-lb block of cheddar with the full weight of the task in mind: "I think it's a big honor to carve Lincoln." He did not take this honor lightly: "It's a lot of research."

When the figure was moved to Washington, hot weather and jostling caused the cheese head to roll off:

Landwehr couldn't salvage the stovepipe hat. "But we saved his face," the sculptor said. "He's OK. He's back to standing tall."

He, not "it." For you see, Joey, Lincoln has become a spirit that inhabits trash, kitsch, bad lectures, and vaudeville schtick.

"Comfort reads"

As someone who reads books only once (very, very slowly) I had never heard of "comfort reads" before this. I suspected there were people who read a book twice due to memory failure but this is wild stuff...

Sesquicentennial kick off

Virginia could not wait another moment and kicked off its Sesquicentennial program in Winchester this weekend with some 1859 re-enactors (!) in attendance (shown right).

I don't want to be too hard on "Bud" Robertson because I am relying on a third party - a reporter - to translate what he said into one and two syllable words for a mass audience. If, however, you read the linked story carefully you'll get a full measure of the kind of damage public history can do to the public and history.

This is the subject for a symposium, not a truism to be handed out to newspaper readers:

...the Shenandoah Valley proved to be crucial in the outcome of the war...

It gets worse:

Winchester alone changed hands between the Union and Confederacy more than 70 times, making it focal point of the war, he said.

We should rename it "The Winchester War" I suppose. Look at the phrasing in this whopper:

“The Shenandoah Valley was important because of location. It was the western flank of all military operations.”

All military operations. And does he know what a flank is?

Is it Robertson's own interest - as a specialist - in the Valley that skews his thinking this badly? Or is there more to it, something out of the public historian's public usefulness (emphasis added):

Robertson said the celebration of the war should be a time for enjoying history, building on visits by citizens to boost the economy of various towns and counties throughout Virginia.

Eventually every town in Virginia will be declared "crucial to the outcome of the war/tourist industry." Meanwhile, enjoy your celebration of war.

"For diligence in genealogical research..."

West Virginia has 4,000 unclaimed ACW medals awaiting an owner.

They found an angle

The New York Times ran a re-enactment story, believe it or not. Seems to have a Mason vs. Mason angle...

John Brown's Raid

John Brown will have died in vain if his end cannot be made to serve heritage tourism:

Harpers Ferry officials claim they have serious standing in the national celebration because the Civil War actually began when Brown and his men raided the arsenal that saw the first shot fired in the “War Between the States.”

They maintain Brown’s raid is the real jumping-off point for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and not the shot that was fired by the infant Confederacy on Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C., in April 1861.

Freshman dorm arguments apparently make good history (for some).

Speaking of which, this freshman dorm argument was inevitable:

"John Brown was, in effect, a terrorist. Whether you agree that what he was doing was right or not," says Gerry Gaumer, spokesman for the Park Service in Washington, D.C. "There are people in the Taliban who believe what they're doing is right. Can you separate John Brown from what's going on in Iraq or Iran or Pakistan or Afghanistan? "They fervently believe what they're doing is right," he says. "But is there a better way?"

Can we get some historians into the National Park Service and over to Harpers Ferry? The freshmen are running the seminar.

Professor demands Republicans apologize for slavery

Your children are in good hands at Vanderbilt:

Carol M. Swain, a professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University who had pushed for the Bush administration to issue an apology [for slavery], called the Democratic-controlled Senate's resolution "meaningless" since the party and federal government are led by a black president and black voters are closely aligned with the Democratic party.

"The Republican Party needed to do it," Swain said. "It would have shed that racist scab on the party."

Republicans = slavery?

Also interesting how some modern administrations are more responsible for events 150 years ago than others.

Intriguing, too, this legal scholar's idea that a (legal) party without (legal) standing can "shed" crimes committed by other (legal) parties through the simple issue of a legislative resolution by this or that political party.

Dr. Swain is a breakthrough thinker who offers us a whole bag full of historiographic bones to chew on.