This is an interesting post about ACW pensions. Talk about government services:
When you consider that the population of white males over the age of 40 in 1890 was 6,454,194 then a significant percentage (15%) of those men were receiving [ACW] pensions.
The blog linked here, "I'm Trying To Write A Book," has an ACW slant and is worth revisiting.
12/07/2004
12/06/2004
Civil War Book News has been updated
Sister site CWBN has been updated with about 35 new publisher's descriptions of titles released this year. (To escape my frames, click here.)
These titles are concentrated under the headings June, July, August, and September. November and December are nearly finished (with a maximum of four additions between now and the new year). September needs a dozen additions and there is a great trove of October material to post yet. Altogether, there are probably 65 more descriptions required to finish the publishing year and these will go up in the next 10 days.
The volume of ACW books released this year is significantly higher than in 1999, our first full year of operation. You'll see this if you check the archive.
These titles are concentrated under the headings June, July, August, and September. November and December are nearly finished (with a maximum of four additions between now and the new year). September needs a dozen additions and there is a great trove of October material to post yet. Altogether, there are probably 65 more descriptions required to finish the publishing year and these will go up in the next 10 days.
The volume of ACW books released this year is significantly higher than in 1999, our first full year of operation. You'll see this if you check the archive.
Blogging Burnside's ghost
I had thought this ACW blog was dead, but it has sprung back to life: Blogging Civil War Ghosts - Covering NEW BERN'S fall by KAYAK.
You're thinking, "How much more Ambrose Burnside reading can I fit into my hectic day?" Well, there's not much AB here; the blog tends towards:
Off to the side I see creaky barges and smoke belching ferries scurry across the harbor....
It's a travelog retracing the events of 1862, the blog equivalent of a Civil war reality TV show. Is that such a bad thing?
You're thinking, "How much more Ambrose Burnside reading can I fit into my hectic day?" Well, there's not much AB here; the blog tends towards:
Off to the side I see creaky barges and smoke belching ferries scurry across the harbor....
It's a travelog retracing the events of 1862, the blog equivalent of a Civil war reality TV show. Is that such a bad thing?
McDonald's memoir and ACW revisionism
HNN has published a review of Forrest McDonald's new historiographic memoir, outlining his revision of the field of Revolutionary War history:
In writing of this period, McDonald clearly suggests that his work, along with that of Bray Hammond, Douglass Adair and several others, heralded the beginning of a solid new historiography...
Entering his own field in the 1950s, McDonald encountered a Progressive party ethos at work; a political movement had ideologized the way the underlying material could be organized into stories. His undo activity was to perform intense research of primary sources, testing the central ideas of of the dominant school. His research may have helped collapse that school.
Now, much later, the dead hand that has gripped Civil War history since about 1950 is being pried loose, one finger at a time, by careful and scholarly revisionists; this is why the McDonald story holds interest for us. And there is this good news: the best students of Civil War history today seem to me to be better historians than McDonald, giving even more hope for successful change.
Starting tomorrow and running the rest of this week, we'll look at the current book sales activity for ACW pop historians who follow the '50s/'60s American Heritage editorial line. I think you will be pleased at the picture these numbers paint.
In writing of this period, McDonald clearly suggests that his work, along with that of Bray Hammond, Douglass Adair and several others, heralded the beginning of a solid new historiography...
Entering his own field in the 1950s, McDonald encountered a Progressive party ethos at work; a political movement had ideologized the way the underlying material could be organized into stories. His undo activity was to perform intense research of primary sources, testing the central ideas of of the dominant school. His research may have helped collapse that school.
Now, much later, the dead hand that has gripped Civil War history since about 1950 is being pried loose, one finger at a time, by careful and scholarly revisionists; this is why the McDonald story holds interest for us. And there is this good news: the best students of Civil War history today seem to me to be better historians than McDonald, giving even more hope for successful change.
Starting tomorrow and running the rest of this week, we'll look at the current book sales activity for ACW pop historians who follow the '50s/'60s American Heritage editorial line. I think you will be pleased at the picture these numbers paint.
12/03/2004
McPherson's rockin' second tour stop
"Rock star" James M. McPherson's tour bus is now pointed toward Ohio, where his eager fans await him. Here's one who writes:
(Entertain, me baby! I'm a big time history reader - shake your stuff, talespinner. I'm paying the bills here, sweetheart - make daddy happy.)
Sorry for the outburst. Returning to the subject of James "the man in the wrap-around shades" McPherson, this Ohioan notes that:
Right!
Which brings me to the prerennial question of why people read such as McPherson or Ambrose. Let's just say that in this case, at least, we are clearly dealing with a seeker of baseline information who is self-conscious about needing to be entertained.
And did you notice that he consistently refers to McPherson as a writer, not as a scholar.
We're making progress. Yes we are.
Next week we'll look at the levels of McPherson's current book sales as an indication of major (positive) shifts occurring in Civil War publishing.
Some folks will break the bank for a chance to meet a famous politician. Kids will tear down the door simply to stand within 50 feet of a rock music star. [...] But I'd like to think that in my mature years, the people I revere are writers and historians who help me make sense out of the world I live in. Or at least, like the late Steven Ambrose, entertain me while informing me.
(Entertain, me baby! I'm a big time history reader - shake your stuff, talespinner. I'm paying the bills here, sweetheart - make daddy happy.)
Sorry for the outburst. Returning to the subject of James "the man in the wrap-around shades" McPherson, this Ohioan notes that:
McPherson is the author of "Battle Cry of the Republic," the best, most informative single volume of Civil War history ever written.
McPherson's books fill my shelves.
He views the American experience from Jamestown to the Cold War from every angle.
He has made some of the most complex aspects of our American story fairly clear to me.
... meeting a writer who has given me so much information in such an entertaining way is going to be fun.
I don't idolize writers.
Right!
Which brings me to the prerennial question of why people read such as McPherson or Ambrose. Let's just say that in this case, at least, we are clearly dealing with a seeker of baseline information who is self-conscious about needing to be entertained.
And did you notice that he consistently refers to McPherson as a writer, not as a scholar.
We're making progress. Yes we are.
Next week we'll look at the levels of McPherson's current book sales as an indication of major (positive) shifts occurring in Civil War publishing.
12/02/2004
The decline and fall of a battlefield
1908. Prairie Grove Battlefield land in Arkansas is purchased for ACW veteran reunion picnics. It has a single purpose.
1965. The Hindman family donates $100,000 for a museum and memorial on the land. The land is now dual purposed.
1971. The state takes over and expands this battlefield park. It becomes a hiking center. The land is now triple purposed.
2004. The state seeks to add cycling trails and horse trails; it announced plans to convert all landcover to native grasses.
This is what we call battlefield preservation. This is what we're supposed to fight for.
1965. The Hindman family donates $100,000 for a museum and memorial on the land. The land is now dual purposed.
1971. The state takes over and expands this battlefield park. It becomes a hiking center. The land is now triple purposed.
2004. The state seeks to add cycling trails and horse trails; it announced plans to convert all landcover to native grasses.
This is what we call battlefield preservation. This is what we're supposed to fight for.
McPherson: "rock star" tours America
Retired Princeton professor and author James McPherson has picked up a brief Maryland teaching gig. "St. Mary's College of Maryland has made McPherson the first visiting professor in its new program, the Center for the Study of Democracy," according to the Balitmore Sun (subscription required).
He was recently taking a select group around Chancellorsville battlefield, one member of which included a financial patron: this in lieu of a lecture on democracy.
This has been a kind of greatest hits roadshow; his week-long gig seems loaded with battlefield tours.
That personal touch was administered by "the man in the wraparound shades."
McPherson has been paid for insight and analysis and is, instead, hurriedly rehashing events on a battlefield tour best given by park rangers. (On the other hand, synthesizing snippets from half-remembered ranger talks is not far from the practice of writing pop history, so the students can watch a Pulitzer winner in action and the day is not a total loss.)
"'Jim's the best in his field,' says a winded Daugherty."
Well, he certainly makes history look easy.
He was recently taking a select group around Chancellorsville battlefield, one member of which included a financial patron: this in lieu of a lecture on democracy.
A 1965 St. Mary's alum now on the board of trustees, Daugherty, a Southern Maryland banker, helped endow the speaker series McPherson is inaugurating. He has already gotten his money's worth, he says. "Maybe our next guest will be from the legal profession, or a sociologist," he says, "but we've started with a great mind. In history, Jim McPherson's a rock star."
This has been a kind of greatest hits roadshow; his week-long gig seems loaded with battlefield tours.
Like a great general, the professor communicates best in the field. After Hazel Grove, he marches his followers to the bottom of a hill, leaps a strategically located creek, and presses on. A few students toss questions, and McPherson answers over his shoulder without breaking stride.
That personal touch was administered by "the man in the wraparound shades."
Thirty-five people trail in James McPherson's wake as he ambles down a brush-covered hillside toward a clearing below, but he casts nary a glance to the rear. [...] If the hallmark of a good teacher is bringing clarity to the complex, McPherson is a fine commander. [...] "There's nothing like soaking in the atmosphere to bring a lot of ideas to mind, and I have to stay sharp." [...]
McPherson has been paid for insight and analysis and is, instead, hurriedly rehashing events on a battlefield tour best given by park rangers. (On the other hand, synthesizing snippets from half-remembered ranger talks is not far from the practice of writing pop history, so the students can watch a Pulitzer winner in action and the day is not a total loss.)
"'Jim's the best in his field,' says a winded Daugherty."
Well, he certainly makes history look easy.
12/01/2004
Springfield refusenik: Cullom Davis
There is quite a detailed new article on the dark side of the Lincoln Museum project; I commend the Sprigfield State Journal-Register for challenging the biggest, most important project in the state directly.
Much of the writing here centers on Professor Emeritus Cullom Davis, who was involved in the Republican's effort to start and run the Lincoln Library and Museum. Those efforts were restructured by Democrats after being smeared as corrupt and patronage ridden by a Chicago columnist. That columnist has had a room named after him in the library, as reported in this blog some months ago.
Davis's comments on what happened overlaps with my own bloggy analysis. For instance on the idea of Democrats having abolished Library and Museum patronage,
This kind of patronage may actually be self-defeating. I saw it happen repeatedly in city art institutions in more than a decade of non-profit involvement: patronage was going to happen, but if the wrong kind of patronage happened, an organization could be sent over the brink financially, not to mention artistically. This Cellini drama seems to overtly exclude the influence of nominal director Richard Norton Smith, who was so vocal in bashing Republican patronage during Davis's involvement.
Irony alert.
A little tase of more:
If you are following the Library and Museum story, this is must-read stuff.
Much of the writing here centers on Professor Emeritus Cullom Davis, who was involved in the Republican's effort to start and run the Lincoln Library and Museum. Those efforts were restructured by Democrats after being smeared as corrupt and patronage ridden by a Chicago columnist. That columnist has had a room named after him in the library, as reported in this blog some months ago.
Davis's comments on what happened overlaps with my own bloggy analysis. For instance on the idea of Democrats having abolished Library and Museum patronage,
He claims Illinois Historic Preservation Agency chairwoman Julie Cellini has hired friends, namely Susan Mogerman and Estie Karpman, to run the library and museum's foundation. Mogerman is the foundation's executive director. Karpman is its chief fund-raiser. Cellini, who has worked with both women in the past, sits on the foundation board.
This kind of patronage may actually be self-defeating. I saw it happen repeatedly in city art institutions in more than a decade of non-profit involvement: patronage was going to happen, but if the wrong kind of patronage happened, an organization could be sent over the brink financially, not to mention artistically. This Cellini drama seems to overtly exclude the influence of nominal director Richard Norton Smith, who was so vocal in bashing Republican patronage during Davis's involvement.
Irony alert.
A little tase of more:
When Davis learned of the honor [a room named after the Chicago columnist who slimed him], he was offended. [Columnist] Neal's columns accused former [Republican] Gov. George Ryan of planning to use the library and museum as a patronage dump and creating a Lincoln presidential center at UIS [Uni. of Ill./Springfield] for the same purpose.
When fund-raising confusion arose as UIS's Lincoln center competed for dollars with the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum's foundation, Neal wrote about it. Among other things, Neal accused UIS of "cashing in on Lincoln's legacy" by "hijacking" the presidential library. [Democratic] Gov. Rod Blagojevich ultimately yanked the center and its funding from UIS.
Davis was one of those helping UIS with fund raising for its new center.
The whole affair was an "incredible embarrassment to the university," Davis said, adding that UIS officials never had selfish motives and didn't deserve Neal's public smearing.
If you are following the Library and Museum story, this is must-read stuff.
John Y. Simon: "Six Flags over Lincoln"
It's official. There is a sign in the under-construction Lincoln Museum in Springfield that says: "combining scholarship with brilliant showmanship."
John Y. Simon, the editor of Grant's papers, says "What we get here are rubber Lincolns. It's a modern-day wax museum."
Me too.
As I go longer with this story (covered in this blog for almost a year), my compassion for pop historian Richard Norton Smith increases. My sense is that he boarded a fast-moving train; he did not lay the track and he must share control over the throttle. Smith is merely the best-known historian that Illinois could buy to provide a veneer of respectability for a project that was well defined before he ever arrived.
Entering Six Flags, you are greeted by someone in a Bugs Bunny suit; a branded character is there to raise your comfort level. Illinois should not use Smith as the branded character raising your comfort level at the Lincoln Library and Museum, whatever personal or professional circumstances led him to this desperate pass.
Here's the latest.
John Y. Simon, the editor of Grant's papers, says "What we get here are rubber Lincolns. It's a modern-day wax museum."
"Lincoln's own words have living meaning, so the idea of interpreting his story as Six Flags over Lincoln really bothers me."
Me too.
As I go longer with this story (covered in this blog for almost a year), my compassion for pop historian Richard Norton Smith increases. My sense is that he boarded a fast-moving train; he did not lay the track and he must share control over the throttle. Smith is merely the best-known historian that Illinois could buy to provide a veneer of respectability for a project that was well defined before he ever arrived.
Entering Six Flags, you are greeted by someone in a Bugs Bunny suit; a branded character is there to raise your comfort level. Illinois should not use Smith as the branded character raising your comfort level at the Lincoln Library and Museum, whatever personal or professional circumstances led him to this desperate pass.
Here's the latest.
11/30/2004
Marszalek on Halleck
This article suggests that John F. Marszalek's new Halleck biography is working within the borders of our publicly shared (superficial) conclusions about the man:
The biographer is faced here with a task: explain how Halleck could transition from a decision-making lawyer/businessman into a shirker. The idea that "no-one could have predicted" suggests a cop-out, an author's refusal to dig deeper. Might I suggest: "No one who understands the workings of the Lincoln Administration could fail to predict a general's reluctance to make decisions." Or more gently: "Halleck's failure as a decisionmaker fits a pattern established for all military men working closely with the Lincoln Administration. Let us look closely now at this phenomenon..."
I'm playing the fool here, drawing conclusions about a book merely from a reporter's few comments about the author, but there are additional warning flags:
This points towards hypotheticals and rationalizations.
There was a kind of ACW history book published in the 1970s and 1980s the premise of which was this: Everything you, the casual reader, know about this general is fundamentally correct; I, the author, am now going to show you why he was this way.
Another type ran on this basis: Everything you, the casual reader, know about this general is not only correct; I, the author, am now going to show that he was even more like his stereotype than even you could imagine.
Both of these approaches are forms of pandering. Hoping for the best, I will seek out the Halleck book and pass on an infomed conclusion.
Marszalek said no one studying the officer's early success could have predicted his later ineffectiveness. "As a commander, he had great difficulty making decisions. "He just refused to take responsibility," he said.
The biographer is faced here with a task: explain how Halleck could transition from a decision-making lawyer/businessman into a shirker. The idea that "no-one could have predicted" suggests a cop-out, an author's refusal to dig deeper. Might I suggest: "No one who understands the workings of the Lincoln Administration could fail to predict a general's reluctance to make decisions." Or more gently: "Halleck's failure as a decisionmaker fits a pattern established for all military men working closely with the Lincoln Administration. Let us look closely now at this phenomenon..."
I'm playing the fool here, drawing conclusions about a book merely from a reporter's few comments about the author, but there are additional warning flags:
The final product is a major exploration into such physical and psychological factors as Halleck's loss of a twin sister at birth, his alienation from his father and ailments that may have included hemochromatosis, which sometimes is called "genetic iron poisoning." "You can tell in photos of Halleck taken just months apart that there's a noticeable mental and physical strain," Marszalek said.
This points towards hypotheticals and rationalizations.
There was a kind of ACW history book published in the 1970s and 1980s the premise of which was this: Everything you, the casual reader, know about this general is fundamentally correct; I, the author, am now going to show you why he was this way.
Another type ran on this basis: Everything you, the casual reader, know about this general is not only correct; I, the author, am now going to show that he was even more like his stereotype than even you could imagine.
Both of these approaches are forms of pandering. Hoping for the best, I will seek out the Halleck book and pass on an infomed conclusion.
11/29/2004
The state of Grant historiography
Grant scholar Brooks Simpson was good enough to comment on my recent post on two new Grant books. His ideas on the state of Grant historiography are very interesting.
For new Grant studies to be looking to Allan Nevins' old work for guidance is a bad thing, I remarked last week, which is the starting point for these observations:
For new Grant studies to be looking to Allan Nevins' old work for guidance is a bad thing, I remarked last week, which is the starting point for these observations:
Nevins's pronouncements on Grant came from his biography of Hamilton Fish -- a large, partially-digested narrative built around Fish's self-serving diary, with a spin that embraced the anti-Grant perspectives of Jacob D. Cox and others. Nevins was so attached to this find that he would not share it with William B. Hesseltine, who was working on a biography of Grant that remains the fullest study of his presidency (McFeely offered a selective riff, Smith a dry synthesis of existing work; Perret doesn't even qualify as a real scholarly biography).
Anyone who actually reads the original diary, as I have, finds all sorts of things left out or distorted. If you read the Nevins spin, you wonder why Fish was such a Grant man; if you read the original, you see that Grant could play him like a violin at times, telling him what he needed to hear, coddling Fish's ego, and so on. Fish was a valuable advisor and sounding board, but guess who made the choices, even when he decided to follow Fish's advice.
The anti-president Grant synthesis is something to behold. It's so intense that the same historian could be found attacking Grant from being too radical in 1955 and too conservative in the 1980s (C. Vann Woodward is the historian in question). Korda's book is based on old scholarship, as a glance at the notes will reveal; Bunting's talked to various people and come up with a fairly good book. Unfortunately, the problem with some reviewers is that they know what they know, never question what they know, never admit that they might not know everything, and review books according to how closely they reaffirm what they already know.
Historians are reassessing Grant as president: any reviewer who claims otherwise is ignorant. Nor is Bunting the spearhead of this movement; he's an early synthesis, albeit an insightful one, of earlier revisionist work. My concern is that revisionism not become apologia; I believe a perspective on Grant that is honestly critical without simply depending on the writings of his foes and critics is quite possible, and that for such a perspective to be meaningful it must be set within historical context. That's the problem right now: Perret comes close to being an apologist, and Smith is much, much too easy, equating good intentions with performance. But such is what passes for a scholarship that's written in response to other scholarship and not through an examination of the record.
11/26/2004
Thankful, part one
Things to be grateful for in ACW publishing - it was a good topic for Thanksgiving that spiralled out of control and is now almost unmanageable in blog format. I'll try to summarize.
Decrees. The consensus on Civil War history that formed after WWII and that triumphed, not through give-and-take but through the editorial decrees of a group of like-minded pop authors, is now in decline. This group no longer has at its disposal a popular mass magazine with a single editorial line (American Heritage); it no longer has pride of place in reviewing ACW books for other publications; it no longer has sufficient numbers of teaching positions to dominate student interpretations of the war; and it no longer has a level of sales to allow it to credibly advise the editors of publishing houses about which new titles to bring out. The support system for the issuance of decrees has broken down.
Revivals. The media phenomena that freakishly prolonged this old consensus will never happen again. There will be no more Killer Angels novels, no more "Gettysburg" movies, no more Ken Burns' specials to drive millions of ignorant readers into the books of Nevins, Catton, Sears, McPherson, or suchlike. New cross media phenomena - when they happen - will deliver new readers to an ACW publishing arena that is more eclectic, more contentious, and generally sounder. Nor will any new producer be able to blueprint scripts based on a single (fake) "authoritative" voice.
Readers. The smaller, more informed ACW readership of today will no longer reward the conscious and deliberate exclusion historical evidence from its books, as has been the case since the Centennial. The line between pop historians and scholars will be redrawn. And the do-it-yourself research enabled by digital media and stoked by re-enactment, geneological, and local history interests will provide a check on the sweeping judgements issued by the next would-be King of Civil War Historians.
Sales. The powerful sales once achieved by authors operating on the American Heritage editorial line (Nevins, Catton, Sears, McPherson, et al) have faded at the front-, mid-, and backlist levels; no trade publisher can any longer identify automatic sales success with keeping to a specific editorial line. Trade publishers releasing Civil War titles are taking thematic risks, more often operating outside the old consensus than not.
Prestige. The prestige-building activity undertaken by Nevins' intellectual heirs is now defensive. Where, just 10 years ago, unfavorable reviews could be deployed to destroy the credibility of any new thinking, the diminishing energy of this group is now devoted to finding reviewers to praise their own stuff. Their prizes continue to be restricted to a predictable circle of friends (and disciples), but prize-giving is by definition defensive.
In the next few weeks I'll give sales figures to illustrate shifts in Civil War publishing.
Decrees. The consensus on Civil War history that formed after WWII and that triumphed, not through give-and-take but through the editorial decrees of a group of like-minded pop authors, is now in decline. This group no longer has at its disposal a popular mass magazine with a single editorial line (American Heritage); it no longer has pride of place in reviewing ACW books for other publications; it no longer has sufficient numbers of teaching positions to dominate student interpretations of the war; and it no longer has a level of sales to allow it to credibly advise the editors of publishing houses about which new titles to bring out. The support system for the issuance of decrees has broken down.
Revivals. The media phenomena that freakishly prolonged this old consensus will never happen again. There will be no more Killer Angels novels, no more "Gettysburg" movies, no more Ken Burns' specials to drive millions of ignorant readers into the books of Nevins, Catton, Sears, McPherson, or suchlike. New cross media phenomena - when they happen - will deliver new readers to an ACW publishing arena that is more eclectic, more contentious, and generally sounder. Nor will any new producer be able to blueprint scripts based on a single (fake) "authoritative" voice.
Readers. The smaller, more informed ACW readership of today will no longer reward the conscious and deliberate exclusion historical evidence from its books, as has been the case since the Centennial. The line between pop historians and scholars will be redrawn. And the do-it-yourself research enabled by digital media and stoked by re-enactment, geneological, and local history interests will provide a check on the sweeping judgements issued by the next would-be King of Civil War Historians.
Sales. The powerful sales once achieved by authors operating on the American Heritage editorial line (Nevins, Catton, Sears, McPherson, et al) have faded at the front-, mid-, and backlist levels; no trade publisher can any longer identify automatic sales success with keeping to a specific editorial line. Trade publishers releasing Civil War titles are taking thematic risks, more often operating outside the old consensus than not.
Prestige. The prestige-building activity undertaken by Nevins' intellectual heirs is now defensive. Where, just 10 years ago, unfavorable reviews could be deployed to destroy the credibility of any new thinking, the diminishing energy of this group is now devoted to finding reviewers to praise their own stuff. Their prizes continue to be restricted to a predictable circle of friends (and disciples), but prize-giving is by definition defensive.
In the next few weeks I'll give sales figures to illustrate shifts in Civil War publishing.
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