by Bruce R. Kindig ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2014
A worthy addition to any Civil War bookshelf.
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The comprehensive regimental history of a Confederate artillery unit.
This scholarly debut by Kindig, a retired community college history professor, chronicles the soldiers, equipment, movements and battles of a light artillery unit from its spring-1861 formation in Memphis, Tennessee, by Capt. Smith P. Bankhead to its Dec. 9, 1863, disbandment following the South’s defeat at Missionary Ridge. Kindig draws his title from praise for the troops offered by commander William L. Scott in a five-page summary he penned in 1886, previously the only work to focus on the unit. Kindig spent 30 years tracking down records that Scott thought had been lost or never knew existed, and the result is an impressive historical re-creation. Readers find themselves on the ground and in the midst of battle as a result of Kindig’s intimate and uncanny familiarity with the daily movements and moods of these soldiers. He has pieced together minute details from hundreds of sources, including government records, personal letters, memoirs and scholarly texts, all of which are footnoted for easy reference. Fifteen appendices organize rosters, ranks, recruits, transfers and desertions. Although the narrative assumes a basic knowledge of Civil War history, any reader will grasp the rank-and-file’s reactions to repeated decisions by Gen. Braxton Bragg that turned tactical victories into strategic retreat as well as their struggling morale as material shortages worsened. Kindig’s affection for the characters he has so thoroughly studied is apparent, as is his respect for their commitment, if not their cause. Though he presents the conflict from their point of view, he maintains a scholarly rather than partisan tone. The only shortcomings are mediocre illustrations and scattered typos and editing miscues. Errant words, apparently orphaned when sentences were revised, occasionally mar what is otherwise clear, well-paced prose. Given the author’s extraordinary attention to detail in every battle, it’s a shame that location maps aren’t more legible and more numerous. Nevertheless, Kindig achieves his stated goal of telling “the stories of common men,” and aficionados of the genre will find a wealth of information and insight to enjoy.
A worthy addition to any Civil War bookshelf.Pub Date: July 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-1496918352
Page Count: 272
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Tom Clavin ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 21, 2020
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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by Bonnie Tsui ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2020
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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