A wordy yet interesting book that clearly shows the deep divisions that were the real causes of the Civil War.
Addresses Oakes (Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865, 2012, etc.) delivered for the Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures at Louisiana State University are the basis for this book about the attempts to eliminate slavery while avoiding war in the United States.
The metaphor of the scorpion stinging itself to death when surrounded by fire was widely used, but that doesn’t bear repeating it quite so frequently. A good deal of this book is unnecessarily repetitious but still worth the read. Abolitionists felt that surrounding the slave states with a cordon of free states would destroy slavery. Since the Constitution forbade federal interference in state policies such as slavery, no one ever stated that the Civil War was fought over slavery; it was fought to prevent its expansion into the free territories. The author ably explores the history of the basic difference between the abolitionists and pro-slavers: the view that slaves are mere items of property. All sides accepted the fact of military emancipation under which freedom was promised to slaves who would change loyalties. During the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Seminole Wars and the Civil War, it was accepted that the laws of war entitled belligerents to free slaves. The question was: What was allowed by the treaty that ended each war? The Treaty of Paris of 1783 contained an article requiring the English not to carry away “Negroes or other property.” The debate revolved around the fact that the “property to be returned” after the conflict included slaves who had been granted freedom. To return slaves “still on shore” for re-enslavement was considered unacceptable, but demands for compensation were still debated years afterward.
A wordy yet interesting book that clearly shows the deep divisions that were the real causes of the Civil War.Pub Date: May 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-393-23993-5
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
From New York Times reporter Bernstein (Fragile Glory, 1990), a stinging attack on multiculturalism, a ``messianic political program...[that] does not take kindly to true difference.'' Just as the egalitarian ideals of the French Revolution fell into a dÇrapage (slide) that led to the Reign of Terror, Bernstein avers, so the civil-rights revolution has lurched into a leftist intolerance that is contradictory to its professed pluralistic ideals. Broader-ranging than Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Education (1990), this analysis covers not only higher education, but also elementary and secondary school systems, state legislatures, corporations, newsrooms, even the National Council of Churches. All of these institutions, it is alleged, are increasingly being assaulted by pious, often well-meaning ``diversity experts'' who peddle fraudulent visions of an oppressive American and Western tradition. Bernstein sensibly contends that racism, sexism, and homophobia are receding to the margins of American life, not growing, as is often claimed. He neatly disposes of claims that today's ethnic and racial groups represent an exotic new force in American life by noting that immigration was proportionately higher in earlier eras, and that today's immigrants, unlike their predecessors, were constantly exposed to American culture before coming here. Bernstein offers chilling examples of how ``diversity'' has been used as a bludgeon by leftists in battle over high school curricula, sexual harassment hearings that deny due process, the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Columbus's initial voyage to the New World, and school courses that stigmatize ``dead white European males.'' Worst of all, Bernstein charges, diversity advocates, now comfortably lodged in the intelligentsia, question cultural norms that have historically enhanced upward mobility in the US, thereby damaging the disadvantaged whose interest they claim to serve. A sophisticated, tough-minded examination of the newest fault line in late 20th century American culture. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 7, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-41156-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
Detroit's story of an undercover sting operation into the Hell's Angels is quick and breezy but insults the reader with its sketchy rendering of a fascinating scenario. One can sympathize with Detroit (a pseudonymous screenwriter), whose account of a police infiltration of the notorious biker gang, naturally invites comparisons with Hunter S. Thompson's authoritative tale. This sparse made-for-TV product pales next to Thompson's searing depictions of life with the Angels. One day in 1977, Orange County police detective Victoria Seele (Detroit uses fictional names throughout the book) accepts an assignment to ride on the back of Clifford Mowery's Harley-Davidson. Mowery, a hardscrabble biker and convict with a long rap sheet, grudgingly offers to serve as an informant in order to stay out of jail. For eight months, the two crisscross Southern California making undercover drug buys from motorcycle-gang members. Seele, with her surfer looks, awkwardly survives parties at which she is the only one not using drugs and not wearing the typical biker garb (denim vest, waist chains, and strap-on buck knife). During one particularly vulgar Angels party, Seele nearly jumps into bed with two other women in order not to blow her cover. Detroit sprays his text with scare phrases, telling us, in case we haven't caught on, that these people are dangerous, and here Seele is risking her life. Occasionally, we are given glimpses into Seele's supposedly deteriorating home life, but like the rest of the details here, these scenes lack the power necessary to instill even a meager visceral attachment to the characters. The pieces (and sources) for a spectacular story are here: leather-clad bikers, courageous cops, and a backdrop of Southern California's sleaziest bars and dustiest back roads. But for all its drama, this is, in the end, forgettable. (Literary Guild selection)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-525-93671-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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