Not without flaws, but an illuminating, worthy addition to the scholarship.
A compendium of primary sources on the historic uprising for LGBTQ liberation.
The Stonewall riots of 1969 are infamous, not only for their electrifying impact on the American LGBTQ movement, but also for their long-contested memory: “who can, who does, and who should lay claim to them”? Using more than 200 documents, editor Stein (History/San Francisco State Univ.; Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement, 2012, etc.) contextualizes the New York City rebellion of transgender and gay bar patrons against a homophobic police raid. Framed in three subdivided parts, each section contains extended excerpts of newspaper articles, fliers, court decisions, and other accounts. Together, they create a mosaic of the cultural and political realities before, during, and after the riots. The editor helpfully provides source descriptions of each section—e.g., “published originally in homophile magazines”—as well as a perceptive introduction that encourages readers to “think carefully and critically about my editorial work.” Significantly, Stein acknowledges that many of his media sources offer “limited discussion” of African-American LGBTQ experiences in their reporting, and he notes that gay rights activists were deeply indebted to black liberation movements. For example, LGBTQ people employed the “direct action tactics” of African-American organizers, “including demonstrations, sit-ins, and riots,” and popular pre-Stonewall slogans “were adaptations or appropriations of ‘Black is Beautiful’ and ‘Black Power.’ ” Stein is less successful in his interpretation of transgender history. For example, when examining police records from the first night of the Stonewall riots, Stein determines that one woman and five men were arrested, “judging by the names.” For many trans people, legal names do not provide meaningful clues to gender. On the whole, the book reflects both the brilliance and contradictions of a multifaceted history. Though people of color are notably minimized in historical records, Stein’s reflective curation is an important contribution to understanding what Stonewall was and what it represents. History students are most likely to enjoy this volume, which is arranged like a primary source textbook.
Not without flaws, but an illuminating, worthy addition to the scholarship.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4798-1685-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: New York Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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
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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