An intriguing portrait of a religious figure’s role in shaping public opinion.
A biography of a little-known cleric who defended Union interests in Britain during the Civil War.
In this debut, Smith introduces readers to Charles McIlvaine, an Episcopalian minister who spent most of his career as a Cincinnati-based bishop. McIlvaine developed strong relationships with religious and secular leaders in England during several visits to the country in the 1840s and ’50s, which put him in a position to advocate for the United States when British sympathies were largely with the Confederate States of America. Although Smith acknowledges that McIlvaine’s role was a small one in the context of the Civil War, he makes a convincing case for the importance of the man’s persuasive powers and of his useful relationships with powerful figures, including the Prince of Wales. The author draws on McIlvaine’s copious letters and published writings, as well as those of other noteworthy figures, to produce a biography that’s thoroughly substantiated by the historical record. The profusion of source material allows Smith to explore McIlvaine’s role in denominational fights over slavery and the evolution of his understanding of African-Americans, from advocating colonization of freed slaves to eventually presiding over integrated church services. It also illustrates his part in shaping evangelical thought about slavery and the war. Overall, Smith shows an evident mastery of McIlvaine’s story. However, the prose in which he tells it can sometimes be grating. Mid-paragraph changes of topic are jarring (“He advised McIlvaine to give up memorization and develop an extempore style based on prepared ideas. Regarding slavery, the parish records did not distinguish slaveholders among the communicants”) and excessive use of euphemisms, such as “the Queen City” for Cincinnati and “the Ohioan” for McIlvaine, are cloying. However, these stylistic concerns don’t outweigh the value of the information or of Smith’s persuasive analysis of his subject—a man who played a minor but important part in 19th-century international relations.
An intriguing portrait of a religious figure’s role in shaping public opinion.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4797-0290-9
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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