A solid first book in which impressive documentation undergirds an ambitious assertion.
In his debut, Wisconsin-based historian Coss examines the Colonial smallpox epidemic and how it influenced the forging of American identity and politics.
The outbreak of smallpox in Boston in 1721, though long overdue, caused panic and coverup, as reported in this compelling though slightly overlong narrative. The HMS Seahorse was certainly carrying smallpox-infested passengers from England when shipmates were allowed to shuttle into Boston in April, spreading the virus around town and causing outbreak by May. The eminent minister Cotton Mather, undergoing personal crises at this point (even though the trauma of the Salem witch trials were 30 years behind him) and still determined to continue progress in the community through his effective leadership, grasped the efficacy of inoculation through Royal Society articles and began to promote it. Meanwhile, a crusading Boston physician and apothecary, Zabdiel Boylston, resolved to attempt the inoculation procedure, using his own son and slave as patients, in defiance of the town meeting that condemned the procedure. (Inoculation had already been undertaken in London.) James Franklin (Benjamin’s older brother), the Boston publisher of the New-England Courant, first attacked the cause of inoculation and let the public controversy within his pages fuel his circulation. All these public-health events foamed around the ongoing resentment of the vilified governor, Samuel Shute, who was battling for supremacy in the Massachusetts House. Franklin’s “taunting and belligerent” Courant offered outrageous editorial commentary on a running dispute over official reaction to meeting Native-American aggression, and the publisher was jailed as a result. Coss valiantly weaves these threads together, though these are only some of the many roiling disputes of the day; in the end, the convergence entailing Franklin’s Courant seems somewhat forced. Nonetheless, Coss offers a fascinating glimpse inside the Boston mindset of the era.
A solid first book in which impressive documentation undergirds an ambitious assertion.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-8308-6
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
A compelling book dealing with the question of MIAs in Vietnam. As a journalist Keating has worked for Soldier of Fortune magazine and the conservative Washington Times. Nonetheless, in the present volume, she uses her skills as an investigative reporter to attack the notion that American POWs and MIAs were left behind in Indochina. A vocal lobby clamors for a full accounting of all MIAs, numbered by the federal government at around 1,200. Reported sightings add fuel to the belief that American soldiers were held hostage by the Vietnamese and abandoned by a government eager to put the war behind it. After all, the logic goes, hadn't it happened to the French in the 1950s? The truth, however, according to Keating, is that the US experience is not that of the French: No American POWs remain. And aside from a few known defectors, all the MIAs are dead. Citing the 80,000 missing from WW II, Keating points out that MIAs are part of the nature of modern warfare, in which the recovery or identification of remains is often impossible. In the case of the Vietnam POWs, however, the military had reduced the number of true ``missing'' to under 100 before a political hue and cry forced them to inflate the MIA list with the names of many men known to be dead but whose bodies were not found. Sightings of live POWs are hoaxes, says Keating, designed to fuel a political machine or to extort money from relatives on the slim hope that the men are alive. She slams, in particular, mercenaries like Bull Simons and Bo Gritz, who plan raids into Indochina (most of which never occur) in search of the lost. The real conspiracy, writes Keating, is not committed by a government bent on hiding a scandal but by those who prey on the hopes and fears of the ones truly left behind—the families of the dead. Highly persuasive.
Pub Date: Nov. 11, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-43016-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
A thought-provoking examination of the global decline of villages and its implications for urban societies. Critchfield (Those Days, 1986, etc.), building on his past studies of rural life, maintains that the traditional village structure—seen here in the countrysides of Poland, Mexico, Korea, and elsewhere—has been steadily eroding under the pressure of technological change. The Green Revolution of the 1960s, the mechanization of agriculture, and the explosion in global communications have led to an exodus of villagers from the land— the most significant step in human history, avers the author, since human beings left the hunter-gatherer stage for a settled agrarian existence. Critchfield arrived at these villages early enough to witness agricultural techniques and social organization, little altered over thousands of years, marching to the death knell of changing economics and weakening religious and cultural ties. He warns that without a global reservoir of villagers, urban societies (which, with their low birth rates, are seldom self-replenishing) will face depopulation. He excoriates the World Bank for refusing to subsidize much-needed fertilizer for Africa, whose villages are alone in not sharing the bounty of the Green Revolution. Critchfield saves his most dire predictions and charges for his final section, in which he lambastes mass culture for its lack of substance and spirituality. Some readers may find his arguments here tired and specious, but it is hard to argue with his contention that the family and cultural values lost in the exodus from rural agricultural villages have not been replaced in modern, urban society. Often lyrical and evocative in its discussion of village life, although occasionally bogged down in minute details. For the patient reader, a rewarding and insightful appraisal of a major turning point in human history. (16 pages b&w photos)
Pub Date: Nov. 14, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-42050-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Anchor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
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