Issue 15 September 2006

The Vietnam War and Civil Rights 2 In this year’s issue

The Memin News and events is the official journal of the 3 Penguin American Studies Resources 25 Ezekiel Centre, The Aldham Robarts Controversy Centre, Liverpool John Moores launches University, Mount Pleasant Liv- Pittsburgh link erpool L3 5UZ Dr Ezekiel Mobley examines the impact of the furore over a set of with Liverpool Tel & fax: 0151-231 3241 offensive postage stamps issued students e-mail: [email protected] in Mexico on Black-Hispanic- web site: American Relationships in the Helen Tamburro www.americansc.org.uk States reports on a landmark visit Editor-in-Chief: Ian Ralston Editor: David Forster 27 We stopped at Editorial assistant: Helen Tam- Perfect Days burro Layout and graphics: David Jeanne-Marie Forster Kenny holds an exhibition in The views expressed are those Liverpool of the contributors, and not nec- America’s “Great essarily those of the centre or 11 Satan” in Action BAAS Teachers the university. 28 and Schools © 2006, Liverpool John Moores and War Films University and the Contributors. Awards 2006 Ralph Donald looks Articles in this journal may be at the changing freely reproduced for use in stereotypes of subscribing institutions only, America’s enemies in provided that the source is ac- movies from World- knowledged. War 2 to the “war on The journal is published with terror”. the aid of financial assistance from the United States Embassy. 16 The Vietnam War Book Reviews Please email us at and the Civil [email protected] with 29 Literature any changes of name or ad- Rights movement dress. If you do not wish to con- 32 Culture tinue receiving this magazine, Brendan Gallagher considers how please send an e-mail with the the two events are inextricably 37 History word Unsubscribe and your bound up subscription number in the sub- 40 Politics ject line. Photo credits Letters from New 40 Race 21 York Ezekiel Mobley pp 3 -10 42 Gender Studies American History Slide Collec- tion: Cover and page 23 More dispatches from 43 Textbooks Lenny Quart pp 2 & 21 the Big Apple by Lenny Quart Helen Tamburro pp 24 & 25 Jeanne-Marie Kenny pp 26 & 44 Altman’s Oscar Night Ralph Donald pp 2 & 11 The New York Post Ian Ralston pp 2 & 28 Public Life Photo of US Ambassador on p 28 courtesy of US Embassy

3 Relations between Hispanic and African Americans in the U.S. today seen through the prism of the "Memin Pinguin" Controversy

The author in Yanga According to the 2000 e’ve all grown ac- Census, Hispanics have customed to think- equal, and in fact have exceeded, now exceeded African- ing of African African Americans as the largest Americans as the largest W Americans as the ethnic minority group in the U.S., most significant ethnic minority constituting some 40 million ethnic minority group in population in the United States, people, which is at least 13% of the United States. The re- in terms of sheer numbers, cul- the American population. tural impact and political cent Memin Pinguin con- And, unlike that percentage of strength. African Americans, troversy, in which the the American population that themselves, have become accus- derives its descent from Africa, Mexican post office issued tomed to this same kind of think- the Latino population continues stamps featuring a racial ing. So, when we think of issues to grow very rapidly through caricature of an Afro- of race in the United States, we immigration, at present primar- tend—primarily through inertia, I Mexican, highlighted the ily through illegal immigration, would maintain—to define these fact that the Hispanic com- but also potentially through le- solely in terms of “black and gal “guest worker” programs. A munity is itself racially di- white.” We have invested so verse, and that Afro- recent study by The Pew Chari- Mexicans have been an invisible and underprivi- leged community. In this lecture, delivered at the Liverpool John Moores University in March this year, Dr. Ezekiel Mobley argues that African Ameri- cans should become aware of their Latin cous- ins, and that the contro- The series of Mexican postage stamps which ignited the versy also has lessons controversy which Britain could learn. much in how we have defined table Trust estimates some 12 ourselves over the past 200 million Latinos are now residing years to the point where we in the U.S. illegally, and it is have ignored, or didn’t fully ab- again estimated that those num- sorb, the “brown” relationship. bers will increase by 850,000 That must change now. The is- each year. When we “do the sue of race in the United States math,” then, we would estimate is far more complex than “black there are currently more than 40 and white.” According to the million Latinos residing in the year 2000 Census count in the US, but how much more nobody United States, Latinos now actually knows.

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Large flows of legal and illegal immigrants from Mexico and this now, intellectually and emo- versy has released a set of is- Central America have very far- tionally. African Americans, es- sues that have galvanized the reaching implications for U.S. pecially, must accept this fact in attention of the African Ameri- national economic and security a definitive way. can population at a time when the immigration issue is at the policy. U.S. media reports and Furthermore African Americans forefront of the American media possible legislative initiatives and Latino Americans occupy and the halls of Congress. U.S. from the Bush administration the same urban space in the Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), bear out the sheer urgency of United States and, as such, will for example, highlighted the the immigration crisis. But, my be in competition for, at first, the immigration controversy re- cently by suggesting that if Je- sus Christ were alive today, he would be caught in the net as an “illegal” immigrant. Last July, I reported on the fa- mous "Memin Penguin" cartoon character in The African Times newspaper (see Mobley 2005). The Memin Pinguin comic books have been a broad staple of many Mexican households for the last 60 years. In 2005, the government of Mexican Presi- dent Vicente Fox issued a new federal postage stamp com- memorating the likeness of Memin Pinguin. This commemo- rative stamp was interpreted by African American religious lead- ers Jessie Jackson and Al Sharp- ton as a direct slap in the face to African Americans, and a subse- Afro-Mexicans in Yanga quent and very public contro- versy ensued. Jackson and discussion will mainly serve to lowest level jobs and the lesser Sharpton pointed out the physi- highlight this immigration im- public offices. And, while Latino cal similarities of Memin Pinguin pact on African Americans and Americans are lagging behind to certain racially stereotypical their displacement as the num- African Americans in a number U.S. radio and television charac- ber one ethnic group in the U.S., of areas, especially education, ters of the 1930s through 1960s, and the repercussions therefrom. they have one advantage within such as the infamous “Amos n' The changing fabric of the their common urban space: they Andy” comic duet. These per- American racial Landscape uniformly speak Spanish and sonalities and others like them maintain close family ties. were much more often than not Now, to understand the fabric of perceived as derisive and ridicul- As a result of all this, there will the changing American racial ing of African Americans and, be some real crises in the next landscape, you must, and I say furthermore, supporting, exhort- few years and it will take crea- emphatically must, have a fuller ing, of white racial supremacy. tive approaches to find syner- comprehension of the Latino “Comedy masks tragedy,” the gies between these two minority factor. It will take years of re- Rev. Jesse Jackson said at a groups in the US population education among African Ameri- meeting of civil rights leaders in landscape. cans in the U.S., and likewise Little Rock, Arkansas. “In this years in the United Kingdom, The Memin Pinguin Controversy instance, it’s comedy with a de- along the lines of a wholly new meaning punch line and we I will begin with an examination cultural awareness in order to hope that President Fox will take of the now media famous (or fully grasp this phenomenon. it off the market.” infamous) “Memin Pinguin” The rapid expansion of the La- controversy in Mexico and the “Black Mexicans: Forgotten Afri- tino population, alone, has pro- U.S. “Memin Pinguin” is per- cans?” pointed out that the found implications for people haps a metaphor for under- Memin Pinguin debate in Mex- living in the western hemi- standing many issues symbolic ico and the U.S. was merely a sphere: Spanish is the number of the African American and La- harbinger of things to come. For one language in the western tino American relationship in the example, it had unintentionally hemisphere. We must deal with US. The Memin Pingiun contro- opened a “Pandora’s Box,” re-

5 vealing the plight of Afro- the early 16th century conquests towns near border crossings Mexicans who now populate the by Hernan Cortes, a representa- between Texas and Mexico’s Mexican states of Coahuila, Ve- tive of the Spanish crown, who Coahuila state. She is the co- racruz, Guerrero and Oaxaca. subdued the Aztec emperor curator of a significant museum You see, Afro-Mexicans have a Montezuma II, pre-colonial ruler exhibition in Chicago, Illinois, long history, which is in much of most of Mexico and Central that boldly spells out the Afro- need of detailed and public ex- America. Afro-Mexicans there- Mexican contribution to modern amination. For instance, not fore, until recently, had no offi- history. “It’s the most important many are even aware of the Afri- cial recognition and it was con- thing we’ve ever done,” said can element in the population of sequently easy to dismiss them. Mexican Fine Arts Museum in Mexico, let alone that it was in However, due to the emergence Chicago president Carlos Tor- 1608, when a west African of the recent “third root” move- tolero. “‘The African Presence in known as Gaspar Yanga led a ment, that is increasingly diffi- Mexico’ tells a virtually unknown significant slave rebellion in Ve- cult to do. In that regard, some and still-unfolding story.” racruz, Mexico, that created the institutions like the University of Mexican filmmakers such as first “free” African town in the Veracruz presently sponsor aca- Rafael Rebollar are receiving Americas. And, two of the four demic courses that emphasize recognition for their documen- black heroes of the Mexican War the African impact and history. tary work illustrating “La Raiz of Independence from Spain But, this divergence is still rare. Olvidar” (The Forgotten Ones) (1810-1821)—Vicente Guerrero In modern Mexico, the so-called and “Los Moscogos.” The latter and Jose Maria Morelos—had “Third Root” movement is film concerns so-called “Black Mexican states named for them. headed by Afro-Mexicans and is Seminoles,” a mixed-race peo- Afro-Mexicans: the forgotten dedicated to recognizing and ple of Native American and Afri- people improving the civic, social and can slave heritage, who were economic conditions of this forced into submission by The story of Mexico’s failure to much-neglected group. Mexican American general, later Presi- credit and acknowledge its Afro- blacks have had a significant dent Andrew Jackson, and ulti- Mestizo history is painful, given history not well recognized by mately were forced to abandon what else has happened politi- cally and socially since the early 1990s. For example, in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico bordering Guatemala, a rebel indige- nous movement took up arms and threatened to overthrow oligarchic land- owners to relieve the burden of generations of near-feudal rule. The rebels have suc- cessfully petitioned for in- creased federal government attention to land reform, education and health needs. And, the current president, Vicente Fox, was freely elected from an opposition party, which had not hap- pened in Mexico for over 70 years. Blacks have been officially “invisible” in Mexico be- cause until recently the fed- eral government did not rec- Yanga mural in Penguela ognize them in census counts. This was tolerated over the government and media. But their traditional lands in the the centuries by the policy of some groups of Afro-Mexicans states of Georgia and Florida for mestizaje or “cosmic mixture” have started to speak out. Mexi- a life of neglect in Oklahoma and of exclusively Spanish can scholars such as Sagrario Texas in the 1840’s. Descen- (Europeans) and indigenous Cruz-Carretaro, at the University dants of these same people later (Indian) peoples. This policy was of Veracruz, bring attention to gained distinction from the U.S. perpetuated by a mythology that Afro-Mexicans and have made Army as scouts, who won four neatly fit with the ideology of studies of Yanga and the black Medals of Honour for military

6 campaigns against the Apache and nowhere did she mention tory. and Comanche nations in the any African population element south-western United States. in the entire country. This “racial The Third Root Intellectuals like Cruz-Carretaro amnesia,” as it has been termed, The "Third Root" movement— and Rebollar have, in their re- officially exists despite the fact deriving its name from this third spective fields, started to organ- that some 200,000 Africans were and African population element- ize and demand a strong public brought to Mexico during the -is now bringing a sea change to acknowledgement of the role of early years of the slave trade. In that mind-set of race denial in Afro-Mexicans in shaping Mex- fact, historians estimate that the Mexico. In 1992, the Mexican African popula- government finally acknowl- tion of Mexico edged Africa to be Mexico's constituted "Third Root" but, securing a around a half- wholesale list of democratic re- million persons forms, employment opportuni- by 1810. ties, adequate housing, minimal education and health care for And would it Afro-Mexicans will take a long surprise you to time and much public pressure. know that Vin- And, the political will to accom- cente Guerrero, plish something dramatic is a leading gen- needed as well. eral of the Mexi- can War of Inde- Afro-Mexican population centres pendence and in the Costa Chica area (in Guer- the new nation’s rero and Oaxaca), Veracruz and second presi- Coahuila maintain very strong dent, appears to cultural examples of racial heri- have been of tage through song, dance and African descent. other art forms. These people And, finally, often endure in isolated, but photographs of unmistakably “African” commu- the great revolu- nities. In the state of Veracruz, tionary hero for example, you can find towns Emiliano Zapata named Mandinga, Matamba and show clearly Mozambique, which clearly de- that he was of note the historical African pres- African descent. ence in Mexico. Even modern- day rebels from When the Pinguin controversy started to gather steam in the Yanga crest Mexico’s south- ern Chiapas U.S. media in 2005, Bush White House insiders conveniently ico’s national character. state proudly called themselves “zapatistas” during the 1990s. seized the moment to join with Although the percentages were African American leaders in de- low, the population of enslaved Dating to the years immediately nouncing Mexico's President Africans in Mexico had a huge following the beginning of the Fox. Many conservative U.S. presence in colonial Mexico Mexican Revolution in 1910, policy-makers were thoroughly (1521-1810) working as domestic official national ideology defined annoyed at Fox’s pro-Mexican servants, day labourers, cattle the Mexican population as a immigration announcements ranchers, artisans and miners on unified one, created out of the and opposing construction of haciendas (large plantation es- mixture of Spanish and indige- hundreds of miles of “barbed- tates). nous population—mestizo . The wire fence” between Mexico and African element was completely the U.S. Of course, these an- You see, there was, and to a and unambiguously excluded. In nouncements further encour- wide extent currently is, outright fact, since 1928, Mexico has aged conservative groups in the denial about a tangible African celebrated October 12 as "The U.S., who were already reeling bloodline running through Mex- Day of the Race" and this singu- from the daily headlines Mexi- ico's population. I recall quite lar Spanish-Indian mix denies can “illegal” immigration. clearly more than a decade ago, the African-descended popula- listening to a television inter- tion. In that early era, even Mexi- Who is Memin Pinguin? view with an official of the Mexi- can public commentators, media Well, who is “Memin Pinguin,” can government. The official officials and university scholars the comic book character, and was describing the ethnic make- were in total denial of the Afri- why does he figure so promi- up of the Mexican population, can contribution to Mexican his- nently in understanding the

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Mexican psyche today? Obvi- Our American recollections of sometimes reject the Latin ously, the look, feel and charac- Mexican life and culture were American black experience? terization of Memin Pinguin ridi- until recently mainly influenced The answer may be that African cule African and African Ameri- by media images of characters Americans are not rejecting the can individuals. In fact, Memin like “Speedy Gonzales” and the black experience in Latin Amer- Pinguin does not even look rea- “Taco Bell” Chihuahua dog, not ica, but rather that they have sonably human like the other, “Memin Pinguin.” never been exposed to it. Their white, characters in the comic On average, Americans really do eyes have always been tradition- books. The dialogue of many not mix socially with Mexicans ally focused on Africa, where “Memin Pinguin” comic books on their vacations, preferring English is spoken in Ghana, Ni- portrays the character as a very instead to enjoy themselves frol- geria and South Africa. Now meek, gentle and well-meaning icking on the clean beaches of they must deal with the black character (not a real person) that Acapulco and Cancun. We don’t experience in Latin America, and you would hardly give any re- really understand how neces- tackle the hurdle of the Spanish sponsibility. He is often dim- sary and easy it was for Mexican language, whether they like it or witted. His look is radically dif- society to create, maintain and not. ferent, e.g. simian or animal like, flourish with “Memin Pinguin” from the other characters. In fact, in acceptable fashion. This im- Hispanics the biggest minority until you actually see Memin age was perpetuated by notions Pinguin himself, in the comic A dramatic event happened in of a mestizo (mixed race Euro- books, you can hardly believe the year 2000 that had no prece- Indian society), wholly absent of your eyes. Why is this the case dent...ever! In that year, accord- considerations of race and class and why was the character per- ing to the US national census, as they historically existed in the petuated for so many years? Latinos exceeded African Ameri- United States. In other words, Why does an image like this ex- cans as the leading minority “Memin Pinguin” in comic book ist in 2006? Why did the Memin population group in the U.S. version could flourish for many Pinguin character become This has a far reaching impact years without social criticism prominent enough to be placed currently unknown to social sci- from Mexicans—even as Afro- on a federal stamp of the Mexi- entists, government officials, Mexicans suffered from dis- can republic? media commentators and just crimination. Thus, the “Memin ordinary people. Latinos now What was the controversy really Pinguin” cartoon character re- comprise officially over 40 mil- about? mained an unchallenged daily lion persons in the U.S. This staple of Mexican popular cul- "Memin Pinguin," substantively does not include the 10-12 mil- ture since the 1940s, when au- and symbolically, is one of the lion people of Latino and ethnic thor Yolanda Vargas Dulche con- principal "next steps” a compre- background caught in the web of ceptualised the character. hensive understanding of La- illegal immigration across the immense Mexico-U.S. border. tino-African American relations. Unfortunately, the Memin Pin- That border stretches for nearly There are several important rea- guin controversy, spilling over 2,000 miles along the southern sons for this. For decades, Afri- into the U.S. last year, is making portions of the states of Califor- can Americans held a centre many African Americans look nia, Arizona, New Mexico and stage position in the never- urgently, for the first time, at Texas, not including the Gulf of ending civil rights debate. The Mexican history and society. Mexico its own waterline from legacy of legal slavery until 1863 Many of them are asking ques- east Texas, Louisiana, Missis- and legal discrimination until the tions about the 19th century sippi, Alabama and Florida. 1960s in the United States, was abolition of slavery in Mexico. Most of these “illegal immi- so pervasive and fundamentally They are asking questions about grants” end up in teeming important to American social the ill-treatment and decades- “inner-city” areas. history, that to consider it any long lack of social advancement other way was, and continues to for Afro-Mexicans in the states Professor Jennifer Hochschild of be, often publicly ridiculed. of Coahuila, Veracruz and on the Harvard University recently Pacific Ocean coast. Inhabitants But, frankly we knew very little wrote, “In 2000, the racial/ethnic of these lands and elsewhere are of “Memin Pinguin” beforehand makeup of US residents was: demanding more recognition because Americans are not seri- White, 69 percent; Hispanic and and rights for Afro-Mexicans, ous students of our neighbours Black, 13 percent each; and especially in some of the border to the south, in matters of cul- Asian and other, six percent. By towns (like Nacimiento) between ture, society and habits. That is 2050, these percentages are pro- Mexico and the U.S. apparently one main reason why jected to be: 50, 24, 15 and 13.” Looking closely at studies deal- we were so shocked by the This interesting situation raises ing with Hispanics, Hochschild stamp issued last year which other questions. For example, notes that bore the likeness of Memin Pin- African Americans are fre- guin. Most of us had never seen quently focused on the African “the sheer magnitude of immi- Memin Pinguin before last year. Diaspora. Then, why do they gration and the high birth rates

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Rapid U.S. domestic job increases by the Latino population group are being matched by tandem influences throughout the Western Hemi- sphere in foreign rela- tions. Often, U.S. me- dia commentators for- get, or do not pay at- tention to the fact, that Spanish and Portu- guese (the linguistic cousin Portuguese is spoken in Brazil with 170 million people) are the chief languages in the Western Hemi- sphere spoken by over 500 million people in the Caribbean Basin, Mexico, the countries of Central America Street scene in Penuela and South America. among Latinos who share a lan- gosa's election in 2005 as mayor In January 2006, the guage, religion, and background of Los Angles, California certifies U.S. government had no clear and who mostly live in a distinct the newest trend in “brown” plan to tackle the thorny prob- section of the United States are power. The population demog- lem of immigration. The backlog creating a de facto split between raphers have predicted even of cases, some taking years to a predominantly Spanish- more pronounced Latino gains sort out, created nightmares for speaking United States and an will surface politically as the the national Immigration Service. English-speaking United States.” new inheritors of American cit- This problem was different from ies become more sophisticated that facing “illegals” which was Making matters worse, the po- about how to exercise the right still simply a matter of appre- litical gains African Americans to vote and demand political hending them and adjudicating have made in the inner city ar- power. I’ll wager the gain made a quick return to the Mexican eas, since the 1960s Civil Rights by Villaraigosa is a clarion call to side of the border. But, more era have, relatively speaking, other Latinos to try their hand at than once the problem of disappeared by the 1990s. For high government office. “return cases” people trying to example, in the 1980s the largest escape across the U.S.-Mexican U.S. cities, such as New York, African Americans now will have border became a matter of peo- Chicago and Los Angeles, all to learn how to share the politi- ple coming back for a second or had African American mayors, cal, economic and public affairs third try. And, “illegals” from voting blocks that assured their stage with Latinos, the “new” Mexico were increasing targets re-election. But, with increased ethnic group in the coming of so-called “vigilante” groups opportunities for racial integra- years. Even now, there is a operating on the U.S. side of the tion in the suburbs of these growing sense that African border. Sometimes, these con- large cities many middle-class Americans could be challenged frontations would be violent. African Americans simply by Latinos, especially at first, moved out of the inner-city. politically. For example, I for one This is why there are now sev- More often than not, the “inner- never imagined that the first eral legislative proposals before city” areas are frequently inhab- non-white U.S. Attorney General the U.S. Congress to finally ited now by recent immigrants would be the Mexican- manage the “illegal” immigra- from Mexico, Central and South descended Alberto Gonzalez. I tion issue. Many of the propos- America. always assumed the Democratic als will take months to work to- Party, when it occupied the ward some overall consensus, Latinos have made not only gen- White House, would appoint an perhaps with a conclusion in the eral population gains, but they African American to the position early spring of 2006. Even are also beginning to take over of chief law enforcement officer. though there are strong, un- the seats of municipal power in But alas, it took the republican yielding voices on both sides of a few of the largest U.S. cities. administration of George Bush the controversy, including a pro- Latino mayor Antonio Villarai- to manage that hurdle. immigration stand by Roger Car-

9 dinal Mahoney, head of the mil- was hard to compromise. In any now facing directly before the lions-strong catholic Archdio- event, he had absolutely nothing U.S. Congress. These legislative cese of Los Angeles, who sug- to lose politically by taking a bills will never make everyone gested that the faithful go out- pro-Memin Pinguin stand. His happy. But, they were never spe- side the law, if necessary, to presidential six year term ex- cifically designed to do so. protect undocumented Mexicans. pires with the new elections in My local newspaper, the Pitts- As I write, there have been sig- July ’06. And, according to the burgh Post-Gazette ran a front- nificant protest demonstrations Mexican constitution President page news article with the title in high population cities around Fox is prevented from seeking a “Black Latinos can find race the United States in recent days. second term in office. niches hard to accept” only two In the meantime, Republican True, there was a huge contro- weeks ago on Sunday, February legislators may be scrambling to versy last year surrounding the 26, 2006. The story was about hold on to their congressional cartoon character Memin Pin- personal insights of darker- seats and maintain small majori- guin, both in Mexico and the skinned Latinos, who recently ties in both houses of Congress U.S., but like most flurries the immigrated to the U.S., and how while President Bush settles into big headlines merely lasted only they were treated in their his “lame duck” status. a while. Those headlines have adopted homeland. The ac- Afro-Hispanic Relationships been replaced by “illegal” immi- counts are very instructive, and gration from Mexico. Reverend sobering, in some ways. For African Americans who are ines- Jessie Jackson was shrewd instance, the article highlighted capably in low-wage categories enough, during the debate with the case of Marisol Del Orbe, a and therefore can not flee the President Fox, to publicly en- mestizo of mixed-race origin like inner cities are compelled to live courage African American col- many inhabitants of the Carib- beside recently settled Mexican lege students to begin studying bean island of Puerto Rico. She or other Central American immi- the Spanish language in earnest. was never just black – until she grants, “illegal” or not. These That way, the students could came to the U.S. She felt, for the African Americans severely lack learn for themselves if the Mexi- first time, a special cultural and education, job skills or other can people really shared Presi- racial isolation that was mark- means of advancement. In a dent Fox’s sentiments. Only time edly absent in Puerto Rico. Del personal way, I am most familiar will tell if Reverend Jackson’s Orbe, like others in her situation, with the urban cauldrons of the legendary persuasiveness com- often finds examples of discrimi- great “megalopolis” centres in pels large numbers of black uni- nation, from many, in the major- New York City and Los Angeles versity students to study Latin ity of Americans. And, people where many times working class American language, culture and like her reject the discrimination blacks, who previously occupied history. foisted upon her immediately the neighbourhoods and upon arrival in the U.S., simply proudly showed their political The current U.S. societal prob- and economic strength, now share streets crowded with La- African Americans now will have tino “bodegas” (small item neighborhood stores) and “carnicerias” (stores to purchase to learn how to share the politi- meat, fish and other ethnic sta- ples). If there are inner-city cal, economic and public affairs “flashpoints” they will be seen in urban areas where poor Afri- stage with Latinos, the “new” can Americans and often “illegal” Mexican and Central ethnic group in the coming American population groups can not manage their urban spaces years. and/or overcome their belea- guered economic conditions. because of her skin colour. I was Clearly, the present government lems and friction, if any, be- quoted in the article saying “one of President Vicente Fox of Mex- tween Latin Americans and Afri- issue uniting blacks in this na- ico put itself into a terrible fix by can Americans will not easily go tion [the U.S.] is the historical supporting the 60-year legacy of away. This is particularly true struggle against racism. So, the cartoon character Memin when urban resource pressures, when black Latinos can’t identify Pinguin. That is, considering the caused by rapid illegal immigra- with that, because of pride in opposite views of the American tion from Mexico, begin to be their mixed heritage, some Reverends Jessie Jackson and taken in account. Soon, we blacks see them [Latinos] as run- Al Sharpton and the Bush White should know the final outcome ning away from the issue.” House. But, Fox has a social and of the many immigration bills historical situation at home that

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According to a recent study on largest non-white ethnic group course on modern nation race-mixing among Latinos, in the U.S. with over 40 million (University Press of America, blacks and whites in the U.S, a people, the American media, Dallas, 2004). large majority (over 70%) of and the federal, state and local Hochschild, Jennifer L. “Looking white Hispanic children have governments will increasingly ahead: racial trends in the U.S.,” parents who are both white His- focus upon them. African Ameri- Daedalus. Journal of the Ameri- panic. In contrast, it is less com- cans must adjust, however pain- can Academy of Arts & Sciences mon (only 31%) that a black His- fully, to that fact. African Ameri- (Winter, 2005). panic child has two black His- cans must look for their own panic parents. For nearly half of place in this new “race mosaic.” Krauze, Enrique. “The Pride in the black Hispanic children, one One future link could be identifi- Memin Pinguin,” The Washing- of the parents is non-Hispanic cation and unification with the ton Post (July 12, 2005). black. This result suggests that black experience in the wider intermarriage is the most impor- context of Latin America—Afro- Logan, John R. How Race tant source of the black Hispanic Latinos. Counts for Hispanic Americans population, with a strong likeli- (Lewis Mumford Centre for Perhaps, the new reconciliation hood of having a non-Hispanic Comparative Urban and Re- would be easier and more fruit- black parent. gional Research, University of ful in a lasting sense if African Albany, NY, 2003). Light at the End of the Tunnel Americans simply began learn- ing the Spanish language in or- McKinley, James C., Jr. “New I do see a proverbial “light at the der to live comfortably next to Racial Gaffe in Mexico; This end of the tunnel” in our evolv- their new neighbours in the Time It’s a Tasteless Stamp ing circumstances between Latin “inner cities.” Set,” The New York Times (June Americans and African Ameri- 30, 2005). cans in the U.S. However, the Britain can use this experience complex and confusing tableau of American racial dynamics to Mobley, Ezekiel. “Black Mexi- of “race relations” will not make understand their own issues of cans: Forgotten Africans?” The things easier. Neither will the immigration. It needs to be able African Times , Vol. 18, No. 9 unyielding competition for jobs, to absorb the American experi- (July 15-31, 2005). decent housing and meaningful ence and use it as an analogy. Nance, Kevin. “Exploring the art education from the bottom-up Bibliography of Mexico’s ‘Third Root’,” The for recent Spanish-language Chicago Sun-Times , February 14, immigrants who find themselves Aguirre Beltrán, Gonzalo. La 2006. also competing with black Población Negra de Mexico . Americans for scant social re- (Fondo de Cultura Económica, Vincent, Ted. “The Blacks Who sources. 1984). Freed Mexico,” The Journal of Negro History , Vol. 79, No. 3 Now that Latinos are, since the Cuevas, Marco Polo Hernández. (Summer, 1994), pp. 257-76. year 2000’s enumeration, the African Mexicans and the dis-

11 America’s “Great Satan” Then And Now In Action and War Films: Subtle Shifts, changing Stereotypes By Ralph Donald, Southern Illinois University Edwards- ville Department of Mass Communications uring World War II, the and different forms in the films feature film came into produced by Hollywood. its own as a potent After World War II, American propaganda tool. D intentions around the world be- When American film propagan- came less clear and legitimate to dists used what rhetorical critics both outsiders and to many call “devil terms” to disparage Americans. As American wars America’s Axis enemies, they and foreign interventions be- often used a shorthand to char- came more controversial, im- acterize them. American propa- ages of the “Great Satan” in gandists characterized the en- Hollywood’s feature films often emy as what Iran’s Ayatollah became less clear. In reaction to Khomeini would later call a McCarthyism in the 1950s, Holly- Ralph Donald “Great Satan”: a single, stereo- wood’s Great Satan of the Ko- typed image – often a person, rean War was the fuzzy image of The image of the sometimes a loathsome label -- the “yellow peril” – Korean and to represent the enemy as a Chinese communists -- a name- Great Satan, the whole. In Khomeini ’s case, he less, faceless communist enemy. archetypal monster referred to both American Presi- dent George Bush Sr. and the In a few films about the Vietnam who exemplifies the United States, but in many films War, Ho Chi Minh was invoked current enemy, has of World War II, filmmakers used as America’s Great Satan. But three individual, although some- even during the apex of that always been a times interchangeable, “Great terrible conflict, few Americans powerful stereotype Satans”: Hitler – (occasionally would have recognized North Josef Goebbels or Hermann Go- Vietnam’s president if they ran in Hollywood movies. ering) for the Germans, either into him on the street. Ho Chi In this fascinating Prime Minister Tojo or Emperor Minh was a ghost to most Hirohito to represent Japan, and Americans – except perhaps for article, Ralph Donald Benito Mussolini for the Italians. the few young people who pro- considers how the But there was also room for ge- tested the war by waving North neric anti-Nazi and ferociously Vietnamese flags and wearing model for the beast racist anti-Japanese propaganda silk-screened “Uncle Ho” T- in American films, radio and shirts. In most American films constantly changes to print media. about Vietnam, the enemy Americans saw on the screen reflect America’s After World War 2 was – like the enemy in the Ko- changing foreign But what has happened in the rean War – just another faceless, policy objectives over years following World War II? nameless communist adversary. How is the Great Satan propa- the years. ganda device used today in Hollywood has occasionally put American films? And has there America on notice that not all been any evolution in its use? Great Satans reside across the This article will examine evi- seas. The Ku Klux Klan, for one dence that the Great Satan is example, has been Satanised in still alive and well in many new a number of modern motion pictures, including films such as

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Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) , strongman image, and espe- site threat of nuclear retaliation, Mississippi Burning (1988) , The cially with a succession of lack- Soviet superiority in troops and Chamber (1996), and, more re- lustre premiers through the tanks stationed in the Warsaw cently, in the comedy, O, Brother, years, no Satan in particular – Pact nations would permit him Where Art Thou? (2000). But except perhaps Nikita Khru- to invade and conquer Western again, no grand dragon’s name shchev – captured the American Europe. Of course, the British jumps to the forefront as the imagination anywhere near the spy foils Orlov’s plans, and common symbol for this hate same as our adversaries in Europe is saved. group. In American culture, es- World War II. And Satan-types Since the fall of the Soviet Un- pecially in the 1960s and 70s, didn’t appear in that many Holly- ion, America stands alone as the former Alabama Gov. George wood movies until quite recently, sole superpower on the planet. Wallace was arguably the most when Enemy at the Gates (2001), To wound such a seemingly in- accepted symbol of Southern the story of a mini-war between vincible enemy, neo Great Sa- racism. But while he espoused a Soviet sniper and his German tans must find another approach. some of the Klan’s prejudices, counterpart during the siege of Of late, terrorism is the strategy. Wallace was never directly Stalingrad, features Bob linked to the Klan as a member. Hoskins’ studied portrayal of But before turning to the terror- Instead, the KKK is portrayed as Khrushchev, a ruthless com- ist villains that now occupy our a collective Satan, shown as mander ordered by Stalin to minds, we should examine individuals who do their jobs by save Stalingrad at any cost. some of our recent history’s day, go home for dinner with lesser-remembered Great Sa- One of the best films to put a their families, but then slip out tans. For a short time before more human “face” on the ge- late at night to don white robes, and during the U.S. economic neric Russian bear was The burn crosses and chant racist boycott against South Africa that Beast (1988). In this picture, a slogans. helped hasten the demise of the Soviet tank crew is lost in the apartheid government there, a Even more obscure was the Afghan desert, pursued by few South African Satans graced nebulous communist enemy in vengeful mujahideen guerrillas. American screens. For example, the few films that depict Amer- The tank is commanded by a in Lethal Weapon II (1989), Joss ica’s invasion of Grenada. For cruel Russian tyrant, played by Ackland’s sinister Arjen Rudd example, Clint Eastwood plays George Dzundza. Interestingly, and Derrick O'Connor’s homi- Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway in both The Beast and the World cidal Pieter Vorstedt were South in Heartbreak Ridge (1986). War II submarine thriller Das Africans dealing in illegal drugs Highway and his Marines make Boot (1981), directors Kevin Rey- and currency in Los Angeles short work of the faceless, ge- nolds and Wolfgang Petersen under the safety of “diplomatic neric communist threat. ask audiences to identify with immunity.” So perfectly did and even cheer for sailors and Sylvester Stallone in Rambo III these villains portray Nazi soldiers representing America’s (1988) provided viewers with a stereotypes that Mel Gibson’s former Great Satans. But in The combat film about the fight police detective character, Mar- Beast , Dzundza’s tank com- against Soviet Great Satans oc- tin Riggs, gave Rudd the nick- mander character is so hateful cupying Afghanistan. In this name of “Aryan” instead of Ar- that audiences cheer when he film, Rambo resorts to his usual jen, and referred to Vorstedt as dies. And to confuse things fur- mayhem as he rescues his friend “Adolph.” ther, the protagonist, a young, Colonel Trautman from the Russian tank crewman played by clutches of a group of sadistic Terrorists Jason Patric, ends up changing Soviet Army brutes. In The Liv- loyalties and joining the muja- The IRA has provided Americans ing Daylights (1987), Timothy hideen. with some interesting terrorist Dalton as James Bond finds Satans in films such as Patriot himself in the clutches of similar This film’s image of the Bear- Games (1992). Tom Clancy’s Soviet Satans in Afghanistan, Satan has more clarity than the hero, Jack Ryan, formerly of the but as usual, he rescues himself, predictable, chew-the-carpet Marines and the CIA, is vacation- his girlfriend and a mujahideen maniac images of Soviet Great ing with his family in England, commander (insert your own Satans found in the Bond films. and coincidentally is at hand to Osama Bin Laden irony here). Consider Steven Berkoff’s chew- thwart an extremist IRA faction’s the-carpet, psychopathic Gen- attempt to assassinate a mem- The Cold War eral Orlov in Octopussy (1983). ber of the British royal family. Throughout the Cold War, the The general plans to detonate a One villain escapes, and he and Soviets often achieved Great nuclear bomb at an American air his band of terrorists illegally Satan status. In every other base in West Germany, hoping enter the U.S., bent on revenge James Bond film, Soviets are the disaster will cause NATO to on Ryan and his family. After pictured as a nameless, faceless withdraw strategic nuclear that attempt fails and the terror- Russian bear of an enemy. With weapons from Europe. Then, ists escape from the U.S., in an no “Uncle Joe” Stalin as a after the withdrawal, with no on- all-too-close parallel to future

13 events, the CIA launches an as- Leiter to a shark. Somehow Le- Tasker, spoils an attempt by Aziz sault on the Middle Eastern de- iter survives. James Bond, in and his followers to use a stolen sert hideaway of the terrorists. typical ironic fashion, assassi- nuclear bomb to obliterate Mi- Although many are killed in this nates this drug lord using a ciga- ami. In an eerie and ironic re- assault, the chief terrorist again rette lighter, a wedding gift from versal of the tragedy of Septem- escapes. Now even more en- Felix. ber eleventh at the World Trade raged, he launches a second, Center, Schwartzenegger uses We’ve not yet seen any Ameri- bolder attack in the U.S. This an airplane – this time a Harrier can-made feature films about time it’s an assault on Ryan’s jet – to annihilate terrorists Great Satan also-ran – now war own home. Ultimately, Ryan holed up in a high-rise building. crimes defendant, former Yugo- helps repulse the attack and kills slav President Slobodan Mil- Andrew Davis is the director of the terrorist. osevic. However, the conflict in another Schwartzenegger film, Brad Pitt ironically portrays a the former Yugoslavia is not Collateral Damage, originally terrorist with a conscience in forgotten: Behind Enemy Lines scheduled to be released in Fall The Devil’s Own (1997). Pitt’s (2001) deals with the race to res- 2001, which was shelved by character, a fugitive IRA member cue a downed American pilot nervous studio executives until who employs a phoney passport from (appropriately) black- Spring, 2002, because of vague to enter the U.S., is thwarted by bereted, homicidal Serbians. It’s similarities to the September a New York policeman, also clear that the Serbs are the vil- eleventh tragedy. In this film, played by Harrison Ford. Again lains, but Milosevic’s role as the California governor played a September eleventh comes to head villain is not a part of the fireman (formerly a bomb squad mind. film. member) whose family was killed in a terrorist attack. Later In Nighthawks (1981), a terrorist- The Middle East Schwartzenegger takes the law for-hire named Wolfgar bombs Followers of Mu’ammar Ghad- into his own hands, uses the Harrod’s department store in hafi of Libya and the Ayatollah bomb-making skills he learned London and then tries to commit Khomeini launched effective on the job as he seeks revenge similar bombings and murders terrorist attacks against the U.S. against the terrorists. in New York City. Another New and other western nations, such York detective, this time Syl- vester Stallone, steps in to foil Wolfgar’s plans. And in the de- To be successful, action film nouement, as in Patriot Games , Wolfgar seeks revenge by trying scripts must create strong to murder a member of Stal- lone’s family. Having been frus- villains. tratingly one step behind Wolf- gar throughout most of the film, Stallone finally learns that to In an interview on public radio in as the destruction of Pan Am defeat a terrorist, he must think September, 2001, director Davis flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scot- like a terrorist. He anticipates confirmed that the Great Satan land, and the taking of American Wolfgar’s next move and for device is still on Hollywood’s hostages in Tehran. Although once is there ahead of Wolfgar, minds when he said that to be Ghadhafi and Khomeini are waiting to kill him. successful, action film scripts relatively well-known, American like his must create strong vil- Drug Lords filmmakers rarely used them as lains. Since Saddam Hussein’s symbols of the Great Satan in forces overran and occupied Between American involve- quite the same way, or to the Kuwait, the then-Iraqi dictator ments in outright wars, Holly- degree, that Hollywood used became perhaps the clearest, wood created another kind of Hitler, Tojo or Mussolini in most recognizable movie Great interim Satan: the powerful World War II. It seems that Hol- Satan icon since Hitler. In Cour- South American drug lord. In A lywood prefers to create its own age Under Fire (1996) and Three Clear and Present Danger (1994), stylised, stereotyped Arab fa- Kings (1999), Saddam became a the CIA’s Jack Ryan again does natic. An excellent example of household name – and some- battle with American enemies, Hollywood’s version of this fa- times a curse word. But name- this time a pair of ruthless and natic is Art Malik’s wild-eyed al- less, mostly faceless Iraqis stand very stereotypical drug-dealing Qa’eda-type detachment com- in for the dictator. Interestingly, Great Satans, one of which is a mander, Salim Abu Aziz, in the in Iron Eagle (1986), David very transparent Pablo Escobar Arnold Schwartzenegger spy- Suchet’s “minister of defence” clone. In License to Kill (1989), action film, True Lies (1994). In for an Iraq-like rogue Arab state an even more outlandish drug a film articulating threats voiced fits Hussein perfectly. Interest- lord invades U.S. soil, murders by President George W. Bush as ingly, this film was released CIA agent Felix Leiter’s wife on an excuse to invade Iraq, nearly five years before Opera- her wedding night and feeds Schwartzenegger, as spy Harry

14 tion Desert Storm and during a If he hadn’t been killed in 1996, U.S. embassy bombings in Af- time when Hussein was publicly Aidid might still be on America’s rica, the attack on the U.S.S. considered almost an American radar as a potential target. So- Cole and, of course, the Sept. 11 ally. And in this fantasy, a teen- malia still remains an object of attacks on the World Trade Cen- ager who commandeers an American concern. Defence ter and the Pentagon, Osama bin American fighter jet shoots Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Laden has risen to the top of down a half-dozen inept enemy listed Somalia (due to its sup- FBI’s most wanted list of “Great fighters, including one piloted port of Osama bin Laden’s al- Satans,” offering a $25 million by the Saddam clone himself. Qua’eda network) as one of the reward. But at this writing, we next possible targets of Amer- still have seen no American mo- Speaking of fantasies, there is ica’s war on terrorism. And the tion pictures that feature this Naked Gun: From the Files of tragic confluence of events that villain. Police Squad (1988), in which led to Aidid’s men dragging an Leslie Nielsen assaults a room But there have been films made American soldier’s corpse full of America’s Great Satans, about the kind of individual who through the streets of Moga- including Yasser Arafat, Ghad- could very easily become an al- dishu may have had another hafi, Khomeini, Idi Amin and Qa’eda-type true believer. Al- negative effect. The Philadel- Mikhail Gorbachev. Nielsen gets phia Inquirer quotes both former though The Peacemaker (1997) is to do what so many Americans U.S. Ambassador to Somalia a rather predictable, hackneyed, would love to: kick some serious Robert Oakley and Mark Bowden, action-filled, George Clooney/ villain butt. Likewise, in Hot author of the original book, Nicole Kidman vehicle about Shots, Part Deux (1993) , a luna- Black Hawk Down, as saying that retrieving a stolen nuclear bomb, tic, cross-dressing Saddam is al-Qua’eda and Osama bin it gives viewers a revealing view insulted, beaten up and gener- Laden “… looked at our retreat inside the mind of a suicidal ter- ally manhandled by the good from Lebanon in 1983 and from rorist: a man who has lost so guys as Rambo-style commando Somalia in 1993 [after the Battle much that all that remains is Topper Harley leads a rescue of Mogadishu] as signs of funda- blind, self-immolating fury – the mission into Iraq. His mission mental U.S. weakness in the kind of rage that in another real- (see if you can follow this) is to face of casualties.” ity could result in a tragedy such liberate some rescuers who as September 11. went in earlier to rescue the pre- In what has now become a cau- vious rescue team who were tionary tale for America, in The In The Peacemaker’s denoue- assigned to rescue hostages left Siege (1998), the CIA abducts an ment, Clooney and Kidman foil behind after Desert Storm. agent of the Great Satan, in this this Bosnian terrorist’s plan to case a notorious Muslim leader. detonate a stolen nuclear bomb For a very short period, Somali In retaliation, terrorists carry out at the United Nations building in warlord Gen. Mohamed Farah a number of bomb attacks on New York. But terrorist Dusan Aidid became to Americans as New York City. The head of the Gavrich doesn’t know this when hated a Satan figure as Saddam FBI/New York Police Department a few days earlier he records a Hussein – this mostly because of Terrorism Task Force teams up taped message to the world – the deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers with a CIA operative to arrest or which he assumes will be found and the wounding of dozens kill the members of the terrorist only after his suicide mission is more in the battle of Mogadishu organization responsible for the successful: in 1993. This military disaster is bombings. Uncannily similar to portrayed in Ridley Scott’s dark You will look at what I have al-Qa’eda, these terrorists work film, Black Hawk Down (2001). done and say, "Of course -- in cell groups, ignorant of the Although never pictured, Aidid why not -- they are all ani- activities and membership of was made out, both in the film’s mals. They have slaugh- other cells -- including those opening graphics and later in tered each other for centu- operating in the same city. As dialog, to be the principal cause ries." But the truth is, I'm bomb attacks on New York con- of all the suffering and starva- not a monster. I'm a hu- tinue, The U.S. sends the Army tion in Somalia. Out of all the man man -- I'm just like you, into the city and the Army’s gen- Somali warlords, producer Jerry whether you like it or not. eral-in-charge declares martial Bruckheimer singled out Aidid For years, we have tried to law. The remainder of the pic- as the sole person responsible live together, until a war ture is a conflict between civil for preventing food aid from was waged on us, on all of liberty-minded civilians and the getting to his people. Director us: a war waged by our military, which is persecuting Ridley Scott helped emphasize own leaders. And who sup- Arab-Americans, holding them Aidid’s Great Satan status with a plied the Serb cluster in makeshift concentration terrible scene at the beginning bombs, the Croatian tanks, camps without warrants, and in of the movie in which Somali the Muslim artillery shells some cases, torturing and killing civilians were shot down just for that killed our sons and them. standing in line to beg for grain daughters? It was the gov- at U.N. food trucks. And most recently, due to the ernments of the West who drew the boundaries of our

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countries -- sometimes in Laden. Hussein’s savage rule in out over the following years, ink, sometimes in blood -- Iraq paved the way for the American filmmakers will proba- the blood of our people. “regime change” caused by the bly draw the terrorist Great Sa- And now you dispatch your American military intervention tan in much clearer strokes. peacekeepers to write our in 2003. Aidid was murdered by destiny again. We can rivals in his own country, or So- Bibliographic notes never accept this peace that malia might have also been a Bush, George W. President leaves us with nothing but part of President George W. Bush’s State of the Union ad- pain, pain the peacemakers Bush’s “Axis of Evil.” (Jan. 29, dress, Jan. 29,2002. must be made to feel. 2002) The United States’ inter- www.whitehouse.gov/news/ Their wives, their children, vention against the Taliban in releases/2002/01/20020129- their houses and churches. Afghanistan was aimed at cap- 11.html So now you know, now you turing or killing bin Laden and must understand. Leave us defeating al-Qa’eda. Davis, Andrew. Comments in an to find our own destiny. interview on “Talk of The Na- So far, through the creation of May God have mercy on us tion” on National Public Radio suitably odious Great Satans, all. Sept. 25, 2001. the American people have been This is the newest, post-modern persuaded to support military Rickey, Carrie. Review of the face for America’s Great Satan: a actions against many of them, film, Black Hawk Down, Phila- man who has lost everything moving in near-ideological uni- delphia Inquirer, Jan 17, 2002. and rightly or wrongly blames son in a earlier cases. As the the U.S. for his misery -- a man war against terrorism plays itself whose only desire is to make Filmography Americans share his pain and suffering. No greed, no imperi- Title Year Director alistic aims, just blind, inscruta- The Beast 1988 Kevin Reynolds ble fury. Behind Enemy Lines 2001 John Moore U.S. leaders would rather paste Black Hawk Down 2001 Ridley Scott the Taliban’s and Osama bin Laden’s faces on this new kind Das Boot 1981 Wolfgang Petersen of Satan, because from a propa- The Chamber 1996 James Foley ganda standpoint it’s much eas- A Clear and Present Danger 1994 Phillip Noyce ier to make a loathsome enemy out of a gaggle of fanatic mul- Courage Under Fire 1996 Edward Zwick lahs, a wild horde of rifle- The Devil’s Own 1997 Alan J. Pakula wielding desert-dwellers or a Enemy at the Gates 2001 Jean-Jacques Annaud renegade millionaire sheik than a wounded, despondent man Ghosts of Mississippi 1996 Rob Reiner willing to kill himself and mur- Heartbreak Ridge 1986 Clint Eastwood der thousands just to make a Hot Shots, Part Deux 1993 Jim Abrahams point. Iron Eagle 1986 Sidney J. Furie Conclusion Lethal Weapon II 1989 Richard Donner This article has examined the License to Kill 1989 John Glen phenomenon of the Great Satan in American action and war The Living Daylights 1987 John Glen films and tracked its evolution Mississippi Burning 1988 Alan Parker through a small sample of pic- Naked Gun: From the Files 1988 David Zucker tures produced since World War of Police Squad II. Only rarely, such as in films made during World War II, have Nighthawks 1981 Bruce Malmuth we seen a correlation between O, Brother, Where Art 2000 Joel Coen clear American goals and popu- Thou? lar opinion and the personifica- Octopussy 1983 John Glen tion of an individual Great Satan. Most often since then, these Patriot Games 1992 Phillip Noyce Satans were created as generic The Peacemaker 1997 Mimi Leder villains, carefully stereotyped for Rambo III 1988 Peter MacDonald public consumption. The clear- est exceptions were Saddam The Siege 1998 Edward Zwick Hussein, the warlord Mohamed Three Kings 1999 David O. Russell Farah Aidid and Osama bin True Lies 1994 James Cameron

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grievances and close ranks shoulder to shoulder with our white The Vietnam War fellow citizens…fighting for democracy. We make no ordinary sacrifice, but we make it gladly and and the Civil willingly.” These words in turn echoed the sentiment of former slave and early African-American leader Frederick Douglas when describ- Rights movement ing the fundamental require- ments and rights of American The coincidence of the Civil Rights movement with patriotism and therefore citizen- the Vietnamese war helped to radicalise African ship: American servicemen both in Vietnam and on their “..for once let the Black man return. In this article, Brendan Gallagher considers get up in his person the brass letters, U.S; let him how the two events are inextricably bound up. get an eagle upon his but- ton…bullets in his pocket, hen the Vietnam One million African-Americans and there is no power on War escalated and had served in the Second World earth…which can deny was wholeheart- War and returned home imbued that he has earned the W edly backed by the with the desire to possess the right to citizenship in the White House, President Johnson full rights of citizenship so long United States.” failed to realise the racial night- denied them. In previous wars mare that American involvement also, African-Americans had Nevertheless, legislation still in Vietnam would create. Viet- fought not only for their emanci- segregated blacks in schools, in nam coincided with the protests pation but also for their firm employment and socially. Ac- of the Civil Rights Movement belief in democracy. When black cordingly, Schaller depicts the and the rise of Black Power dur- servicemen returned victorious situation: ing 1960s America. Whilst Afri- after having defeated Hitler and “The U.S. was fighting can-Americans were discrimi- the threat of fascism in Europe, enemies who proclaimed nated at home but also within in 1945, they soon realised that the right to enslave or the U.S. armed forces, the ef- they were still denied basic hu- exterminate inferior races. fects of black power, the impact man rights. Protest groups were Presumably, American of the Civil Rights struggle and formed such as the Congress of citizens were united in “the resurgence of black sub- Racial Equality (C.O.R.E.). Subse- detesting such hateful cultural style, expressed through quently, demonstrations, sit-ins ideologies. Yet American dress, language and gesture”, and boycotts pressurised the minorities at home still had been transferred to the war authorities to integrate schools faced discrimination and zone. and public buildings. abuse.” Amidst increasing tension, black Defending democracy abroad Before 1960, racial animosity soldiers embraced Black Power : Vietnam was a war against com- had been negligible: black sol- culturally and politically. Viet- munism: it was a war waged to diers were professional and nam was America’s first racially promote liberal democracy in- seeking a career. Moreover, for integrated conflict. Black sol- stead of an imposed dictatorship. some Black soldiers, Vietnam diers had fought in all of Amer- Again, black Americans conse- provided an opportunity for es- ica’s previous military encoun- quently trusted that if they de- cape from poor economic and ters, but in segregated units. fended democracy abroad they social conditions at home "I However, a small number of were more likely to receive it at thought the only way I could segregated units still existed, home. They recalled the words make it out of the ghetto, was to and “an officerless and forgot- of the legendary leader of the be the best soldier I possibly ten platoon of anxious black National Association for the Ad- could”. After years of discrimi- G.I.s despairingly shooting into vancement of Coloured People, nation, they viewed fighting in the darkness…in the last Ameri- W.E.B. Du Bois, when he ad- the war as an opportunity to can outpost on the border be- vised during the beginning of prove their worth to their coun- tween Vietnam and Cambodia” World War 1, try. was movingly portrayed in the film Apocalypse Now . “Let us, while the war Nevertheless, as a result of lasts, forget our special greater awareness of black

17 struggle and identity, publicised economic justice. King himself short beatniks.” by media and widened televi- warned: “millions of Negroes Soon rumours abounded that sion coverage, Vietnam became will, out of frustration and de- the U.S. government were using the “black man’s” true subject. spair, seek solace and security in the Vietnam War as a form of black nationalist ideologies.” The struggle for civil rights genocide. Money was being As President Lyndon Johnson pumped into Vietnam instead of The national March on Washing- increased the focus of American poor black communities in ton in 1963, in which over foreign policy on the conflict in America. Black Panther Eldridge 200,000 blacks and whites par- Vietnam, statistics soon pre- Cleaver noted the contradictory ticipated, amidst widespread sented stark evidence of racial situation, and complained: media coverage, represented discrimination. In 1965 there “Black Americans are asked to one of the most powerful pro- were 23,000 U.S. servicemen in die for the system in Vietnam, in tests in American history. Sym- Vietnam. By the end of 1967, the Watts (a poor black suburb of bolically standing in front of the number rose dramatically to Los Angeles) they are asked to Lincoln Memorial, King called 465,000 – the result of Project die by it.” for black Americans to be in- 100,000, initiated by President cluded in the American Dream. Lance Corporal William L. Har- Johnson in 1966. Qualification vey also voiced his concern to a His dream was that American standards were lowered mean- Washington Post reporter: Negroes be fully accepted and ing that black Americans who “Vietnam is a white man’s war. integrated into American soci- had previously evaded the draft Black men should not go, only to ety: that “little black boys” and owing to poor education oppor- return and fight whites at “little white boys” soon would tunities, were now eligible and home.” be able to go to school together. so too, ironically, were racially Subsequently, in1964, the Civil intolerant, poor white men from Black soldiers began to identify Rights Act was passed, bringing the Southern States. 246,000 with the enemy: they saw the de Jure, or legal discrimination men were recruited between Vietnamese as, like themselves, victims of white colonial racist aggression. They were encour- Vietnam is a white man’s war. aged by anti-war demonstra- tions at home. White and black Black men should not go, only students, representing the Stu- dent Non-Violent Co-ordinating to return and fight whites at Committee, regularly organised marches and disruptive sit-ins. Boxer, Muhammad Ali dared to home speak out: “ I ain`t got no quarrel with the Vietcong.” and de- to a close; and, effectively bar- October 1966 and June 1969 – clared: “They want me to go to ring discrimination in public 41% were black, although black Vietnam to shoot some black places and employment. Americans represented only folks that never lynched me. 11% of the U.S. population. Never called me nigger, never In 1965, as part of a voter regis- 58,000 lost their lives in the con- assassinated my leaders.” His tration drive in Alabama, a third flict, 22% of whom were black. subsequent refusal to enlist as a protest march from Selma to Less than 3% of the officers in serviceman led to a harsh re- Montgomery took place after the the Army were black, less than buke from the American Govern- two previous attempts were 1% in the Marines. ment: he was subsequently crushed by hostile local law offi- fined and sentenced to prison- cers using excessive violence. Black soldiers and the draft effectively stripping him of his Under heavy government pro- Draft boards themselves were, World title. tection, and even heavier inter- by their very nature, divisive and national news coverage, the discriminatory: in 1967 no black Martin Luther King voiced his marchers arrived in Montgom- Americans were present on the concerns and charged the U.S. ery on March 25. Consequently, boards in Alabama, Arkansas, Government with being “the the Voting Rights Act was soon Mississippi and Louisiana. Jack greatest purveyor of violence in passed, allowing African- Helms, a member of the Louisi- the world today”, and urged Americans in the Southern ana draft board, was a Grand dissenting blacks to seek the states to register as voters. The Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan. He status of conscientious objectors Civil Rights Movement then, had described the long established (as indeed Ali had done). Fur- made considerable gains for National Association for the Ad- thermore, other groups uttered African-American civil rights by vancement of Coloured People their discontent and disillusion- 1965; however, there were dis- black civil rights group, as “a ment. “We recoil with horror,” senting voices arguing that communist-inspired, anti-Christ, said an S.N.C.C position paper in blacks had still achieved little sex-perverted group of tennis 1965, “at the inconsistency of a

18 supposedly free society where field became a stage of conflict • An end to the robbery by responsibility to freedom is within the U.S ranks. Rebellion the white man of our equated with the responsibility and mutiny amongst black sol- black community; to lend oneself to military ag- diers began to occur. Also, in gression.” Outrage over the war, 1970, seven black soldiers from • Payment in currency as and over the “disproportionate the 176th Regiment disobeyed restitution for slave la- number” of young black men orders to go on patrol duty, bour and mass murder of being drafted to fight it, contrib- claiming their lives were being black people uted significantly to S.N.C.C’s “deliberately endangered by • Decent housing, fit for embrace of Black Power . racist officers” shelter of human beings After Martin Luther King’s assas- Inter-racial clashes were com- • sination, white soldiers ap- monplace in military prisons, Education for our people plauded his murder. Racist graf- army bases and even on aircraft that exposes decadent fiti, cross burnings and Ku Klux carriers. In October, 1972, a fight American society Klan material were tolerated on some bases. Young African- American recruits were con- The Vietnamese would often fronted with the symbol most associated with historical racist call out “ Go home soul man!” oppression, the Confederate flag, daubed on army machinery in- cluding tanks, jeeps and even to black soldiers on the battle- helicopters. Magazines such as Ebony or Jet were not stocked ground. on some bases and neither were tapes of soul music or books on involving black and white sailors • Exemption of black men black American culture and his- aboard the attack aircraft carrier from military service for a tory. Black servicemen were fre- Kitty Hawk, in the Tonkin Gulf, racist government quently sentenced to longer left 33 men injured. • An end to police brutality terms than their white counter- Groups such as the Black Pan- and murder of black peo- parts, and once inside prison, ther Party for Self-Defense , en- ple by organizing Muslim inmates were refused couraged violence against white copies of the Koran . Influenced • racism at home and in Vietnam. Armed self-defense by the Nation of Islam’s Mal- Kathleen Cleaver the wife of El- groups colm X and later by Stokely Car- dridge Cleaver (leader of the michael of the Black Panthers , • Freedom for all black pris- Panthers), urged black soldiers: black soldiers embraced their oners because they have- “Right inside of the U.S. imperi- African cultural roots by wearing n’t had a fair impartial alist beast’s army, you are stra- black beads and black gloves trial tegically placed to begin the and flew the Black flag. A ritual- process of destroying him from • ised handshake, the “dap”, was Black defendants should within.” Meanwhile, the Party’s be tried by a jury of their common amongst black person- Manifesto promised a pro- nel. Black Power salutes were peers gramme of social transformation also used in private between contradicting Johnson’s The • Land, bread, housing, black privates and officers. De- Great Society programme of education, clothing, jus- spite or because of segregated greater public expenditure for tice and peace bars and clubs, solidarity in- welfare, schools, housing and creased between black soldiers. • A United Nations plebi- cultural works such as libraries Several groups were formed: scite in the black colony and theatres (which had largely Blacks in Action , The Unsatisfied to determine the will of been curtailed due to the spiral- Black Soldier , The Ju Jus , and black people as to their ling costs of the war in Vietnam). The Mau Maus . - they discussed national destiny” The Marxist rhetoric of the Pan- black history, the Civil Rights thers demanded and pledged Black students were moved by Movement, Black Power and the following requirements for the separatist ideology of the soul music. black justice and equality in, Panthers. Consequently, a black Black Panthers in the army what they perceived to be a student uprising took place at white dominated society of Cornell University, in December The racial tensions in the ghet- prejudice, hypocrisy and double 1968. Armed agitators had taken toes of Detroit and Chicago were standards: over an administration building now echoed in the armed forces. and their continued protests In July 1969, there was a race • “Full employment for our resulted in the resignation of riot in Lejeune Marine Camp in people several distinguished scholars- North Carolina. Soon, the battle-

19 and eventually Cornell’s Presi- • 55% preferred to eat their The Civil Rights Acts dent. Indeed, it had been a year meals with blacks. 52% pre- The Civil Rights Acts at home, in of turmoil for the U.S: the Tet ferred to live in all-black bar- America, resulting in better em- Offensive had proved disastrous racks. ployment and housing condi- for the Vietnam campaign; in tions for African-Americans put April, Eldridge Cleaver was in- • 41% said they would join pressure on the forces to re- volved in a shoot-out in Oakland a riot when they returned to spond to the increasing crisis. between Black Panthers and the U.S. However, a nearly General Chapman admitted in police that left one Panther dead equal number, 40%, said they 1969, “we’ve got a problem.” and Cleaver and two police offi- would not. Investigations on discrimination cers wounded; and Democrat Evidently though, the most un- and prejudices were addressed Bobby Kennedy (who had prom- settling and worrying issue was in all areas, from the lack of suit- ised better civil rights for blacks that black soldiers were dying in able provisions for black service- and had promised an early end greater numbers proportionately, men to the small number of to the war) had been assassi- to whites, naturally leading to an black officers. nated - as had Luther King. increase in discord amongst the Mandatory Watch and Action Recruitment with regard to Black black ranks. One black private Committees were introduced protest organisations was identi- protested forcefully against the into each unit, using the slogan fied by the journalist Michael unfair conditions: – “Racism can cost you your Herr in his personal account of “You should see for your- career.” Eventually, African- his time in Vietnam, Dispatches , self how the black man is Americans won the right to :“…there were more than a being treated over here grow their hair in Afros; and dozen Black Panthers in one pla- and the way we are dy- gradually racial tensions within toon, one of which was an agent ing. When it comes to rank, the ranks began to subside. for the panthers, sent over…to we are left out. When it recruit” In addition, a survey comes to special privi- Colin Powell began his military produced by Time Magazine leges, we are left out. career in Vietnam, rising illustrated the influence of Black When it comes to patrols, through the ranks to become Power ; and the growing racial operations and so forth, General. Indeed, since Vietnam problems and conflicts in Viet- we are first.” many African-Americans have nam and at home. Personal in- been promoted to the highest terviews were conducted with ranks of the U.S Army. There- 400 black enlisted men “from fore, a positive legacy was left Propaganda was used by the Con Thiem to the Delta” provid- for the new generation of black Vietcong to undermine the black ing a measure of the attitude of servicemen, but at a cost: 40% of soldiers’ morale: leaflets were black men in Vietnam: black veterans suffered from dropped describing American post-traumatic stress, compared • army racism and also images 45% said they would use with 20% of white veterans. arms to gain their rights when depicting U.S. policemen beat- they return to “ the world .” A ing black civil rights workers. African-Americans also suffered few boasted that they are The Vietnamese would often call after returning from combat smuggling automatic weap- out “ Go home soul man!” to when faced with unforgiving ons back to the States. black soldiers on the battle- working conditions, particularly ground, shooting only at the in the North. Manufacturing • 60% agreed that black white soldiers. firms were relocating southward people should not fight in because of cheaper land, lower Soon, a back street in downtown Vietnam because they have taxes, and lower union member- Saigon known as Soul Alley be- problems back home. Only ship. Moreover, “the existence came home for “somewhere 23% replied that blacks should of the right to work laws allowed between 300 and 500 black fight in Vietnam the same as by section 14b of the Taft- AWOLS and deserters”. Soul whites. Hartley Act, plus the social con- Alley provided an ideal escape servatism of the region ”meant • 64% believed that racial from the restraints of army life that black labour effectively be- troubles in Vietnam were get- and conditions. One explained came marginalized. Transporta- ting worse. Only 6% thought the attractions of the surround- tion, particularly in the South - that racial relations were im- ings to a Time reporter: was cheaper and energy sup- proving. “Just like civilian “You get up late, you smoke a plies necessarily, were closer: life,” one black marine said. few joints, you get on your “The white doesn’t want to “manufacturing firms are favor- Honda and ride around to the PX, see the black get ahead.” ing the white South—Northern buy a few items you can sell on Mississippi, the white hill coun- • the black market, come back, 56% said that they use the try and north-western Arkansas. blow some more grass, and Black Power salute. Only 1% They are not locating in the that’s it for one day.” condemned its use black Delta towns. There are a

20 number of reasons for this new the only black attorney in I Corps, Schulzinger R. Present Tense . form of racial discrimination… “is black people themselves. (U.S.A: Houghton Mifflin Com- Relocating manufacturers find White people haven’t changed. pany, Inc., 1996). the hill country white workers What has changed is the black Sternlieb G., and Hughes J. Post are free thinkers who reject un- population.” Now, soldiers Industrial America: Metropolitan ions, while black workers seek shared a common response to Decline and Inter-Regional Job the protection of unions. With the injustice their race had suf- Shifts . (New Brunswick: Centre white labor, there is neither a fered: for Urban Policy Research, union problem nor a racial prob- “When an American force 1976). lem.” stormed ashore south of Danang Woodiwiss A. Postmodernity Conclusion this summer, young blacks wore U.S.A : The Crisis of Social Mod- amulets around their necks sym- Participation in the Vietnam War ernism in Postwar America , bolizing black pride, culture and without doubt heightened black (G.B: Cromwell Press Ltd, 1993). self-defense. They raised their consciousness, and help politi- fists to their brothers as they cise every black American as a Maycock J. War Within War , moved side by side with white result of their being made http: marines against their common “clearly aware of the paradox of //www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/A Communist enemy.” fighting for democracy abroad rticle /0,4273,4256062,00.html, (15/9/2001), 11/6/2004. when they did not have it at Bibliography. home.” Bishop C. Vietnam War Diary: Woodland J. “How did Participa- The growing prosperity of 1964-1975 . (Italy: Aerospace, tion in America`s Wars affect whites, whilst African-Americans 2003). Black Americans?”, continued to be sidelined- dis- http://www.americansc.org.uk/W Blair T. Retreat to the Ghetto . ( placed and alienated thus re- oodland.htm,(18/11/2001 ), New York: Hill and Wang, 1978) maining on the periphery and 10/12/2004 margins of American society- Blum J. Years of Discord: Ameri- Encyclopaedia Britannica . (CD- emphasised the confusion of, can Politics and Society, 1961- ROM). U.K: 2001. what Du Bois termed “double- 1974 . (U.S.A: W.W. Norton and consciousness”: that sense of Company, Inc., 1992). being American citizens but also having an African past. Cawthorne N. Vietnam: A War Lost and Won . (Denmark: Arctu- Unfortunately racism still exists rus, 2003). in America today and blacks continue to suffer from discrimi- Du Bois W.E.B. The Souls of nation in the armed forces and Black Folk . (1903; U.S.A: Dover in society as a whole. Although Publications, Inc., 1994). the economic conditions of U.S Foner E. The Story of America blacks have improved, the large Freedom . (1998; G.B: Mackays of gap between blacks and whites Chatham plc., 2000). has remained, and has led to racial tensions that have yet to Herr M. Dispatches . (London: be resolved. There are still high Picador, 1998). rates of failure for black pupils at Lee M. Dictionary of North schools and colleges, high rates American History . (G.B: La- of unemployment, and high rousse, 1994). rates of crime committed by African-Americans. Nevertheless, Louvre A. and Walsh J. Tell Me the struggle for Civil Rights at Lies About Vietnam . (G.B: Open home, and on the battlefields University Press, 1988). and jungles of Vietnam, under- Quart L. and Auster A. American lined a new consciousness typi- Film and Society since 1945 . fied by Black Power . A radical (U.S.A: Praeger, 1994). change had occurred: Vietnam helped imbue African-Americans Palmer M. “Seconds Out”, The with a fresh philosophy for free- Times Magazine , 29/12/2001. dom. They now shared a com- mon identity provoked by Ralston I. American Studies To- awareness of their own alien- day . (U.K: American Studies Re- ation: “The immediate cause for sources Centre, Liverpool John racial problems here,” explained Moores University, 2003). Navy Lieutenant Owen Heggs, Schaller M., Scharff V.,

21 Letters from New York By Lenny Quart Our regular correspondent from New York has sent us a further selection of letters giv- ing his unique take on life in the Big Apple.

will be out soon) who has had a luminous and prolific career— Altman’s Oscar Night directing 37 films in a career that spans more than 50 years. But despite having received five regularly watch the Oscars, somebody totally at home in the Academy Award nominations though I usually fall asleep show biz world. But, though for best director, he — like Hitch- before the final awards are Stewart may not be as comfort- cock and Scorsese (a testimony I handed out. The ceremony able with the Hollywood com- to Hollywood’s aesthetic obtuse- can feel interminable, given ac- munity as the less subtle Crystal, ness)— has never won an Oscar. ceptance speeches that are filled he seemed at ease on the stage, with the endless thank-yous sufficiently confident to wittily Altman is a visionary, iconoclast Oscar winners tender their par- deflate Hollywood’s liberal pre- and Hollywood outsider who ents, wives and children, and the tensions and smugness, and, at has made such fine films as countless people connected with the same time, make a funny M*A*S*H, The Player, Short the making of the film, including crack at Vice President’s Che- Cuts, Thieves Like Us, and Gos- agents, hairdressers and lawyers. ney’s expense. It probably was- ford Park, and great ones like What also irks me are: the 48 n’t Stewart’s sharpest perform- Nashville, McCabe and Mrs. expensive advertising spots that ance, but while being civil and Miller and The Long Goodbye. He has had his failures —the sometimes look like they are controlled, his trademark irrever- competing for Oscars; the com- ence was intact. egregious Prêt-à-Porter and the pensatory awards to make-up pretentious Quintet among oth- I also liked the fact that a num- artists, costume designers, art ers, but Altman has produced a ber of the year’s best picture directors for undeserving big body of films that compares fa- nominees— like Good Night and budget films that usually win vourably with the work of illus- Good Luck, Brokeback Mountain, little else; the elaborate musical trious contemporaries like and Crash —were small budget, numbers where the sets and Scorsese, Coppola, and the late limited box office films that dealt special effects overwhelm the John Cassavetes. with a variety of politically con- bland songs; and the habitually troversial issues without being Altman, in his best films, em- pointless montages of Holly- crude polemics. And if none of phasized behaviour rather than wood classics that give us little them were transcendent, risk- plot and exposition, used a great sense of the character of the taking works of art, they were all deal of improvisation, and films. generally intelligent, extremely packed his films with dazzling But there are always a few high well acted, and stylish. and intricate aural effects and points during the evening. The visual images. His open-ended, For me the evening’s apotheosis Daily Show host Jon Stewart’s dynamically cut films also often was Lily Tomlin and Meryl master of ceremony’s dry, sar- parodied and inverted Holly- Streep’s introducing Robert castic, clever, and subversive wood genre conventions (e.g., Altman in the freewheeling, humour was an apt antidote to the western, film noir, and the overlapping dialogue-style of his Hollywood self-promotion and armed service comedy), and his films. Like Sidney Lumet, last sentimentality. Stewart is no work was trenchantly satirical year’s honoree, Altman is a still- Billy Crystal, who as eight-time and critical of American main- working octogenarian (his latest Oscar MC conveyed warmth, stream values and institutions. film A Prairie Home Companion quick wit, and the feeling of In his masterpiece, Nashville

22

(1975), for example, Altman in- promoting nostalgia and bump- beyond the bottom line. In terweaves twenty-four charac- tious iconoclasm. The candi- Altman’s version of Hollywood ters that either are already top date’s new political party is all there is no magic— just crass country and western music per- image without substance: young manipulation. formers or who are obsessed female boosters and a sound Given Altman’s critically caustic with getting their big chance. truck hawking the vagaries of a take on Hollywood, he clearly The country and western stars platform the same way record has never been their favourite are manipulative, vain, and hys- albums are hyped over the son. Still, though somewhat frail, terical—driven by crowd ap- opening credits. he was up there on stage this plause and having a successful Though Hollywood may be a time to accept his Oscar. His careers— while the public’s be- more sophisticated, politically manner neither sentimental nor haviour towards them ranges liberal universe than Nashvill e, it arrogant, he simply stated with from breathless adulation to shares many of its attributes. consummate dignity that he felt petulance and rage. Altman suc- And in a film like The Player fortunate that he never had to ceeds in creating a country and (1992), Altman’s keen satirical make a film he didn’t choose to music milieu that becomes a eye extended from the world of direct. And that he never tired of metaphor for an image-driven, country and western music to making films. callous American society—a the movie business’ mores and chaotic din where everybody is Altman deserved every bit of the manners. With great flair Altman struggling for their version of a long ovation he received. If Hol- assembled a Hollywood of gold record. lywood had more directors like amoral studio executives—men him—men and women who The film also includes an invisi- and women devoid of even a make personal, formally adven- ble, pseudo-populist presidential scintilla of integrity and loyalty— turous, socially corrosive films— candidate who prophetically whose commitments, despite it would be a far more incandes- seeks national moral renewal by their artistic posturing, never go cent, far less superficial place.

tinction between reportage and opinion is blurred. The New York Post The New York Post has an hon- hen I was growing readership had either moved up oured history. It is one of the up, my father and the social class ladder and be- oldest newspapers still pub- lished in the United States. Alex- many other Jewish gun to read The New York Times , working and lower or left the metropolitan area al- ander Hamilton founded it in W 1801 as The New York Evening middle class people like himself together. And those who re- treated The New York Post as mained embedded in the work- Post , a broadsheet quite unlike their political Bible. In those ing class had moved politically today's tabloid, and its most years it was a tabloid, owned by to the right on many issues, just famous 19th-century editor was a wealthy, politically liberal, as the city itself became more the poet William Cullen Bryant, a Dorothy Schiff. Despite empha- psychically enthralled with peo- strong Abolitionist and defender sizing scandal and human inter- ple who lived high or were fa- of free speech. And from 1883 on, its editor was a reform Re- est stories, the paper boasted a mous—turning away from its lively sports page, some distinc- socially committed ethos of ear- publican, E. L. Godkin, who re- tive columnists like the elegant lier decades. lentlessly attacked Tammany and ironic enemy of cant and Hall, describing its leaders as The Post also had lost its political and economic privilege, “dive-keepers” and “pugilists.” edge— becoming much duller— Murray Kempton, and passion- and it was losing money. Conse- Today the Post’s style and sub- ate liberal ones like Mary quently, Schiff sold the paper to stance is far removed from its McGrory, and its courageous Australian media baron Rupert august 19th century ancestor. chief editor, James Wechsler. It Murdoch in 1977. Murdoch The Post also loses a great deal also had literate streetwise re- of money, but Murdoch (who is gradually turned the Post into porters like Pete Hamill, some what it looks like today—a right chief executive of News Corp., unique comic strips like Pogo wing scandal sheet with bold, that owns the Fox Broadcasting and Mary Worth , and a hard- catchy headlines (its most Company, Twentieth Century hitting, if unsubtle, political car- memorable, ”Headless Body in Fox and many other media out- toonist—Herblock. Topless Bar”), a great many ce- lets in the U.S. and abroad) has But the city began to change by lebrity gossip columns, and big pockets and is engaged in a the 70s, and the sons and scoop-driven, politically slanted newspaper war with the city’s daughters of its working class news coverage where the dis- other tabloid, The Daily News ,

23 barrassment, ask the Democratic owned by billionaire real estate East Side. Inside the paper there candidates for New York’s developer, Mortimer B. Zucker- is a story about a “randy” 79- mayor to take “notice of the ex- man. Most big U.S. cities have year-old rector at St. Patrick’s traordinary service” George W only a single daily, but New York Cathedral who had an affair with provided the city after 9/11 in- is the exception—it has four. The his married aide, another about stead of attacking him. News remains much the John Gotti’s prison conversa- stronger paper financially (its tions, and a salacious gossip The Post paradoxically is both advertising revenues are much item about the underwear that anti-elitist, and loves big money greater), but in the last five years Westchester DA, and Republican tycoons when they are on top, the Post boosted its average Senatorial candidate, Jeanine and supports legislation that weekday circulation by 49%, to Pirro, buys. On another day only gives aid and comfort to 686,207 papers. And the Post is there is a gruesome piece about the wealthy and corporations. going all out to destroy its tab- a thug with AIDs who spat blood (Come to think of it, a large loid competitor by lowering its on the cops who arrested him. swathe of the American public newsstand price to 25 cents, as shares those same contradictory The paper’s columnists include well as building a new $250 mil- impulses.) Despite his right wing the sinister Robert Novak and lion printing plant that has conservative agenda, Murdoch the insidious inside-dopester greatly improved the paper's is pragmatic enough to support Richard Morris—the ex-Clinton look. Tony Blair and on alternate days adviser whose columns now say nice things about Hillary. He Scanning the Post the last few regularly bash the Clintons and likes winners, and takes care to weeks it’s clear that its appeal other Democrats. Other colum- keep on the good side of those rests much more in its sensa- nists also adhere closely to a who hold power. tional coverage of crime, sex, conservative line. Even gossip accidents, natural disasters and columnist, Cindy Adams, de- Though I personally find the the foibles of the famous (“Jude rided Jane Fonda for being Post repellent, Murdoch has cre- [Law] Woos Sienna”) than in its “born with a silver hoof in the ated a skilfully seductive tabloid conservative politics. A couple mouth” because of her anti-Iraq built on the notion that a public of weeks ago I picked up the war statements. And on any that is primarily interested in paper and the front page carried given day the editorials will pre- sensation and titillation may, at a headline “Wasted”, and be- dictably support Wal-Mart the same time, absorb some of neath it a large colour photo of a against demands for more gen- the hard right politics that the beautiful co-ed who died of a erous employee health insur- paper incessantly promotes. drug overdose on the Lower ance and, without a hint of em-

A New York News stand about 1900

24

Roth was the author of one of the masterpieces of American Public Life literature, Call it Sleep - a mix- ture of Joycean modernism and Most of us live with a number of on 100 Washington Square East richly textured urban realism. He personal frustrations and miser- that offers four to six art exhibits also wrote, after six decades of ies, but the city always offers (Diane Arbus: Family Albums) a silence, Mercy of a Rude Stream, innumerable activities, sensa- year. Their latest, The Down- an autobiographical quartet of tions, and pleasures that allow town Show: The New York Art novels that depicts, in a more one the chance to escape for a Scene 1974-84, from January 10 direct but less literary writing time. Clearly, one of the city's to April 1, 2006, displays the style, his painful coming of age strongest assets is that its public work of 175 painters, sculptors, in the Harlem of the teens and world provides the kind of sol- photographers, musicians, per- twenties. ace that can, at least temporarily, formers, filmmakers, and writers cauterise one's private pain. who could afford the now incon- There are also more active ways ceivable low rents of SoHo lofts to enter the city's life than by For example, in the last month and Lower East Side tenements. going to a restaurant or attend- my wife and I ate at two elegant Downtown artists bridged the ing a lecture. I always have my restaurants during New York gap between high art and mass city walks. So one morning, the Restaurant Week - two winter culture; they removed avant- streets still packed with mounds weeks where, as a promotion, garde art from isolation in elite of snow and grey slush, I some of the best of the city res- circles, and directly confronted trudged from my apartment to- taurants offer three-course prix- social and political concerns. It wards the meatpacking district, fixe menus for lunch or dinner at was a world of ferment and ex- located near the Hudson River in prices people of ordinary means perimentation, and the gallery is the northwest corner of Green- can afford. filled with posters, photographs, wich Village. It was once home to 250 slaughterhouses and Our normal style is to eat out at paintings, videos, and books and meatpacking plants, but is now reasonably priced ethnic restau- magazines from the era. I don't filled with a hip young crowd rants that offer good food, but have great affinity for most of (e.g., actors, models) and with make little fuss about their ser- the art exhibited, but still there clubs, high-end fashion design- vice or how they look. So I'm a were a number of original, raw, ers, the ultra- chic luxury Hotel bit wary of eating at a restaurant and subversive works that Gansevoort, and a spacious, like Danny Meyer's (also of Un- pushed the limits of traditional handsome bistro like Pastis that ion Square Cafe fame) Gramercy artistic categories, and grew on serve them. One can only be Tavern that has extremely atten- me with repeated viewings. hopeful that the meatpacking tive and knowing waitresses and But if one's intellectual and artis- district's recent designation as a waiters, that serves inventive, tic predilections are not so protected historic area will pre- subtly flavoured food displayed avant-garde - like mine - the city serve what is left of its distinc- like a carefully composed work offers a plethora of lectures and tive cobblestone streets, brick of art (e.g., a dessert of passion symposiums (most of them free) facades, metal awnings, and fruit sorbet on top of coconut almost every night of the week - remaining meatpacking plants. tapioca), and that has a warm, at the 92nd Street Y, Cooper inviting rustic-style decor. I was Union, the CUNY Grad Center It was merely a walk, but for the put at ease, however, by the fact on 365 Fifth Avenue (e.g., this moment it made me happy-just that the diners at the surround- spring Joan Didion reads from as the rest of the city's public life ing tables weren't formally her latest book and Arthur acts as a balm to those who are dressed and exuded neither Schlesinger Jr. is on a panel on able to open themselves up to wealth nor hauteur, but were a Jacksonian Democracy) and the its infinite delights. comfortable mix of Japanese New York public library, among tourists, retired secretaries, other places. schoolteachers and academics, and young corporate executives Having spent my professional and students. Eating at Gra- life lecturing and taking part in mercy Tavern was pleasurable, symposiums, I don't usually feel but given my usual ascetic an urge to attend lectures. But lunches of farmer cheese, non- one evening I did go with a fat yoghurt, and fruit, I felt the friend to the 42nd Street Library food and accompanying sauces to listen, with a great many were much too rich for me to other white-haired people, to a indulge in more than once or number of writers and critics twice a year. perceptively and, at moments, eloquently discuss the work of On another afternoon we visited Henry Roth on his centenary. NYU's Grey Art Gallery, located

25 News and Events from the ASRC

Pittsburgh journalist launches link with Liverpool students Report by Helen Tamburro n March the American Studies Resource Centre was host to US journalist and broadcaster Dr. Ezekiel IMobley and his wife Dr. Cathy Grabowski, Director of Channel 21 Community TV in Pittsburgh and Administrator at the Univer- sity of Pittsburgh. Dr. Mobley, a journalist for the African Times newspaper, deliv- ered a lecture entitled, Issues of Latin American and African American Relations in the US today seen through the prism of the ‘Memin Pinguin’ contro- versy , following last year’s race row between Mexico and the US caused by a Mexican com- memorative stamp. The controversial image of a traditional Mexican cartoon fig- Ezekiel and Kathy with Helen Tamburro ure from the 1950s, Memin Pin- barely represented. Some com- “Liverpool is tremendous! For guin , led to Jesse Jackson and mentators speculate that this Americans the great fame of the President Bush denouncing the could be the result of Mexico’s Beatles is always an attraction, stamp when it was published by longstanding drive to eliminate but it also reminds me of my the Mexican government. The ethnic distinctions and build up own mother, a well-known activ- stamp depicted a black cartoon a national identity based on the ist from New York. She loved character with exaggerated thick idea of ‘mestizaje’ or mixed race. the social and political views expressed through Lennon’s lips and big eyes. Mexico’s Ian Ralston commented, “Most music. I am also fascinated by President Fox defended the Mexicans are loyal to a tradi- Liverpool’s compelling black comic strip as a fundamental tional concept of mestizaje that history - it was of course the part of Mexican cultural life. by definition denies the exis- centre of the British slave trade tence and importance of black Ian Ralston, Director of the and during the American Civil people in their country. It’s not American Studies Centre, ex- War, the Confederate States surprising then that this has put plained: “It’s hard to imagine a maintained an embassy in Liver- them on a crash course with Royal Mail commemorative se- pool, the only diplomatic post in leading figures such as the Rev- ries stirring up such an interna- England.” tional crisis but the publication erend Jesse Jackson as well as of the Memin Pinguin stamps the National Association for the Dr. Mobley and Dr. Grabowski did just that because they are Advancement of Colored People also visited Toxteth TV, a com- such offensive racist carica- in the US.” munity station training young adults in television production, tures.” Dr. Mobley and Dr. Grabowski and both found the visit to be a were in the country for a few During the lecture, Dr Mobley valuable experience, “Toxteth days and Dr. Mobley spoke pas- reflected on why Mexico’s black TV is an amazing facility and a sionately about the city, population and black history is fulfilling experience for the

26 young adults in training. I’m ture outlet and a platform for and ultimately sharing curricu- awed that the station receives views and opinions that are not lum and perhaps students be- supervision directly from the frequently covered by other sta- tween Liverpool Community British Ministry of Education and tions. We also give in-depth College and CCAC. Both PCTV over £1.8 million was spent on training on equipment and stu- and Toxteth TV staff and stu- construction and development. I dents learn to produce shows. dents will gain enormous bene- hope that training the variety of Differences may be found in fit, training and perspectives students will lead to truly gainful approach and concentration. For from cultures in both countries - employment and I say that be- example, Toxteth TV has a to see how the other side cause in the States at times we strong focus on training stu- works.” Toxteth students pro- have superficial feel-good social dents from the community col- duced several mini productions programs that appear to tackle lege to prepare them for em- for PCTV which were aired in the employment problems but don’t ployment, whereas PCTV fo- US in April. ultimately lead to meaningful, cuses more on the community Local news is also big news and long-term jobs and progress for based broadcasting aspect.” can often be more relevant to people.” Since their visit to Liverpool, Dr. people because of its direct im- The American visitors were also Mobley and his wife have estab- pact in a local area. This is par- highly impressed by the Toxteth lished a solid link between the ticularly true of the American students, ‘‘They were very two television stations. I asked media, such is the vastness of highly motivated and I applaud what their hopes and aims were the country. I asked Dr. Mobley the instructors, particularly Sue for this relationship and how for his thoughts on the issue. Scott, for their willingness to beneficial they thought it would “You’re exactly right! Re- work hard for the success of the be for those involved on both emphasis on local news and local community. I was also sides of the Atlantic in terms of valuing the local perspective is thrilled by the Q & A session cross-cultural understanding. important. The curative process organised by the students. They “As soon as I returned to the US that is local news reminds us showed a keen hunger for infor- I initiated informal talks with our that ‘the little people’ can make mation and a perspective from Community College of Alle- big things happen too! In the US the US.” gheny County (CCAC) faculty there’s an old saying, All politics about forging a joint relationship is local and standing up for Dr. Mobley was happy to com- with Toxteth TV to include me- these goals ensures that our ment on the similarities and dif- dia product exchange (film and democratic way of life remains ferences between Toxteth TV TV shows) and therefore utilis- robust and vital.” and their US counterpart, Pitts- ing the media of both stations, burgh Community TV (PCTV), We regret to announce that, fol- in a context of combining TV “They are similar in that PCTV lowing complications after mi- production, ‘streaming video’ provides a local news and fea- nor surgery, Dr Mobley died on 10th June.—eds.

Schools Conference 2007 The Depression, Hoover, Roosevelt and the New Deal A one-day conference for A-Level and Access students of American Government and Politics, American History and Media Studies. Wednesday January 24 th 2007 Topics will include: Hoover and the Depression; How Successful was the New Deal; Roosevelt, Congress and the Supreme Court; Chronicling the Depression through the music of Woody Guthrie. (This will include live performances of songs of the period.)

Booking forms will be sent out in late November or check the ASRC web site (www.americansc.org.uk ) for details and booking form.

27 We stopped at Perfect Days Jeanne-Marie holds exhibition in Liverpool

AS Today welcomes the return to Liverpool of an old friend of the Centre, the artist Jeanne- Marie Kenny. She recently had an exhibition of her work at the Arena Studios in Liverpool with the title “We stopped at Perfect Days”. She works in a variety of genres, and the exhibition showed a great deal of imagina- tion. The colours were vibrant and exciting, and the composi- tions showed an excellent sense of form. Jeanne-Marie is a mas- ter of a wide variety of styles and genres, and the overall ef- fect was very pleasing. She writes this about it. This body of work spans the past 3 years and includes paint- ings, drawings, and photo- graphs. The title of the exhibi- tion is from a poem by Richard Brautigan which alludes to a moment in time or a pleasant Where the World Was New by Jeanne-Marie Kenny memory from the past. In my approach to making art, I trans- derives from men’s magazines, but is also quietly surreal. form mundane images that are hair ads, old Viewmaster reels, produced for specific purposes The work mainly includes figura- and my own photographs. Also (usually advertising) into tive paintings in oil on canvas. included are pen & ink drawings, glimpses into an alternative The imagery revolves around digital illustrations as well as dream world. Like Brautigan’s women in various settings and digital photographs from an on- writing, my art is based in reality going series all of which fit in with the overall theme of ‘femininity as performance.’

28 British Association for American Studies Teachers and Schools Awards 2006

Kathryn and Jessica showing off their As part of its far ranging com- the International Center certificates mitment to promote the study of for Jefferson Studies the USA at all levels of educa- (ICJS), were John Siblon of City ence, ranging from schools to tion, three awards specifically of Islington College, who re- postgraduate. It is hoped that all aimed at teachers and students ceived the Monticello-Stratford of these awards and fellowships in sixth form colleges and Hall award and Kathryn Cooper will be available in future years schools were presented at this of Loreto College Manchester, year’s British Association for who was awarded the Barringer American Studies (BAAS) con- Fellowship. Both John and Kath- ference at the University of Kent ryn will be based in Virginia. at Canterbury on 21 st April. John will be spending two weeks working alongside Ameri- The winner of the Ambassador’s can teachers at Stratford Hall, Schools Essay Prize was Jessica while Kathryn will be research- Edwards of Loreto College in ing and putting together teach- Manchester for her essay on ing materials on Thomas Jeffer- Lyndon Johnson and the Great son and American history at the Society. Jessica was presented Moticello Center. These materi- with a certificate of merit and a als would then be made avail- cheque for £250 by the US Am- able to all UK teachers who have bassador to the UK, Robert an interest in this area of study, Holmes Tuttle. (see photo.) or who are directly involved with John Siblon The recipients of the two Teach- its teaching. ers Fellowships, made by BAAS A total of twenty-eight awards in conjunction with the Thomas and that BAAS’s continued sup- were presented at the confer- Jefferson Foundation (TJF) and port for the school and college sector will continue to go from strength to strength. For further details, and how to apply in 2007, check the BAAS web site at www.baas.ac.uk/ awards/awards.asp

Advertisement AMERICAN INDIAN LECTURES Topics include history from 1492 to the present. The lectures last about 45 minutes with 15 minutes Q&A. For information contact Mr. C. L. Henson [email protected]. Jessica Edwards receiving her prize from the US Ambassador

29 Book Reviews

Literature short at 1998: this silently sug- gests – incorrectly - that critical attention has recently turned to A Routledge Literary the sourcebook as a sometimes other areas of American studies, Reader - down to giving a brief shunning a text which Routledge Sourcebook on Herman contextual overview of each otherwise calls ‘central’ and Melville’s Moby-Dick, critical essay - means that it also ‘powerful’. The section on key edited by Michael J. serves as an excellent prelimi- passages is a predictable way of nary resource for both the aca- approaching student-orientated Davey demic and the scholar. As a con- guides – it is here that the more (New York: Routledge, 2004) sequence, however, the aims of advanced reader may wince, but ISBN 0-415-24771-3. List price the sourcebook are slightly con- will perhaps feel comforted by $26.95. tradictory, presenting itself as a Davey’s assurances that the pas- legitimate and necessary read to sages ‘have been selected be- Reviewed by Natalie Aldred, audiences with conflicting re- cause […] critics have returned Bath Spa University. quirements. Nonetheless, al- to [them] time and again when This is one of though a text of this length discussing Moby-Dick no matter Routledge’s could never expect to be an what the discussion or method- more recent over-arching authority, what is ology.’ The further reading gives instalments in here is concise, interesting, and a varied and annotated account a series which extremely informative for all of the available publishings on seeks to con- readers. both Melville and Moby-Dick, although, once again, some of textualise key The sourcebook is a fresh and Davey’s comments are at odds literary texts. inviting look at an otherwise with the more specific intentions This specific well-studied and frequently cited of the series, as the sources sourcebook literary text, drawing together a cited give frequent indications looks at slightly paradigmatic but none- that, upon compilation, Davies Moby-Dick; or theless much-needed set of con- predominantly had in mind aca- The Whale, textual apparatus. Thus it is di- demics, scholars, and the more first published vided into four obvious parts: advanced students. in 1851 and written by Herman contexts, interpretations (which Melville (1819 – 1891). It is provide the reader with early This is an exciting text crammed meant for the first-time reader of and ‘modern’ criticism), key pas- with useful sources and informa- Melville’s text, but is also inten- sages from Moby-Dick, and sug- tion, even finding room for Mel- tionally accessible to a range of gested further reading. The sec- ville’s own voice through letters student ages from school to un- tion on contexts is a very patient to his peers, and would not be dergraduate level. Through its and accumulative look at sur- out of place on the bookshelf of less orthodox avenues, present- rounding historical issues, from any reader recently acquainted ing the reader with a staggering America’s antebellum period to with Moby-Dick, from the stu- amount of contemporary re- documents which highlight Mel- dent to the literary scholar. views, criticism, and context, ville’s struggle to write Moby- this sourcebook has much Dick. The critical essays are just Tim Hunt (ed.), The higher aims than most other varied enough to give a taste of Selected Poetry of student ‘guides’ to literary texts. the shift in perceptions and liter- Robinson Jeffers Unfortunately, this does have a ary preoccupations of the twen- slightly detrimental effect: some tieth-century (a ‘narrative his- (Stanford: Stanford University of the critical essays picked were, tory’ as Davey calls it), providing Press, 2001) ISBN: 0804741085 quite clearly, originally written the reader with extracts de- £21.50 for a scholarly audience, pos- signed to prompt one into fur- sessing language which is there- ther reading, not do all the work Reviewed by fore outside the grasp of some by re-printing entire essays Lucy Le Guil- students (‘the Melville of Moby- (Davey has pre-empted one po- cher Dick discerns in Jefferson’s two tential problem by ensuring that The last edi- arch-principles of inalienable all extracts, including those from tion of Robin- rights and consent an unre- the earliest date of 1919, are still son Jeffers’s solved tension’). However this in print today). My only major poetry was greater degree of sophistication, concern with the scope of the published in coupled with the presentation of modern criticism is that it stops 1938, and Tim

30

Hunt uses this fact as his justifi- on the natural world – a theme The Cambridge Com- cation for publishing the present explored in his collection ‘Dear version. The inclusion of later Judas’. In this selection Jeffers’s panion to Native Ameri- work, unpublished poems, prose belief in the importance of the can Literature. Edited by pieces, and the ‘Foreward’ to the natural world and the harm hu- Joy Porter and Kenneth 1938 edition written by Jeffers manity cause is undeniable. An himself, makes this edition dif- example of this is Jeffers’s M. Roemer ferent to its predecessor. Conse- poem ‘The Excesses of God’, Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- quently, this publication – to use which centres on the beauty of sity Press, 2005) 343 pages. Hunt’s own words – results in ‘a the world from the grand broader, more accurate repre- ‘Rainbows over the rain’, to the ISBN: 0-521-52979-4 sentation of Jeffers’s career’ (2). minute ‘secret rainbows/ On the Reviewed by Elizabeth Rosen Indeed the outcome is an edition domes of deep sea-shells’ (17). spanning Jeffers’s entire literary While Native Jeffers is a poet whose work has career, which enables the reader Americans to be close read: his poetry is to see the developments in have been full of imagery and symbolism Jeffers’s poetry. contributing that needs to be untangled by to written The ‘Introduction’ is a useful the reader, enforcing Hunt’s as- literature entrance into the study of Robin- sertion that Jeffers is ‘a vision- from as son Jeffers, giving a concise – ary poet’ (8). This emphasis on early as yet informative – account of his close-reading highlights 1772, Native life and work. Hunt discusses Jeffers’s suitability to being American Jeffers’s work in relation to studied in all aspects of acade- Studies, as other poets – for example mia: as an A-level student, an codified by Wordsworth – and Hunt moves undergraduate, a post-graduate, the academy, between the public and private or a lecturer aiming to integrate is only about thirty years old, spheres of Jeffers’s life giving a new authors into new or already and the formal entry of Native three-dimensional as opposed to established modules. Further- American literature into the uni- two-dimensional analysis. more, the inclusion of sections versity canon is even more re- of Jeffers’s prose and other criti- Hunt has selected Jeffers’s po- cent. No surprise, then, that cal writing in this selection en- etry judiciously, and the result is Cambridge University Press has ables the reader to make com- a collection which demonstrates now stepped in to provide the parisons between the different the versatility and complexity of Cambridge Companion to Native modes of writing, and is also a Robinson Jeffers’s work. The American Literature. great teaching aid. selection enables the reader to Companion volumes can do one build up a picture of Robinson The title, however, is slightly of several things: act as diction- Jeffers’s interests and motiva- misleading: this volume includes ary/encyclopedias about a com- tions; his viewpoints, morals work other than poetry, and the plicated topic, provide further and beliefs are built up through title fails to signify this. Unless a critical analysis of an established the recurrent themes within this potential reader looked at the topic, or give a wide overview of particular selection, one being contents page or back cover a topic. The Cambridge Com- the unreliability of life as op- they would remain unaware of panion chooses to do the latter, posed to the reliability of death. the diversity of this edition, and and it manages to do this very The selection enforces the seri- undoubtedly, this is one of the successfully. An initial and em- ousness of Jeffers’s work: he is publication’s strengths. barrassing comma-splice stum- not a humorous poet, and his This selection is suitable for any ble in the first sentence of the work is laden with meaning. reader interested in Robinson book soon resolves itself into a Jeffers’s ambiguous moral posi- Jeffers. It can be kept on a book- conscientiously considered and tion is highlighted through his shelf and just taken down now well-edited introductory book on use of imagery which fluctuates and again, or it can be used ex- Native American literature(s). between the beautiful and the tensively for teaching purposes. horrific, causing the reader too, Editors Porter and Roemer have to fluctuate in their opinion of divided the volume into three his poetry. sections: ‘Historical and cultural contexts’, ‘Genre contexts’, and Jeffers’s poetry aligns itself with a section on ‘Individual authors’. other American ecocritical litera- Of these, it is the first section on ture and thinking which despises historical and cultural contexts, any traces of humanity in the which shines. Roemer’s intro- natural world. Jeffers’s political duction is especially good: agenda within the poetry clearly thoughtful, comprehensive, and emphasises that human actions cognizant of the complexities of have permanent repercussions

31 his topic. The introduction not fiction and theatre. Part III in- can success ideology on the im- only discusses the limitations of cludes essays on all the major pressionable Clyde Griffiths: the studying a ‘literature’ of which players thus far. These chapters drowning of his pregnant girl- the written portion is the smaller not only give the biographic and friend and his execution in the part (much Native American bibliographic details of each electric chair. Dreiser emerges ‘literature’ occurs in an oral, author, but also discuss the ma- from Cassuto and Eby’s collec- rather than written form), it also jor themes with which each is tion as a key writer on moder- raises problems of mediation/ concerned. If there is any short- nity in America, and has a good translation; how to label this coming in these essays it is that claim to attract and retain the literature; the lumping together so few deal with the critical work interest of students of America of an enormous diversity of which has been done on each of and of modernity more gener- tribes under one heading; and these writers, an oversight ally. even whether there is a group of which could easily have been This is the third collection of shared traits in these texts which corrected in the Further Reading essays on Dreiser to appear justify studying them under one section which concludes the since the reshaping of literary rubric. For each of these com- volume, but wasn’t. studies by cultural studies and plex issues, Roemer provides a The Cambridge Companion critical theory. Miriam Gogol’s clear explanation of both the won’t help anyone who wants to 1995 collection Theodore debates and current practices, as learn details such as what the Dreiser: Beyond Naturalism re- well as the editors’ rationale for Ghost Dance or Trickster is, but flected the increasing emphasis following certain customs it will provide a very thorough on gender in literary studies, throughout the volume. and thoughtful overview to the while also sketching out ap- Joy Porter’s essay on ‘Historical subject of Native American writ- proaches to Dreiser’s work from and cultural contexts to Native ing, the complexities of its study, a variety of theorised perspec- American literature’ is equally and the major authors who com- tives. Theodore Dreiser and concise, giving an excellent prise its current canon. American Culture: New Read- overview of the history of Indian ings, edited by Yoshinobu Haku- policy, the Native American re- The Cambridge Com- tani (2000) offered a more sponse to it, the kinds of expres- panion to Theodore lengthy and diverse introduction sion traditionally used in re- Dreiser (Cambridge to the Dreiser oeuvre, emphasis- sponse, and the intersection of ing the most frequently taught all these. The one thing left out Companions to Litera- novel, Sister Carrie , and also is a discussion of the problem of ture) edited by Leonard covering previously obscure translating an oral tradition into Cassuto and Clare Vir- aspects and unfamiliar work. a written form, but David The focus of this new collection Murray’s very fine essay, ginia Eby is squarely on the major novels, ‘Translation and mediation’ Cambridge, UK; New York: Cam- Sister Carrie and An American takes up exactly this question. bridge University Press, Febru- Tragedy , contextualised by ref- Raising issues such as agency ary 12, 2004 ISBN 0-521-89465-4 erence to Dreiser’s other writ- and authorship, Murray declines pp. 258 $29.25 ings, and supplemented by dis- to locate the debate in the more cussion of the ‘Trilogy of Desire’. obvious question of who quali- Reviewed by Jude Davies, Uni- The contributors find interesting fies as a Native writer and in- versity of Winchester. perspectives on the major con- stead concentrates on the lin- temporary themes in Dreiser guistic and theoretical elements Novelist, criticism: the impact of moder- of the subject. Adopting a neu- journalist, nity on selfhood and society; tral stance himself, Murray sim- playwright, desire; consumption; and the ply enumerates the points of and political equation between people and conflicts, listing arguments and activist, commodities. The essays focus counter-arguments for different Theodore on themes (rather than on spe- parts of the debate. Dreiser (1871-1945) cific texts or theories), which are Both the Genre and Individual is best clearly announced by their titles Authors sections of the volume known for – ‘Dreiser and the history of are ably, usually admirably, writ- two novels, American longing’; ‘Dreiser and ten. If there is a problem with Sister Carrie women’; ‘Dreiser, class and the the Genre section it is that we (1900), the home’. Taken as a whole, the are in the early days of building story of a country girl who collection places Dreiser this canon and thus many of the makes good in the big city and squarely at the centre of major essays repeat the same informa- the downfall of her middle-class tensions in American culture – tion in their efforts to provide lover, and An American Tragedy class and social mobility, gender context for their own topics of (1925) a three-volume bestseller and ‘race’, and debates over non-fiction, life-writing, poetry, chronicling the effects of Ameri- idealism and materialism.

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It is invidious to select from the pieces are here published for the sionally. uniformly insightful essays, but first time. “Two Letters To The Editors provide a useful and brief reference to two, ‘Dreiser’s Charles Warren Stoddard (1900- interesting Chronology of Lon- style’ by Paul Giles, and Bill 1901)”, from page 218, and don’s life, and their Bibliography Brown’s ‘The matter of Dreiser’s “Letter To ‘Mr. Revision Edi- doubles as a Suggested Read- modernity,’ will illustrate tor’ (Woman’s Home Compan- ings list. This extended book is Dreiser’s centrality to debates ion) (February 5, 1902)”, from at once a literary-biographical over modernity in America. Re- page 210. tool for students, an education turning to the oldest chestnut in The literary selection here has for writers, a sociology lesson, Dreiser criticism, Giles reads the been chosen to represent what and a very, very good read. clash between Dreiser’s realist the Editors call London’s “three style and mystical tendencies as broad general categories” of Culture mediating between material and “the writing business, the work spiritual understandings of the ethic, and mentorship” (xiv). As world, between the world of with the first edition, the main The Cambridge Com- commodities and the world of body of material is arranged consciousness. Brown concerns panion to American thematically in accordance with himself with similar tensions, these subjects, and presented Modernism edited by but where Giles emphasises chronologically. The new mate- Walter Kalaidjian Dreiser’s oblique, ‘aslant’ view rial is added at the end, and, of dominant American ideology, though not in chronological or- (New York: Cambridge Univer- Brown argues that dominant der, it does continue with the sity Press, 2005) Paperback, American culture has been good thematic order. £16.99 ISBN: 0521536804; pp 358 at integrating the ideal and the Reviewed by Colin Harrison, material, and that Dreiser too Header notes for each chapter strives to ‘dramatize modernity elucidate the practical questions Liverpool John Moores Univer- as a spiritual plight.’ The debate relating to each letter or group sity will continue, fuelled by this ex- of letters, explaining in what The resur- cellent and accessible book. circumstances they were written, gence of in- to whom and what role the re- terest in No Mentor But Myself: cipient(s) took in London’s life. modernism Jack London on Writing Annoyingly, too often these continues – and Writers, Edited by notes go on to dissolve into un- particularly necessary reiterations of what with respect Dale Walker has come before in the Introduc- to visual cul- 2nd Edition Stanford University tion. ture – but Press Hardcover - March 1999 London was an unconventional surveys spe- ISBN 0804736367 £16.50 man who led an unconventional cific to an life. He travelled widely and was, American Reviewed by Jenny Elliott- context have been somewhat Bennett at various times, a labourer, an illegal oyster pirate, an officer of scarce. Daniel Singal’s special An informa- the California Fish Patrol, a issue of American Quarterly in 1987 (reprinted as Modernist tive, detailed sailor, a homeless drifter, a and interest- prison inmate, a street corner Culture in America) is still one of ing introduc- speaker, a socialist party mem- the few to explore the different tion leads ber, a gold prospector, a journal- fields of American culture and well into the ist, a war correspondent, a society that modernism touched, collected writer, a designer and builder of while also addressing important material. The ships, and a rancher. In collect- issues to do with the relation forty-three ing pieces of his day-to-day cor- between modernism and nation- collected respondence, it would be impos- hood: how does a particular kind of modernism emerge in Amer- pieces in the sible to produce an uninterest- first edition ing book. This material is very ica, and how does a particular of No Mentor worthwhile reading in its own construction of America emerge But Myself: Jack London on right. As with his great literary in modernism? Walter Kalaid- Writing and Writers have been works, these letters reflect his jian’s collection extends and here extended literally, and ex- socialistic criticisms and ideolo- updates these approaches, pro- plicated further, by the addition gies, his concerns with innumer- viding an invaluable introduc- of twenty-four new entries in able and varied “issues of com- tion to the subject, and is likely this, the expanded second edi- munity”, and his love of the to become a core text for many undergraduate programs. tion. natural world, whilst document- ing the life of a writer and his Of this additional material, three The Cambridge Companion to philosophies on writing profes- American Modernism is pre-

33 dominantly literary in focus: while it does examine the corre- from train journeys to photogra- other artistic forms such as spondence between literary and phy and cinema, and which ulti- painting, music and cinema are artistic experiment - through the mately informs modernism’s treated but largely in the extent creative exchanges between dual impulse towards synthesis to which they inform the writing Stieglitz, Picabia, Stein, Williams on the one hand and a partial, of the period. Kalaidjian states and others - it does not entertain embodied perspective on the in his introduction that the aim critical debates about the cul- other. In the process, he shows is to map the “multiplicity, diver- tural significance of the avant- that avant-garde artists and writ- sity, complexity, anarchy and garde. To reflect on the passing ers are much better understood chaos” (2) that characterises of New York Dada with the not to be repudiating popular both the lived experience of vague words “a new ethos was culture but actively engaging modernity and its cultural ex- in the air” (216) also seems an with it to capture the delight and pressions. If this seems quite a insufficient way to historicise the uncertainty of a world given loose rationale for the book, it movement. Equally problematic over to representation. does accommodate the con- is Paula Rabinowitz’s piece on Elsewhere, it has to be said that tributors’ various attempts to modernism and the city: riffing theorists of modernity are some- challenge embedded assump- on themes of density and mobil- what thin on the ground – tions and open up the study of ity, her analogies between social whether Benjamin’s Frankfurt modernism to new material. life and literary form are too colleagues in debate during the Thus Rita Barnard offers a pro- speculative, and her enthusiasm 1930s over the relations be- vocative new reading of mod- for a “pulp modernism” in tween aesthetics, politics and ernist fiction by placing canoni- which hierarchies between the culture, or more contemporary cal novelists alongside lesser experimental and vernacular, figures like Jurgen Habermas, known writers such as Nathan the exotic and familiar are bro- David Harvey, and Marshall Ber- Asch; Cary Nelson resists the ken down leads her to lose a man who have in different ways priority given to Imagism in ac- grip on her terms of analysis attempted to assess the legacies counts of modern poetry, argu- (just what is and what isn’t mod- of the era. Postmodernism, in- ing that it is both more formally ernist) - as the unhelpful label of deed, hardly gets a mention. diverse than supposed and only Esther Bubley as a “modern Clearly, the book aims to con- one aspect of a broader poetic (ist)” photographer illustrates. centrate on literary history, but it endeavour encompassing anti- (270) seems a missed opportunity not imperialist, feminist and prole- The strongest essays are those to entertain some of these wider tarian writing; Mark Sanders that engage explicitly with theo- questions: has there been an- likewise emphasises a ries of modernity or situate their other paradigm shift since? Has “heterodox modernism” in material within a changing criti- the modernist project ‘failed’, to which the New Negro Renais- cal context – most notably Janet become little more than a de- sance plays a more central part, Lyon’s, which shows how gay graded style, or can it be and in which the preoccupation and recent feminist perspectives thought of as a continuing proc- with alienation and epistemo- have generated a more nuanced ess of critique and renewal? logical crisis is offset against a understanding of gender and Can such categories as ‘avant- more politically engaged project, sexuality in the modern period garde’ or ‘mass culture’ be rooted in pragmatism, seeking in the wake of Huyssen’s mono- meaningfully applied today? “to make real the promises of lithic formulation of a feminised While many of the essays in the Reconstruction.” (154) The cu- mass culture as modernism’s collection do an impressive job mulative effect of these ap- Other. Walter Benjamin is the of conveying the richness and proaches is to give a renewed dominant theoretical presence: complexity of the period itself, sense of a moment of unparal- both Rita Barnard and Michael they underplay such matters and leled cultural activity radically North usefully take up from his in doing so they arguably ob- different from the previous era, claim that changes in the mate- scure its relationship, and that of yet one whose own history is rial world (in production, tech- modernism, to the present. being continually reviewed and nology and space) produce reinterpreted. As such, the book changes in perception, while ought to prove stimulating both moving away from his melan- for new and more established choly emphasis on modernity as students of the era. anomie and alienation. For me, Given the emphasis on multi- North’s is the best piece here. plicity and diversity, the least Placing visual culture at the cen- successful essays are those that tre of modernism, he traces a cover a range of material at the tension between two competing expense of theorisation or syn- “scopic regimes” – vision as a thesis. Marjorie Perloff’s ac- form of rationalisation, and a count of the American avant- chaotic “frenzy of the visible” – garde is overly biographical, and evident in modern phenomena

34

Suburban Xanadu: The of American cities that this pre- American suburbanization and cipitated, a change which the the Nevada, and later national, Casino Resort on The need to build homes for return- gaming industry. The many fact Las Vegas Strip and ing soldiers following WWII en- and figures, and architectural Beyond by David sured would characterize the details which the book contains way America has grown and add to the seeming exhaustive- G.Schwartz developed in the past sixty years, ness of the analysis of the (New York: Routledge, 2003, and the way its citizens under- changing physical environment £19.99, Pp xi + 242, ISBN 0-415- stand their environments and of the casino, and the transfor- 93557-1) are socialized. mation of the early oases among the dust and scrub of the Los The casino resorts of Vegas de- Reviewed by Joe Kennedy Uni- Angeles highway into the stag- veloped, he tells us in his intro- versity of Sussex gering Disney-esque behemoths duction and first chapter, along of today. It is extremely accessi- The acad- the highway southwest to Los ble for an academic study and emy’s view Angeles, the road which was to deserves wide readership of Las Vegas become the ‘Strip’ of today, in a among those who study the has long mimicry of suburban develop- twentieth century US, architec- been that of ment of the time which created a tural history, and the post- J e a n virtual subdivision for Southern modern condition. Baudrillard Californians to visit which was in his Amer- as convenient to drive to as their New York Sights, ica. We are local strip-mall or drive-in thea- inclined to tre. The ‘suburban’ nature of the Visualizing Old and New think of it as casino resorts along Las Vegas by Douglas Tallack a desert- Boulevard is, for Schwartz, com- New York, Oxford: Berg, 2005 bound ex- pounded by their nature as indi- ISBN 1845201701 pression of the ‘pure baroque of vidual destinations, which strive Disneyland’, played out to the to provide their guests with eve- Reviewed by Anne-Marie Evans, level of a (barely) real city, and rything they need for their vaca- University of Sheffield. as such inseparable from a tions in order to ensure that the sense of hyper-real superficiality majority of their guests’ dispos- Douglas that masks fragility and disso- able dollars are spent with them, Tallack of- luteness with neon and cash. rather than with their fers an in- Fictive representations have var- neighbours and other local busi- formed cri- ied in their treatment, but the nesses. This mirrors the building tique of the ability to see Vegas as the natu- of the post-war exurban sprawl ultimate ral home of mob operations of ranch and colonial tract American (Casino, 1995), the FBI’s biggest houses in which the majority of city in this crime lab outside of its head- the bread and butter customers t h o u g h t - quarters (CSI: Crime Scene In- from whom the resorts made provoking vestigation, 2000) or even a soli- their money lived, entirely self- and enjoy- tary vampire preying on cocktail sufficient developments con- able reading waitresses (The Night Stalker, nected to one another by high- of urban 1972) lend it a decidedly Diony- ways, not footpaths or public culture. Using a vast array of sian edge which is at first not transportation. By 1975, the examples from literature, art, easily reconcilable with the downtown Las Vegas of Fre- photography and architecture, picket fences of American subur- mont Street had begun to more Tallack writes an original ac- bia. closely resemble the sprawl of count of the city as text, simulta- the strip than a conventional neously considering the impor- By contrast Schwartz suggests tant and changing role of the that the suburbanization of the Central Business District, and the transformation of the mod- flâneur within the changing United States provides an inter- panorama of the ‘New America’. pretive framework through ern gaming establishment into an incontrovertibly suburban Bringing this account up to date, which to understand the devel- there is an investigation into opment of Las Vegas resorts, as and mall-like phenomenon, rather than a mere business on a how visual perceptions of the well as those in Atlantic City and city have been changed by the on Indian land throughout the city street, was confirmed, a trend which Schwartz sees ech- events of 9/11. Drawing on a nation. We might, therefore, highly detailed structural knowl- construct a line of development oed in the casinos of New Jer- sey, Connecticut and elsewhere. edge of his topic, Tallack dis- that begins not in Nevada at all, cusses differing views of the city, but with the 1920s rise of the The great strength of this study from the growth of capitalism as private ownership of automo- lies in Schwartz’s ability to witnessed in Herman Melville’s biles among the middle classes seamlessly blend the stories of Bartleby: A Story of Wall Street , and the change to the structure

35 to visions of the Gilded Age in The American classic novels such as Henry Christian Charity (1630). Also James’s The American Scene Intellectual Tradition. included in part one of this vol- and Edith Wharton’s The Age of Edited by David A ume, subtitled “The Puritan Vi- Innocence , to Paul Auster’s post- Hollinger & Charles sion Altered” are standard Puri- modern dissemination of the tan tracts by Cotton Mather and urban in City of Glass . Capper Jonathan Edwards. Addressing a range of visual Oxford University Press, New The Revolutionary period ad- explorations of the city, this York, 2001 Vol I: ISBN: 0-19- dressed in part two, “Republican richly illustrated text traces the 513720-5, Paperback. Pages: 566 Enlightenment”, represents the development of the civic scene Vol II: ISBN: 0-19-513722-1, Pa- spectrum of republican thought and its acknowledgement of perback. Pages: 513 with Adams, (his 1765 Disserta- tion on the Canon and Feudal emerging modernities. Taking Reviewed by John Wedgwood Law is an inspired inclusion), into account historical develop- Pound MA Paine, Jefferson, Hamilton and ments, such as the fact that after (Dunelm) Madison given their say. Abigail the population increased, New Ph.D Student, Adams famously admonished York City become the largest city University of her husband not to “forget the in the world in 1925 (12), Tallack Birmingham. investigates the city’s growing ladies”, and they are repre- preoccupation with verticality, These vol- sented here by Judith Sargent and offers an intriguing exami- umes are Murray’s 1790 essay On the nation of different photographic conceived Equality of the Sexes. for college versions of a famous New York Parts Three and Four, “The Prot- and under- landmark; the Flatiron Building. estant Awakening and Democ- graduate Analysing work by Alvin Lang- ratic Order” and “Romantic In- students and don Coburn, Edward Steichen tellect and Cultural Reform”, designed to and Alfred Stieglitz, Tallack ex- take up the themes of religion, provide ac- plores how differing photo- reform and liberation. Charles cess to documents routinely graphic techniques reveal how Grandison Finney lectures on assigned by tutors. The depth is ideas of Old New York were the Revivals of Religion, William considerable, the editors have gradually influenced by the on- Lloyd Garrison ponders African successfully aimed to provide set of the New New York. Offer- Liberation, Margaret Fuller takes substantial excerpts rather than ing a critique of work by artists up the cause of Women in the a greatly expanded range of au- such as George Bellows, John Nineteenth Century whilst Henry thors, whilst context building Sloan and Georgia O’Keefe, David Thoreau’s Resistance to segue text is kept to a minimum helps present an engaging and Civil Government (1849) pres- based on the assumption that wide-reaching study. The devel- ages the themes of the fifth and sufficient background will be opment of the transport network last section of this volume “The provided by tutors. in the city, the changing configu- Quest for Union and Renewal”. rations of the New York skyline, This is a formula that works well. The Civil War era is addressed the development of the now The focus is intellectual history, through a varied section em- famous New York grid, and the what the editors term the bracing works on America’s homes of the leisure class elite “American Family Argument”. blacks, the emancipation of are all assessed and evaluated Documents have been chosen women together with a number as part of this valuable art his- that represent a significant posi- Lincoln Texts. tory. tion and advance an argument For the editors, if the overarch- whether through sermons, let- Well-written, persuasively ar- ing themes of volume I are reli- ters, treaties, or essays. gued and wide-ranging in topics, gious in nature, its successor is New York Sights would be a This impetus for this revised concerned with science and valuable asset to any American fourth edition comes from the character – a focus well served Studies course, and of interest feedback received from the edi- by selections dealing with secu- to both undergraduate and post- tor’s colleagues and thus reflects lar culture, social progress, di- graduate students, as well as recent scholarship with new versity and post modernity, from academics working in the fields works on theology, psychology, William Graham Sumner’s Soci- of literature, art or urban studies. cultural theory, gender aware- ology (1881) to W.E.B. Du Bois’s ness and the role of the US in The Souls of Black Folk (1903). world affairs. The pieces on ideology and self- analysis in the inter-war years The works are arranged themati- are thoughtfully chosen and the cally. The first volume initiates post War dynamism and confi- the collection, as one might ex- dence of America (though in- pect: Winthrop’s A Modell of cluding the concurrent conflicts) is well served by selections from Hannah Ardent, David Bell, Mal-

36 colm X, Thomas Kuhn and disservice, for his incisive narra- of the existing critical commen- Noam Chomsky. tive is far more accessible and taries. For example, his study of focused than they may suggest. Miller’s Death of a Salesman This is a fine selection, of con- The book is undoubtedly intel- convincingly expands the estab- siderable value to A-Level and lectually rigorous, but Thomp- lished psychological and geo- undergraduate students, that son’s authorial voice wears this graphic reach and focus of the gives a real sense of the intellec- lightly enough to present a work play from the domestic and the tual development of America. appealing to a broader reader- north-eastern seaboard sales The chronologies at the end of ship than may be initially sug- region to the jungle. In this con- each volume (with time-line de- gested. text, Willy Loman’s exhaustion tails of American documents, arises when “the American pio- European documents and World Thompson takes as his starting neer spirit and the requirements events) are invaluable for con- point the paraphrasing of US of business in the jungle be- text and trend identification. One president Calvin Coolidge’s 1925 come incompatible” (33). Thus criticism however is the dearth remarks on what defines Amer- the character of Uncle Ben be- of material from the 1980s and ica: ‘the business of America is comes far more central in terms 1990s, with nothing dated after business.’ From here, he ex- of the discourses of business 1992. Where is 1980s monetar- plores how this statement em- than previous critical analyses ism, where are Newt Gingrich bodied “conflicting ideological have acknowledged. and Ralph Nader? However, this values” (1): as a slogan, Coo- is primarily a targeted source lidge’s remark could both justify However, elsewhere Thompson book, necessarily curriculum the actions of American busi- can allow other critical voices far dependent and I look to further ness and simultaneously critique more domination, usually to the editions with a sense of anticipa- these actions as undermining detriment of his own arguments. tion. the true nature of ‘America’. Some works suffer particularly Thompson consistently uses the from this synoptic approach, The Business of term ‘America’ in those concept especially those set in more re- America: The Cultural quote marks to analyse the im- cent decades or notional futures. Production of a Post- pact and negotiation of this of- Nevertheless, whilst clearly ten contentious concept as it is comfortable throughout the War Nation. By Graham conveyed in American literature. book discussing his mid-20th Thompson. In doing so, he interrogates the century examples, the ambiguity formulation of American Studies and challenges in Part II against London: Pluto Press, 2004. ISBN as a discipline both explicitly in the white male concept of 0-7453-1808-8, pbk., £14.99 ix + his introductory chapter, and ‘America’, and therefore of the 189pp. implicitly across the two parts of discourses of business, also al- Reviewed by the book via his thematic read- low him greater freedom to ex- Lisa Rull. ings of specific texts. press these analyses. Overall, Thompson provides a valuable University of Whereas Part I, “White Male overview to this aspect of the Nottingham Literary Culture”, identifies the cultural construction of struggles over the values shap- When aca- ‘America’, albeit one that could ing both American business and demic books leave some readers wanting are expected white male culture, in Part II, to achieve “The Difference of Gender, Race broad audi- and Sexuality”, these struggles ence sales are reshaped and reclaimed by or satisfy a those who have been positioned specific text- on the outside. This results in a book reader- narrative that ultimately ex- ship, they need to clearly estab- plores the fundamental notions lish their appeal early in the vol- of identity underpinning the ume. One method is for the definition of ‘America’ as a na- contents page to outline the con- tion. In both parts, each chapter cerns and themes dealt with, focuses on three or four exam- and depending on the use of ples of literary works or authors terminology this can also sug- and, largely, this is effective, gest those who may benefit despite an inevitable assump- most from the full text: are the tion of prior knowledge on the chapters titled in such a way as part of the reader regarding the to invite or exclude specific plots. Thompson gets around readerships? In Graham this by grounding his own analy- Thompson’s book, the chapter ses within discussions of the titles arguably do him a major works’ contexts and summaries

37

Each summer between 1862 and History 1864, the Lincoln family left the White House and headed out- more. techniques, in the early 1950s side Washington to a cottage the FCDA began to produce a located in the ground of the Old Neither Dead Nor Red: stream of reports, pamphlets Soldiers’ home, a residence for Civilian Defence and (like Survival Under Atomic At- disabled military veterans. Seek- tack ) and special numbers of ing an escape from the pres- American Political magazines like Collier’s, which sures of the presidency and the Development during the issued a ‘future reportage’ cov- endless visitors to the White Early Cold War by erage of World War III complete House, this residence offered with simulated photographs. Lincoln sanctuary, and the per- Andrew D. Grossman Local communities were mobi- spective to think how best to Pp. xx + 175. Routledge, 2001. lized (as described in Philip K. pursue the war £16.99. ISBN 0-415-92990-3. Dick’s novel Time out of Joint ), elaborate nuclear drills were Despite Lincoln living at the Sol- diers’ home for almost a quarter Reviewed by devised, and the Alert America of his presidency, his time at this David Seed convoy was formed. The latter location has been rather over- Liverpool was a sort of travelling side looked by historians and the University show designed to show the general public, with the home course of a nuclear war. These This study is not declared a national monu- activities, together with the dis- partly an ment until the year 2000. Mat- tribution of ‘home kits’ in case of exercise in thew Pinsker highlights how this revising mis- attack, all formed part of the domestication of the nuclear has been a missed opportunity, taken per- convincingly arguing that the threat. Elaine Tyler May’s Home- ceptions of unfamiliar setting of the home ward Bound has to date been the early helps shine new light on familiar one of the main sources for in- Cold War, events from Lincoln’s time in formation on this civil defence like the conception that the USA office. The summers that Lincoln programme, but Grossman was a weak state at the time, or was in residence coincided with takes her to task for assuming that the state apparatus was some of the most momentous that this programme simply insulated from society. Andrew decisions of his presidency, par- Grossman refutes these views fixed women more firmly within a narrow domestic function, ticularly the summer of 1862 and asserts a continuity between which saw his gradual progres- when in fact it opened up (again the US institutions set up during sion towards a declaration of as happened in World War II) a the Second World War and their emancipation. In well chosen range of roles for them. functioning during the late 1940s examples we see Lincoln strug- Grossman’s study is impeccable and 1950s. He shows that by gling with the replacement of in its facts, figures and statistics, 1945 – in some areas by an even Union commanders, military but we still need books like earlier date – an ad hoc consen- setbacks and other wartime con- Homeward Bound to give a sus had formed on the Soviet cerns; the secluded nature of the threat and soon afterwards, in physical impression of the drills and all-pervading anxiety of this home failing to shield Lincoln the light of the Operation Cross- from the responsibilities of his period. roads nuclear tests in the Pacific, position. a collective sense of America’s Lincoln’s Sanctuary – vulnerability had taken shape Although a large part of the which was to influence US for- Abraham Lincoln and work highlights how Lincoln’s eign policy. Grossman charts the the Soldiers’ Home, by stay at the home corresponded with key wartime developments, gradual construction of the na- Matthew Pinsker tional ‘civic garrison’ and the where it really shines is in its projected continuous state of (Oxford, New York: Oxford Uni- depiction of the social benefits national emergency which ac- versity Press, that the home conferred upon companied it. Under the com- 2003, $30.00) the President. Lincoln was often bined impact of the Soviet Pp. 256. deprived of the company of his atomic test of 1949 and the out- ISBN 0 19 wife and son, particularly in break of the Korean War, in 1950 516206 4 1863 when Mary and Tad were the Federal Civil Defence Ad- away from the home for 10 ministration was formed and it Reviewed by weeks in the aftermath of Mary’s is the operations of this agency Gary Smith - carriage accident. The void cre- which form the central part of Department ated by their departure encour- Grossman’s study. of History, aged Lincoln to talk to the sol- University of diers stationed there, entertain Following a wartime strategy of Dundee visitors and callers, and spend media relations and propaganda

38 time with the Stanton family - disagree. tions is further divided, some- the Secretary of War also taking times within two or three para- advantage of the escape offered Mr Jefferson’s Lost graphs, to deal with a precise by the soldiers’ home. What Cause, Land, Farmers, point or to elaborate, sometimes emerges is a portrayal that Slavery and the tangentially, on a particular topic serves to humanise the legen- or individual. These bijou diver- dary President. Whether he is Louisiana Purchase by sions cover the wide range of entertaining visitors while wear- Roger G. Kennedy characters that contributed to ing carpet slippers, visiting a the “Lost Cause” and are often nearby Contraband camp, or Oxford University Press, New fascinating, though sometimes riding through the grounds of York, 2003 ISBN: 0-19-515347-2, disruptive to the narrative - he the home, his humanity and Hardback. Pages: 350 List Price has a genealogist’s penchant for character shine through. $30.60 emphasising, often irrelevantly, their personal ancestry and That it does so in such convinc- Reviewed by John Wedgwood European ethnicity. ing fashion is testament to the Pound MA (Dunelm) Ph.D Stu- large variety of sources used by dent, Univer- The style is intended to provide Pinsker, many of them rarely sity of Bir- a view across the piece, al- seen before. Of particular inter- mingham. though this is imperfectly est are the reminisces of soldiers Kennedy, achieved. However, the work is from Company K, 150th Pennsyl- Director particularly strong in providing vania, the army unit deployed to Emeritus of the background to the plantation guard Lincoln during his stay. the National systems, the pressing geo- These men enjoyed unparalleled Museum of political issues in the later eight- access to the President, with American eenth and early nineteenth cen- their recollections highlighting History and a tury, and in particular demon- how Lincoln would often come former direc- strating how America, particu- down to their camp to listen to tor of the US larly the South, remained an their views, something that the National Park economic colony of Great Britain men used to their advantage in Service, has presented a com- for generations after the Revolu- order to gain supplies and provi- plex and controversial thesis – tion. sions. While the number of visi- that Jefferson’s misguided pol- A particularly interesting aspect tors that passed through the icy in the Old South was respon- is the account of the ecological home during the Lincoln fam- sible for the Civil War. history, the scientific assess- ily’s stay was probably in the ment of the Planter’s husbandry hundreds, Pinsker’s work con- Kennedy, supported by a wealth and the effects on the soil of tains insights from 75 such visi- of material, demonstrates at intensive farming – in particular tors, a cross-section of society length the idealism of Jeffer- the environmental impact of that included generals, politi- son’s Agrarian republic vision slavery. The contrast with the cians, socialites and foreign dig- against the reality of planter practices of the indigenous Indi- nitaries. dominance, land speculation, exploitation and betrayal. He ans is a theme that is well ex- These varied characters help paints in rich detail a picture of plored. give colour to the narrative of the South’s dependence on Kennedy is clearly sympathetic the book, and add another di- slave labour, cotton, and British to Jefferson, but his thesis is mension to an already engaging economic power. This depend- devastating to his reputation. tale. Clearly argued and well ence is a central theme – it One is forced to compare him constructed, this work is a wel- drives the Virginians in the unfavourably with his principled come addition to the existing White House to shamelessly and disinterested predecessors scholarship on Lincoln, showing favour the Planters in maintain- Adams and Washington. that even the most well docu- ing a system only sustainable by mented event can still have new continual expansion into new This work would be of particular light shed upon it. Pinsker ar- territories. Thus lay the impera- use to undergraduates focusing gues that “The place was not tive to acquire, by fair means or on the South in the period, just a backdrop to great events otherwise, the backwater territo- whilst its narrative style does but also a participant in them.” ries of distracted European Pow- not lend itself to easy use as a After reading this well- ers. reference work the index and researched book, it is hard to chapter notes are comprehen- Kennedy’s style is intense but sive. For the postgraduate Ken- unfocussed. The book is divided nedy provides a thought provok- into four parts, each roughly chronological within itself but not in relation to each other. Each chapter within these sec-

39 ing contribution to the debate. Cavalry, the Sioux and Chey- and international, characterized enne Nations, and such luminar- the Rooseveltian response and The Conquest of the ies as Generals Terry, Sherman hoped to secure for the Ameri- Missouri. The Story and and Crook, Colonel George Arm- can people one of the main the Life and Exploits of strong Custer, Major Reno, Buf- “four freedoms.” He highlights falo Bill Cody, Crazy Horse and the New Deal’s shortcomings, Captain Grant Marsh, by Sitting Bull. Hansom provides us contradictions and failures and Joseph Mills Hansom. with a graphic description of the teases out the variety of deter- With a new introduction build up to the Battle of the Little minants in American World War Big Horn, the battle itself and its II strategy. Context is empha- by Paul L. Hedren. consequences. Although Grant sized and the author attempts to Marsh takes no active part in the give a feel of the times in which (Stackpole Books, Mechanics- actual campaign, the insights the specific events took place. burg, PA. 2003. First published gained from this new perspec- Although this volume’s focus is in Chicago by A.C. McClurg in tive are fascinating. firmly on the American experi- 1909. $21.95 paperback.) Pp436. ence it does also consider the ISBN 0-8117-2482-4. Mr. Hansom is probably overly other side, as it were, whether lavish in his praise of Captain Reviewed by Alan Lowe. B. A. that be the Republicans, the Brit- Marsh, but this matters little. Manches- ish, the Soviets, the Japanese or The book is certainly worthy of a ter Metro- the Germans. re-print and I commend it with- politan out hesitation to anyone inter- This book’s main achievement is University. ested in the area and era under the way in which it weaves The Con- discussion, be they academics seamlessly through the various quest of searching for good source mate- aspects that shaped the Ameri- the Mis- rial or the general reader after a can experience in these two piv- souri tells good old-fashioned read. otal decades. With a lightness the story of touch, particularly in the first of Captain Freedom From Fear: The half of this volume, Kennedy G r a n t American People in De- deals with the full gamut of life. Marsh’s pression and War, 1929- The written style is sophisticated exploits as yet accessible for undergradu- a steam- 1945 (The Oxford His- ates and above. As reader, you boat pilot and captain on the tory of the United are carried at pace through Mississippi and Missouri Rivers States) by David M. Ken- these years by an entertaining from 1846 to 1906. Originally and colourful narrative that published in 1909, the style of nedy. binds the often complicated and writing is quaintly old-fashioned, sweeping events together. Free- Oxford University Press, 2001. but eminently readable. At times dom From Fear provides the ISBN paperback 0-19-514403-1, I was unsure whether this was a reader with interesting portraits pp. 936. List price: £15.00. biography of Grant Marsh (1834- of the main players in American 1916) or of the river he so ably Reviewed by Dr. Wendy Toon. and world history in the 1930s traversed in the early years of its American Studies Course Leader, and 1940s. Their careers are “conquest”, when he set speed University of woven into the narrative from records never matched or Worcester. the start, with the clever opening beaten and navigated further up in which key figures from vari- This single- stream than any man before him. ous countries are linked at the volume edi- end of World War One. Chap- Many of the earlier chapters are tion, taking ters that focus on the often charmingly mundane, though its title from rather dry topic of military his- even here I found an interesting FDR’s fa- tory are still livelily written and mous 1941 account of the Battle of Shiloh. engaging. The focus on In later chapters the reader is speech, ar- “people” however is perhaps taken on a journey aboard gues that uneven. There is surprisingly Marsh’s steamboat, the Far West the two key little on the people (as in general that will remain in the memory crises, the populace) in the discussion of for some time. The book con- Depression and the Second the Second World War. Despite veys a strong sense of place - of World War, created a climate of this, examination of the impor- Sioux City, Yankton, Bismarck, fear which the Roosevelt admini- tant actors and statesmen is Rosebud, Powder River and the stration attempted to overcome fleshed out with biographical through a variety of policies romantically named Pompey’s details presumably in an attempt Pillar, places whose names are aimed at providing security. to emphasize that they were redolent of an era now departed. Kennedy considers that this people too. These portraits are We are introduced to the 7th drive for security, both domestic further coloured with their re-

40 flections on each other. tributing “to a new start for in- mate critiques of the political tellectual life on the left” (1) failings of the post-modern left The author often exploits an Gitlin is sneeringly critical of the are lost in sweeping denuncia- interesting collection of both role of identity politics and the tions of such a broad range of primary and secondary sources. post-modern left in American critical voices, ranging from an There is a clear awareness of political life. With its roots in the undifferentiated critique of think- alternative interpretations for anti-war protests of the Vietnam ers such as the Frankfurt School, many of the key events that era, Gitlin argues that current Michel Foucault, Noam Chom- shaped these two vital decades. intellectual life on the American sky and Edward Said. Conflat- Kennedy tests and challenges left must re-conceive and reor- ing this broad range of thinkers some of the historiographical ganize itself if it is to have any under the banner of a funda- understandings of this period. hope of confronting, “a disci- mentalist left that is mired in its However, much of the secon- plined alliance of plutocrats and Manichean view of the world is dary information is based on right-wing fundamentalist Chris- inaccurate, unjustified, and ulti- what would be considered clas- tians”(2) that have come to mately self-defeating to the very sic but perhaps now slightly dominate particularly in the post project Gitlin advocates. Intel- dated volumes. Footnotes, 9/11 era. With the re- lectuals as diverse as Theodor maps, photographs, cartoons mobilization of the left in mind Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Jür- and posters support the discus- Gitlin tears into the American gen Habermas, and the afore- sion. A comprehensive index Empire of the Bush years an era mentioned Edward Said were, and illuminating bibliographical which is both a “failing empire” and are, consummate critics of essay are also included. The and a “failing democracy”(148). the manichaeism in the cultural bibliographical essay points to a and political life of the twentieth wide range of additional reading Gitlin’s succinct summary of the century and, I would argue, are and further exemplifies Ken- failings of American political life crucial to a reconceptualising of nedy’s extensive knowledge of is juxtaposed next to a post- a new critical left perspective in his chosen period. In summary, modern left whose idea of American society that avoids Freedom From Fear is a great “resistance” and use of identity some of the missteps of post- example of the historians’ craft politics was utterly incapable of modernism. It is a shame that of bringing the past to life in all filling the democratic void that Gitlin is not more nuanced and its fascinating detail. Although had arisen in the United States differentiating in his critical as- daunting in its size, the years do following the Vietnam War. sessment of the contribution of fly by. Gitlin calls for a renewal of a so many dissenting leftist voices. “liberal patriotism, robust and Ultimately, Gitlin reveals an un- uncowed”(155) and draws upon Politics derlying conservatism, which three neglected critical intellec- calls into question his vision of a tuals of the United States in the liberal patriotic renewal. The Intellectuals and the 1950s and early 1960s to cue his Flag by Todd Gitlin. alternate vision of a leftist patri- Race otism: David Riesman, C. Wright New York: Columbia University Mills, and Irving Howe. These Press, 2006. ISBN 0231124929 stellar examples of a public in- The African American Pp. 167. $24.95 (hardcover) tellectual life become a kind of home-grown antidote to the Experience in Reviewed by David Brian How- spurious influences of thinkers Cyberspace: A Resource ard, Associate Professor of Art like Michel Foucault on the post- History, Nova Scotia College of Guide to the Best Web modern left that Gitlin feels Art and Design University must be relegated to the past if Sites on Black Culture Todd Gitlin’s liberal patriotism is to return. and History by Abdul new book, While I wholeheartedly agree Alkalimat The Intellec- with Gitlin’s critique of the tuals and the (Stirling, VI, and London: Pluto American Empire and his valori- Flag, has Press, 2004) ix + 294 pp., (paper) sation of three important, and much in it to ISBN 0 7453 overly neglected, critical voices, recommend 2222 Gitlin’s book represents such a to a reader caricature of so many other im- Review by wanting to portant critical voices on the An d r e w reconstruct twentieth century left, and ig- Fearnley, the critical nores so many others, such as University of practice of Gore Vidal, that it does far more Cambridge, American harm than good in re-imagining UK intellectuals in the difficult after- what a re-motivated liberal patri- math of September 11, 2001. This review otism could look like. The legiti- With the self-stated goal of con- could be

41 done in a few words: do not buy sampling of what is on offer. text has more cosmetic blem- this book. It is made redundant Some sites do not chime with ishes than a classroom of the by its own subject, and it is not the chapter topic however, like teenagers for which it is in- well presented. Such assess- when those relating to the ‘Civil tended. Web addresses, for the ments hardly make for the most Rights Movement’ [85] are dis- most part, appear in working enlightening review though, and cussed in ‘Urban Life’. Discus- order, though I only sampled a rather than just focus on the sion of the desegregation of the random number. On occasion limited uses of Experience in US armed forces in a chapter on addresses are carelessly printed Cyberspace, I want to look at the ‘Great Migrations’ is similarly ill- twice, one needlessly under the views taken on this subject by conceived. At the end of each other [165, 230]. the author, Abdul Alkalimat, a chapter further reading sections What rankled me most about sociologist, and current editor of are provided—sections annoy- this work, however, and there the H-Af-Am listserv. ingly titled ‘Good Books’—and was much that did, was the au- these too are rather idiosyncratic. The book is an introductory thor’s triumphalist praise for the A chapter on ‘De- guide to the Internet, listing Internet. His feeling that it is the Industrialization’ notes the au- websites that deal with various “most democratic method for thor’s own work [93], whilst fail- aspects of the ‘black experience’. gathering and [2] sharing infor- ing to pay homage to Thomas To begin with, there is a certain mation”, available to Sugrue’s The Origins of the Ur- irony in the fact that someone “everyone” [1] overlooks the ban Crisis [1996], a work that would print such a guide. As factors of wealth, education, and catalysed recent discussions Alkalimat himself recognizes, privilege that determine who about the topic. “the web is alive and part of it is gets access to this technology. born and part of it dies every Experience in Cyberspace can- Arguably the influence of such hour.” [105] From the moment not be recommended for its factors is even more wide reach- this guide left the press in 2004 prose or it stylistic merits: it has ing than in publishing with eve- it was already quickly falling out neither. Yet our author seems ryone denied complete access of date, and one would have to quite content with the few con- by institutional passwords, and hope given the many pitfalls and structions he knows to the ex- the need to purchase. Alkali- shortcomings of the current tant that in one passage five mat’s lack of consideration for work, that serious thought consecutive sentences contain the provenance of this material would be given before a subse- some form of “there is/ is equally troubling. Descriptions quent, updated edition was con- are…” [25-6]. Repetition of of websites seldom mention the templated. Already some do- words does not just occur across organization or individual(s) mains are obsolete. In printing sentences, but within them too. who maintain the site, and a the web addresses of various In the chapter on food a passage number of references lead to sites the work also presumes is concluded with the warning advocacy groups. that readers will type in lengthy that “there are aspects of soul If anything good can be found in addresses rather than search food that need to be changed to this book, it is perhaps the hope them via an engine. I wonder impact the types of diseases that that some scholar will realize the how many people will key in impact Black people.” [133] Al- interesting discussion that could SNCC’s position paper on Viet- kalimat’s commentary is not just be had about the Internet’s po- nam, for example [204] difficult to read, it is also confus- tentialities as a means for re- (lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/ ing. In an introductory section to conceptualizing understandings HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/ the chapter on health the reader of black diaspora. Although the Manifestos/SNCC_VN.html)? is told that “Black people have author’s indiscriminate use of been an essential source of la- Pitched at high-school students ‘Black’ and ‘African American’ bor, hence a minimal level of and teachers, librarians, and the bludgeons such possibilities, health has been necessary to general reader, the work is ar- Alkalimat is surely correct in keep the US economy go- ranged in two parts, History (10 claiming the technology’s unri- ing.” [114] Glib comments such chapters) and Culture (20 chap- valled ability to connect people as “Black people work in all ar- ters). Each chapter begins with a across the globe. Exploring how eas of health care” overlook sig- passage about how such issues this might affect our understand- nificant details, like the lack of have affected African Americans, ings of race, political alliance, African Americans in certain and a number of websites that and genealogy is surely a topic areas of healthcare, for example deal with various aspects of the worthy of pursuit. psychiatry. topic are listed thereafter (ranging from 27 in a chapter Editing of this material is poor, about gays/lesbians, to 60 on such that one has to hope that music). Most of the sites I the book was never edited. In- viewed were really interesting, deed, there are more widows and there is no doubting that the and orphans here than in a nine- author has provided a good teenth-century poorhouse; the

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Massive Resistance: John A. Kirk in the fourth chap- ence Sillers Ogden, and her ter shows that ‘minimum com- newspaper column ‘Dis an’ Dat’ Southern Opposition to pliance’ caused a ‘diluted form which purported white suprema- the Second of massive resistance….that ac- cist arguments for segregation. Reconstruction edited tually wreaked chaos.’ (78) The Sillers was active in many implementation of Brown had womens’ organizations and em- by Clive Webb no set deadline; many institu- phasized their duty to pass on Oxford: Oxford University Press, tions could make token integra- the ideologies of segregation to 2005, £38.99) pp. xiv, 244. ISBN tion gestures. their children: ‘to indoctrinate the nation’s youth’.(191) 0195177851 (Hardback) In Chapter Five, Kevin M. Kruse Reviewed by Emma Kilkelly looks at the concept of In the final chapter, Karen S. “Freedom of Association” - Anderson looks at the peaceful In the first white citizens wanted the right desegregation of Hoxie schools chapter Mi- ‘to select their neighbors, their in 1955, then the aftermath fol- chael J. Klar- employees, and their children’s lowing the reportage in Life man looks at classmates.’(100) Whites with- magazine. Anderson writes that the Brown v. drew their children from schools a minister had even started tell- Board of and moved out of communities ing his congregation that ‘God Education’s frequented by African Ameri- would overlook violence com- declaration cans: ‘On the Friday before the mitted in defense of white racial t h a t black children were to arrive, “purity.”’(205) ‘segregation there were still 470 white boys This collection of essays is an in public and girls…the following Monday, excellent source for students, schools was they found only seven white researchers and academics. It is unconstitu- children.’(105) tional.’(3) Klarman demonstrates detailed, informative, extremely how the Southern Manifesto George Lewis, in Chapter Six, well referenced, very interesting aimed to preserve segregation examines the connection be- and readable. It also suggests and discriminated against Afri- tween the Cold War and segre- areas for further research, such can-Americans who tried to vote, gation rhetorical language of the as ‘school integration from the or attempted to enrol their chil- era: ‘white supremacists…claim perspective of teachers’ and the dren at white schools - loss of [ed] that civil rights activists ‘Citizens’ Council Forum jobs, welfare benefits, and credit were part of an orchestrated, Films.’ (14) refusal; harassment, assault, communist plot.’(128) burnings, bombings and murder. David L. Chappell in ‘Disunity Gender Studies Schools were closed to prevent and Religious Institutions in the desegregation, White South’ shows how Women’s America: ‘newspapers….boycotted and… ‘laypeople, not clergy’ (139) gen- TV stations refused to air … erally used the Bible for segre- Refocusing the Past, ed. programs that discussed inte- gationist claims. Most religious Linda K. Kerber, Jane gration.’ (26) institutions did not comment on Sharron de Hart. 6th ed. In ‘Brown and Backlash’ Tony segregation. New York, Oxford: Oxford Uni- Badger shows how segregation- Jane Dailey in Chapter Eight ist candidates won elections, versity Press, 2004. 751 pp., b/w looks at segregation, miscegena- illustrations and discusses African American tion and religion, and shows direct action of the 1960s. how a reading of the apostle ISBN 0-19-515982-9 (pbk.) Badger concludes that, ‘token Paul’s arguments in Acts 17, can Reviewed by Alexandra Ganser, integration’ was ‘more effective be used both for and against M.A., University of Erlangen- than massive resistance.’(47) segregation. The segregationists Nuremberg, Germany In Chapter Three, Adam Fair- believed that ‘integration facili- clough examines discrimination tated miscegenation.’(158) What is the against the NAACP, who had to Dailey demonstrates how news- best way to ‘file… membership lists with the papers reported that integrated review an secretary of state’(60) which re- schools would lead to intermar- encyclo- sulted in loss of membership riage, and attempted sensation- paedia? and branch closures. Fairclough alist sex-slurs on the civil rights This ques- analyses voting and discrimina- marchers: ‘a Negro boy and a tion was a tion in Louisiana, which resulted white girl engaged in sexual major con- in, ‘reducing the …black vot- intercourse on the floor of the cern for me ers…from about 4,000 to church.’ (169) while I was reading 921.’(64) In Chapter Nine Elizabeth Gilles- Women’s pie McRae focuses upon Flor-

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America : Refocusing the Past , here greatly helps the student cusing the Past again provides realizing that this compendium focus on the central aspects of the historically interested reader of scholarly essays, historical each work and, perhaps even with substantial information on documents, illustrations, and more importantly, enhances the the richness and diversity of bibliographical references was accessibility of documents writ- American women’s lives and truly encyclopaedic in nature. ten in alien idiom to many of us, struggles throughout the centu- Linda Kerber’s and Jane Sharron such as 17th century, non- ries. de Hart’s edited compilation of standard English or 21st century more than 400 years of women’s legal jargon. history in the United States has Textbooks Regarding content, Kerber and been reissued in 2004 in its 6th de Hart have done an equally edition (the first edition dating to Get Set for American laudable job. I was unable to 1982), and this alone acts as think of a single topic in Studies by Edward overwhelming proof to the women’s histories left uncov- Ashbee book’s continuous importance ered by the book: from labour for students and teachers inter- Edinburgh University Press 2004. organisation to reproductive ested in any of the wide-ranging ISBN 0 74861692 6 rights and marital laws, suffrage aspects concerning women’s and equality issues to lives in the U.S., past and pre- Reviewed by Helen Tamburro women’s—including enslaved sent. women’s--immigration experi- Ashbee be- Structurally, Women’s America ence, from women’s experi- gins very is divided, after an introduction ences during the Civil War to sensibly by to the history of (New) Women’s witchcraft trials and the lynch- addressing History by the editors, into four ings of African Americans, the very no- large historical periods: Women’s America leaves hardly tion of “Traditional America,” 1600- any topic unexplored. We learn studying 1820, a roughly one hundred- of such icons in women’s history American page section; the age of U.S.- in the United States as Pocahon- Studies. Any American industrialization, 1820- tas, Anne Hutchinson, Sojourner American 1900, covering a little over 150 Truth, the Grimké sisters, Betty Studies stu- pages; the 20th century up to Friedan, Bella Abzug, the dent will World War II of about 180 pages; Shirelles and Madonna, and have sighed and the largest section, covering many more; notably, all of these when hearing the same old post-war history and issues on path-breaking, brave woman question thrown at them, more than 200 pages. These four warriors are situated against 'American Studies? What's sections, in turn, are divided into their cultural backgrounds and that?!' To many newcomers of academic articles--their perspec- their times. Another feat accom- the subject it is an excellent tives ranging from history and plished in this respect is that the starting point as Ashbee con- the social sciences to law, litera- black-and-white illustrations cisely informs the reader exactly ture, and culture—on the one give faces to these women’s why the study of America is so hand and pivotal historical docu- names, albeit perhaps not as relevant. American Studies has ments on the other. In both sec- extensively as one would wish. grown in popularity and particu- tions, the editors briefly intro- Yet personal accounts, such as larly since 9/11. Ashbee empha- duce the subsequent article, historian Gerda Lerner’s tale of sises America's topicality and contextualizing it both in terms immigration, also balance off relevance in the world we live in of those concerns prevailing the more theoretical sections today, highlighting US foreign throughout women’s history as concerned with complex legal policy and discussing the notion well as within the specific his- matters, for instance. of the US as a hyperpower, also torical period at issue. These due to its assumed world police- Assembled in Women’s America introductory paragraphs are in- man status (no Team America the reader finds excerpts from valuable for the reader’s broader jokes please). For a guide to a such “classical” works as Carroll understanding of the topic at course there is actually a sub- Smith-Rosenberg’s “The Female stake, as are the challenging stantial amount of background World of Love and Ritual” or study questions that follow. information provided, such as Susan Bordo’s Unbearable the notion of the American That most essays as well as all Weight as well as recent contri- Dream; the impact of the US on the legal and other historical butions to women’s history like the rest of the world as Ameri- documents are shortened and/or the highly topical essays on canisation permeates the globe edited by Kerber and de Hart is women in the first Iraqi War or and also global attitudes to- no setback at all for this monu- the ongoing struggle over abor- wards the US. America can mental (700+-pp.) compendium. tion (written expressly for this mean freedom to some, but the Instead, the incredible amount edition). In sum, this new addi- opposite to others as we have of editorial work accomplished tion of Women’s America: Refo- most notably witnessed in re- cent years.

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Ashbee includes information on thodical and informative guide course content and subject areas, to American Studies. It acts as such as history, politics, litera- an introduction to the subject for ture and culture and the benefits newcomers and yet it can also of both the multi and interdisci- be a useful tool for university plinary aspect of American Stud- students, although as Get Set for ies. By no means for use as a American Studies is part of the textbook, the subjects are bro- Get Set for University series of ken down in such a way as books specifically aimed at AI merely to give students an over- AS Level students, ultimately it view of the topics they are likely will prove too simplistic for un- to cover, such as the Civil War, dergraduates. Giving a good the Presidency and Congress idea of what to expect from a and major American authors. degree course of this nature, Ashbee successfully conveys Ashbee's book is an effective how the understanding o£ these guide for potential American varied yet connected topics is Studies undergraduates and it is enhanced, because of the multi therefore hard to fault the book. and interdisciplinary approach.

What is particularly effective about his style of writing and structure of the book is the way in which fairly complex concepts are simplistically conveyed, whether Ashbee is referring to Marxism or the Louisiana Pur- chase. The list of UK courses provided is a great feature, as is the sec- tion dedicated to study ex- changes in the US. Ashbee pro- vides case studies of American Studies graduates, which really are the best insight anyone could get into life during and following an American Studies course. There are also examples This striking portrait of Hannah by Jeanne-Marie Kenny was in her of final year modules that can be exhibition in Liverpool earlier this year. See the report on page 27. taken, which again will be useful to those considering the degree course. Another practical feature provided are the key terms asso- ciated with American Studies, which are handy for any under- graduate. In the second half of the book, Ashbee focuses on study skills, giving advice on writing essays to degree standard and also em- phasizing a greater need for in- dividual based learning. There are sample essay questions for common topics - an excellent source of preparation for all stu- dents that will provide any pro- spective American Studies stu- dent with a greater understand- ing of what to expect. There is a also a list of helpful web sites related to the degree. Ashbee's book is a deliberately basic, yet comprehensive, me-

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