B O O K N O T

BOOK NOTES Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis—Suez and the Brink of was “to assist small colleges in gaining an outlet for postseason War. By David A. Nichols. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011, xx basketball competition” (p. 198). But it is nearly forgotten, as is + 347 pages, cloth $28.00.) Liston, who rightly receives much of Stooksbury’s attention—at By the author of A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the the time of his death in October 1949, the Kansas City Star called Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution, reviewed in the summer him “a great and powerful man in college athletic circles” (p. 3). 2008 issue of Kansas History, Eisenhower 1956 examines a critical year in the administration of the president from Abilene, Dwight Kansas Irish. By Charles B. Driscoll, introduction by Matthew L. D. Eisenhower. David A. Nichols, formerly a professor and Jockers. (Wichita, Kans.: Rowfant Press, 2011, xx + 300 pages, dean at Winfield’s Southwestern College, effectively brings paper $16.50.) his considerable research and writing skills to bear on this First published by the Macmillan Company in 1943, Kansas Irish important but often marginalized period and uses heretofore follows the author’s turbulent family history from Long Island closed documents to further illuminate the leadership style of our in County Cork, Ireland, where his father, Florence “Big Flurry” thirty-fourth president. As Nichols explains, “Eisenhower 1956 is Driscoll, was born about 1836 to the Kansas farm near Wichita, . a book about Ike in the most difficult year of his presidency,” which was the author’s birthplace. Charles Driscoll (1885–1951), a year that among other things found him fashioning a policy a prolific Kansas/New York author and Wichita/New York toward the Middle East, “enshrined” the following year “in the journalist, was “one of the more gifted Irish-American regional Eisenhower Doctrine,” which “still informs the current policy writers of the early twentieth century,” concludes Stanford debate” (p. xvii). University’s Matthew Jockers; and Driscoll’s “memoir of growing up Irish in Kansas offers a realistic and engaging glimpse into Dear Harry, Love Bess: Bess Truman’s Letters to Harry Truman, 1919– the rural, western Irish-American experience” (p. viii). Driscoll’s 1943. Edited by Clifton Truman Daniel. (Kirksville, Mo.: Truman Kansas Irish was well received by his literary peers, if somewhat State University Press, 2011, xvi + 271 pages, paper $24.95.) controversial back home, when it first appeared nearly seven Perhaps most of us are familiar with the oft-told story of Bess decades ago, and it is well worth revisiting today. Truman burning her half of a voluminous correspondence with Harry S. Truman, written before and after their wedding in 1919: Wichita Jazz and Vice Between the World Wars. By Joshua L. Yearout. “Think of history,” said the former president, catching his wife (Wichita, Kans.: Rowfant Press, 2010, viii + 87 pages, paper $10.00.) in the act; “Oh, I have,” said his First Lady, as she stoked the fire The late author, Joshua Yearout, died four years after completing with another stack of letters. Thus, this volume of 185 letters, the core of this little volume as his Wichita State University which somehow escaped Mrs. Truman’s notice and therefore her master’s thesis. Wichita Jazz “is a narrative of Wichita, Kansas’ inferno and mostly cover the two decades between 1923 and 1943, jazz heritage prior to the Second World War. Albeit somewhat is especially welcome and useful in helping us better understand truncated, the narrative is a rare study in that it is one of only a one of the most celebrated “partnerships” and love stories of few to branch away from the standard practice of rewriting jazz the twentieth century. “The Bess Truman I knew was a little old history focused only on the major figures and places of jazz” (p. lady,” writes grandson Clifton Truman Daniel. “The Bess Truman 2). The book contains a table of Wichita jazz venues, from the I discovered in her letters was a talker. She could go on for pages 1920s through the 1940s, and another of performers—Gene Coy reporting family and political news, making wry observations and His Black Aces, Whitey Clinton’s Eleven Piece Orchestra, the about people and events, or just recounting shopping, eating Jay McShann Orchestra, and many more—who played Wichita lunch, or the amount of ironing she had to do” (p. xiii). before the war. National Title: The Unlikely Tale of the NAIB Tournament. By Danny Oklahoma: A History. By W. David Baird and Danney Goble. Stooksbury. (Bradenton Beach, Fla.: Higher Level Publishing, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011, xiv + 342 pages, 2010, ix + 222 pages, paper $12.95.) paper $19.95.) Pictured on the cover of National Title is the “father” or inventor First published in 2008 and now out in a paperback edition, of basketball, Dr. James Naismith, who plays an important role in Oklahoma: A History was reviewed in the summer 2009 issue of Danny Stooksbury’s story, told in large part through numerous Kansas History, where the reviewer observed that Professors Baird newspaper articles and a few other primary documents, such as and Goble “are synonymous with Oklahoma history” and this the minutes of the executive committee of the National Associa- collaboration “is a self-described narrative history that relates the tion of Intercollegiate Basketball (NAIB). In fact, National Title state’s story in a way that makes it accessible to a wide range of is, according to its author, “a compilation of available resources readers.” It is, nevertheless, serious scholarship “on a sometimes related to the creation and development of the” association, the complex topic and it is a credit to the writing skills of both authors precursor to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics that the work maintains its readability” (32:147). From ancient or NAIA (p. v). It was Dr. Naismith, Baker University’s Emil S. communities and peoples to the aftermath of the Oklahoma City “Big Liz” Liston, and a few others who in 1937 gave life to the bombing, it is a story that, especially during the middle and late NAIB and launched its annual championship tournament, which nineteenth century, has much relevance for Kansas and Kansans. BOOK NOTES 183.

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