Morbid Romantic

Book Review & Personal Blog

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Hiltons of Branson. All opinions are 100% mine.

The last time I visited Missouri, when I was traveling through with family from Virginia to Utah, we stopped and spent the might in Kingdom City. It was a very small town by the looks of it, with miles of road stretching from where we bunked in for the night. Being unfamiliar with the area, I did not know what there was to do and we ended up spending our time watching cable TV in a small motel near a big red barn style shopping center. It was not until we drove a little ways the next day, while looking for a post office to mail off some postcards, that we saw a very interesting place called Nostalgiaville. Purveyors of ‘nostalgic stuff’ in general, the place had a very retro feel with its Betty Boop and Elvis decorations. It was really quite charming to look at and I wish we could have spent more time there.

Suffice to say, we may have had a more action packed trip had we some idea what was available to do in Missouri. Once we went through St. Louis, we pretty much decided to stick to what we knew and head down the interstate. Our destinations were determined not by interesting attractions but where the road took us.

But now I have been alerted to a Missouri city called Branson, which apparently is the “live music show capital of the world.” By the looks of their official website, there is tons to do there. Personally, being inclined to history as I am, I would love to take a trip to their Titanic Museum. Yes, it does strike me as a little odd that a nonport town has a museum dedicated to a shipping disaster, and that is what makes it so charming. What I like the most is that I see they have this really awesome replica of the ship itself (don’t worry, I don’t think reenactments take place). And look at this absolutely gorgeous replica of the grand staircase:

You can even get married on the staircase. Now that sounds like a real dream come true to me. History buffs will agree.

I think after I visit the Titanic museum, I would like to visit their Dinosaur Museum. There is a little kid in all of us, yes, and I just love looking at big Dinosaur footprints or looking at their bones. And let’s not pretend that I won’t also be visiting the Haunted House & Monster Asylum. Haunted House? Monster? Asylum? Count me in! I relish any opportunity to be amongst creepy and dire things. They don’t call me Morbid for no reason, after all.

After that, provided I am properly scared as I should be, I might just have to retire to rest. You know, gain my bearings after having the life almost scared entirely out of me. A nice place to stay is the Hilton Promenade at Branson Landing. They have very nice rooms and amenities like a fitness room and swimming pool. Or, if you want something else, there is the Hilton Branson Convention Center. They have everything the Promenade has but… fishing. Yes. One of their services includes fishing in addition to the pool and fitness room. You cannot deny that this is amazing. Best of all, both hotels allow you to have large animals for a animal fee. The last time I had to look for a hotel room with some cats, it was very hard and we had to stay in the cheaper places for that fact.

So guys… plan away!

Title: The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries¹
Author(s): Carlo Ginzburg
Genre: Nonfiction – History
Finished: March 1, 2010
Rating: 4 Stars

In The Night Battles, Carlo Ginzburg looks at a small group of northeastern Italian people from the area of Friuli who claimed to be ‘benandanti.’ The benandanti, according to their legend, were people born with “the caul,” and battled witches to protect the harvest and people, and to heal people bewitched. A second strand of benandanti claimed to be witness to processions of the dead. Using a small set of inquisition documents to do his microhistory, Ginzburg claims that he can reconstruct the progression of benandanti identity from their perspective from those who battle witches to those who are witches. This new identity was imposed, according to Ginzburg, by the inquisitors who used leading questions and other devices such as fear to convince the accused benandanti into altering their confessions to fit the new model of witchcraft, which can be traced through the confession transcripts. The book contains four chapters and an appendix with a few of the transcripts included for reference. Chapter one introduces the benandanti, their beliefs, and the inquisitors; chapter two describes the benandanti who associate with the dead and traces possible links of origin; chapter three returns to the benandanti and the inquisitors, and to the evolution of the benandanti identity; and chapter four sees the conclusion of the benandanti fitting themselves into the accepted mold of witchcraft.

There is no way Ginzburg can support, with his available evidence, what the true intentions of the benandanti were when they confessed to witchcraft practices. Was it that they became convinced of their own evil, or simply became indoctrinated out of fear and insistence to change stories to fit what they knew the inquisitors wanted regardless of what they knew to be truth? There is simply no way to know if the benandanti were only saying what they felt needed to be said, or if they actually accepted it as truth. Ginzburg does, unfortunately, make a lot of claims that cannot be substantiated. For example, he tells the story of a woman named Anna la Rossa who he admits never claimed to be a benandanti (35). Yet later on, Ginzburg refers to her as one of the benandanti (41 & 43) without ever proving that she was one. If anything, Ginzburg is merely reasserting that many different beliefs had origins in the same pagan traditions, or that ideas filtered through geographical space. In another case, Ginzburg claims that the trances during which benandanti left their bodies were ointment induced or caused by illness (59). Again, this is not something he can adequately support and therefore cannot state it as unquestionable. Regardless of this, Ginzburg’s greatest achievements are two. First, he does a good job in his outlining of the various pagan traditional origins of witchcraft and other cults. Second, he has great success in showing how the inquisitorial process was able to impose beliefs with such effectiveness that people would admit to them even when they knew giving the answer that was desired would surely bring harm to them. It sheds light on the nature of the witch hunts and trials, and the confessions rendered.

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Disclaimer(s):

- More can be found in my Reviews section or on my Biblio page. If you would like to see my book list for 2009, go here.

- If you would like me to review your book, send an email to me at morbidromantic@gmail.com. Read my Book Review Policy for more information.

1. The following review was done as part of an assignment and turned in for a grade. [↩]

Title: Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice
Author(s): Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
Genre: Nonfiction – History
Finished: February 22, 2010
Rating: 4 Stars

In Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice, Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks examines how Christian and Protestant ideas altered and defined sexuality and sexual behavior. The geographical focus of Wiesner-Hanks extends beyond the European continent. She writes about the colonial experience of Europeans bringing Christianity into Latin America, Asia, Africa, and North America, all of which were already inhabited by groups possessing their own native beliefs about sexuality, the changing of which was not done without challenge and compromise. Reconstructing the pre-colonial world of Latin and North American presents a problem, as Wiesner-Hanks notes, because documents are scarce, and as a result she cannot give a complete description of native beliefs. The first three chapters of the book are loosely chronological within topically based chapters, beginning with Christianity before 1500, then moving on to Protestantism, and finally to Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy. The final three chapters shift to the overseas colonies discussed above.

In investigating sexuality, Wiesner-Hanks looks at how earlier civilizations influenced later ideas of early Christian writers, and then in turn how these Christian writers shaped opinions on marriage, divorce, fornication, prostitution, sodomy, and witchcraft, to name a few. As Wiesner-Hanks traces how these ideas evolved over time, she also compares them to one another, letting readers see not only how ideas shifted over time, but how Catholicism differed from both Protestantism and Orthodoxy. The chapters are short and succinct, but detailed enough that in every case there is a clear picture of the time and group change. The book is more than a mere generalized overview even though its length is small, though some generalization is necessary and involved, because Wiesner-Hanks looks at specifics and fills her pages with one detail after another. As a result, very little space is given to stories or narratives, which perhaps would have been a nice addition to break up her dense fact-based approach. In fact, it is all too easy to get lost or confused within the barrage of facts and details as, for example, Wiesner-Hanks moves from infanticide to women’s bodies to unmarried women and men to craft guilds all in the same two page spread.

That being said, there is a lot that Wiesner-Hanks does not say or does not explain, which leaves one with many questions. For instance, when Wiesner-Hanks discusses the Roman model of marriage and sexuality, she fails to mention that the Romans too had their own form of spiritual virginity in the Vestal Virgins, which would be an interesting parallel to Catholic convent life. In another part of the book, Wiesner-Hanks states that religious wars increased the number of people, both men and women, who worked in prostitution (89). Yet she does not explain how that link is made. In many places she describes a situation or a law but then finishes up with the note that the event was rare or the law was rarely enforced, which makes one wonder why it was ultimately significant to mention. It would be a lot to expect one writer to include every detail or point, so the unstated or unanswered in no way mitigates what a good book Wiesner-Hanks has written on the topic of sexuality and religion.

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Disclaimer(s):

- More can be found in my Reviews section or on my Biblio page. If you would like to see my book list for 2009, go here.

- If you would like me to review your book, send an email to me at morbidromantic@gmail.com. Read my Book Review Policy for more information.

Title: Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr., and the Southern Leadership Conference¹
Author(s): David J. Garrow
Genre: Nonfiction – History
Finished: March 3, 2010
Rating: 3 Stars

David J. Garrow has provided an extensive study of Martin Luther King Jr. and his work within the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in his book Bearing the Cross. With a title that portrays the religious and spiritual aspect of King’s personal civil rights vision, as well as the exhaustive extent of the undertaking that would take its toll on King both physically and mentally, Garrow too has undertaken quite a task in writing his in depth and fact filled study. Using hundreds of sources, in fact over 600 interviews alone, Garrow has compiled a complete record of King’s civil rights journey from the moment he entered the Montgomery Improvement Association’s (MIA) bus boycott all the way to his death. However, the book is about more than just King, and that is one of the greatest strengths of Bearing the Cross. The story is really the story of a wider Civil Rights Movement, one in which King would become a leading figure and icon of. Bearing the Cross is undoubtedly a personal story, and everything within is connected to King in some form be it through his participation, association, support, or opposition. King had so many connections in the Civil Rights Movement that to tell his story is to tell each individual story, which Garrow attempts to do when he delves into subjects such as the Freedom Rides, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Selma, the Voting Rights Act, Northern ghettos, and Vietnam, just to name a few. Not only does this portray just how much momentum the movement had, which grew in fervor and activity as the years progressed, and how large it grew, but also what King himself took on when he shouldered the responsibility of becoming one of the major leaders.

As reviewers David Herbert Donald and William C. Stinchcombe have noted, Garrow misses occasional opportunities to analyze King, and we are therefore sometimes made to take King at face value with just a selection of his decisions or quotes to flesh out his intentions and feelings.² While there are moments when we can see the personality and intentions of King come through his words as he speaks for himself to explain his motivations, especially when he talks about his passion for the Civil Rights Movement and his willingness to die for it, other times are a bit more obscure and we are left to wonder why King did some of what he did. For example, Garrow writes that King had expressed some hesitation to be included on a petition to help activist Carl Braden out of a charge of contempt of court. The wife of Carl, Anne, was disappointed that she would likely not get King’s support. However, King changed his mind and phoned her to ask that she place his name on the petition because he had prayed over it and decided it was right (155). This would have been a perfect time for Garrow to attempt an analysis of the whys of King’s action, yet he does not take advantage of the opportunity to use his vast knowledge of King to explain this change of heart, or why King would put himself in such a politically precarious position by association. Perhaps in the cases where Garrow did not analyze, he hoped that his facts would speak for themselves and he was wary of trying to get into the head of King for fear of making too many assumptions that he could not support.

Yet Garrow attempts to create a narrative out of the intense amount of facts he includes, and this leads him in some cases to make a few assumptions of King that he cannot, or rather does not, substantiate. For instance, in one of the many discussions of the SCLC’s financial mismanagement, Garrow writes that King brushed off the accusations made at the SCLC’s leaders, but felt they were accurate when he truly thought about it (469). Garrow leaves the statement at that and does not attempt to follow up with any evidence to support it. It seems that Garrow is trying to create a more enjoyable story by including elements of intimate understanding, yet they are not always satisfactory and the text is still dense with dates and an intense volume of fact. That is not to say that a reader will come off not knowing who King was. In fact, Garrow is very adept at including aspects of King’s personality and life that many people do not know or consider. There is a definite evolution of character from King’s kitchen revelation (58), to his trip to India where he refined his own method of resistance as he learned more about Gandhi (114), all the way to his ultimate loss of faith in white men and democracy (604). It is also surprising to learn that King, known as such a great rhetorician, often had others write his speeches and chapters in his books. This aspect almost makes it seem as if King was a popular figure speaking out the ideas of groups, and more pessimistically, a pawn of other thinkers since so many of his ideas were molded by others who could influence or persuade him (139). This does not, of course, tarnish his reputation or his much deserved respect, it merely opens up a new facet to King’s overall focus on collectivity. King did, after all, assert many times that he acted for his people and that the movement did not depend on him and would continue on without him, which means there were other thinkers in the background. Also surprising were the revelations Garrow made about King’s misogyny and views on sex (141 & 374-376). King is an icon, certainly, but now also a man who had his own faults, and at times very fatalistic (232).

One other objection to be taken with this novel is its treatment of the NAACP. Garrow is in no way objective when he discusses the animosity that began to grow around the NAACP and King/SCLC. As described by Garrow, the NAACP on various occasions attempted to smear the SCLC or hinder them in their progress in voting rights. The NAACP would naturally take a special exception to King’s assertion that attempting to change the country in front of a judge and appealing for change was not the proper approach, but rather that resistance such as they had been done in Montgomery was vital (87). The two groups had a natural ideological difference. Garrow is unfair in his language, and even goes so far as to include the statement, “With allies like the NAACP, SCLC’s effort had little chance of success” (103). Granted, the NAACP was in conflict with King, Garrow should have exercised a little more neutrality and fairness when discussing these occasions.

A final thing must be said about Garrows endnotes. Though he provides a glossary of his abbreviations in the back of the text, his endnotes are still confusing and hard to sift through. Maybe it is his sheer volume of sources that complicates the system, but it does not help that much of his citations are made up of letter and number combinations. When perusing through to find a source, one must flip back and forth to try to make sense of what is being identified and where to finally find it. Though the short form of the citations clears up space, it leads to too much confusion for students and scholars who may want to follow up on his research. It may seem as if there is nothing good about this book since most of what has been written about it so far has been critical, but the sheer extent of Garrow’s research should be praised. When writing on a figure as big and as important as Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who has had much already written about him, one naturally has an understanding of him that they approach studies of him with. Even lacking in the occasional analysis, Garrow provides a vast array of information that pieces together King’s life into one continuous and chronological story. Even if we do not come off understanding the finer details of King’s mentality, we still see how events flowed along a never ebbing, but wavering line, and how ideas melded and split. It is this dynamic that is important to understanding the larger picture of the Civil Rights Movement. So much is encompassed in Garrow’s story that it is almost too much to read and remember in one reading. Despite some of its faults, it is without a doubt a vital book to the history of African Americans, Civil Rights, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Disclaimer(s):

- More can be found in my Reviews section or on my Biblio page. If you would like to see my book list for 2009, go here.

- If you would like me to review your book, send an email to me at morbidromantic@gmail.com. Read my Book Review Policy for more information.

1. The following review was part of an assignment and turned in for a grade. [↩]
2. David Herbert Donald, “Review: [untitled],” The Journal of Southern History 54, no 1 (February 1988): 135-137; William C. Stinchcombe, “Review: [untitled],” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 19, no. 2 (Autumn 1988): 367-369. [↩]

Title: The Rise and Fall of the Garvey Movement in the Urban South, 1918-1942¹
Author(s): Claudrena N. Harold
Genre: Nonfiction – History
Finished: February 17, 2010
Rating: 2 Stars

Historians writing of Marcus Garvey and the Garvey movement, according to Claudrena N. Harold, have paid scant attention to the work of the organization in the South. Though the Jim Crow South is not entirely ignored by historians, Harold states that there has yet to be a systematic study of Garveyism’s successes and failures in the urban South (3). Her effort to do so in her book The Rise and Fall of the Garvey Movement in the Urban South, 1918-1942 focuses on three major urban areas in the South: New Orleans, Louisiana; Miami, Florida; and Hampton Roads, Virginia. Not only does Harold intend to document the rise and fall of Garveyism in the three locations she has selected, but also to describe how each branch became individual entities within the larger movement as local communities and culture influenced the manner in which Garveyism was accepted and followed. It is the reception of Garvey’s ideals of racial purity, repatriation, race solidarity, and self-reliance in a cultural context as described by Harold that shows she made an attempt in each case to understand the political and social atmosphere Garveyism was entering as it flowed from its Parent Body in New York down South. Organized on geographical lines rather than chronological, Harold examines her cities one at a time, beginning in each where Garveyism takes off and following through until decline makes fall imminent.

While Harold shows an aptness for understanding cultural context and how this fit within the development of the movement, parts of The Rise and Fall of the Garvey Movement lack in information or description that would provide useful for understanding some of what that cultural make up was. For example, when describing the racial tensions in New Orleans, Harold states that American blacks were in conflict with Creoles of Color, yet she does not expound her point in the text itself to state why there was this racial fission, which would have helped the reader understand the complex scope of the social context UNIA members were enmeshed in (31-32). Instead, Harold pushes back her explanation to the notes for readers to dig out. Yet not every case of the unexplained is satisfied with note page clarification. Harold makes a point that elections of John M. Parker and Andrew McShane created tensions between the government and those working for better labor conditions (33). While it can be derived from this point that Parker and McShane had something to do with the labor movement, and in fact negatively, there is no further information given to explain how and why. It leaves a gap in understanding and Harold does not include information in her notes to fill in the gap left by these men’s names; we have their names and the setting, but not their true significance and therefore must question why they are important to mention at all.

In fact, a good portion of information is placed in the notes section, which varies in length from small sentences to at times being as extensive as multiple paragraphs per note. For the most part it appears that Harold made this a rational choice to keep her story on topic by placing explanatory information in the notes and leaving it out of the text lest the reader begin to lose focus of her intent. She manages to balance a delicate line between telling her story fluidly and fleshing out details by utilizing her endnotes to their purpose. For example, Harold tells the story of a woman named Laura Kofey who becomes quite popular among the Miami Garveyites for her own message of racial purity and repatriation (78). It is stated that there were issues about her fundraising schemes, but then without explanation as to where the controversy lies, Harold moves on to how Garvey and Garveyites reacted to Kofey. It is ultimately unimportant the exact problems people had with Kofey’s fundraising, so Harold leaves it out of her text. However, to satisfy the curiosity of those who want to fill in the blanks, Harold describes in her notes section just where the conflict was centered (149). Though this does not always work for Harold, and in some cases adding the information in the notes to the text instead of leaving in the back of the book would aid in understanding some of the importance of what is being said, as stated above with the example about the NOLA conflict between American blacks and Creoles of Color. Another example comes in when Harold makes mention of Garvey meeting with members of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan group in 1922 (38). She does not illuminate what the meeting was about or what happened, only that it causes contention. The reader must flip back to the notes to find out what the meeting was all about (139). Considering that Harold later places a lot of importance on blacks working with white supremacists in Virginia, it would have expanded on that point more to express that Garvey and Garveyites had been working through this route since early on and more widespread.

Harold leaves a lot of questions unanswered. It is certainly unfair to expect an author to be able to answer every question, especially since not every question can be addressed with available historical evidence. Yet to recognize the existence of the unanswerable question leads historians to new fields of study and sates the curiosity of readers who will ask the questions themselves and feel that the book has left out answers. In acknowledging the questions that still exist for which there are no satisfactory answers, Harold would have closed gaps that may arise in the minds of readers. Yet, effort must be made to fulfill the expectations of readers by giving answers that do exist. For example, Harold writes of the community medical project initiated by NOLA Garveyites of the NOD. In the relatively short section, Harold explains why the project was started and how, but she does not bother to detail ultimately how successful the project was (53). The issue of unaddressed questions and contradictions becomes more problematic later on in the text. Early on in her section on Miami Garveyites, a group made up mostly of Bahamians entering Florida, she points out that a cultural divergence existed between the immigrants and the native African Blacks. The Bahamians saw the natives as submitting to the power of whites because the native blacks were more likely to work within the white power structure (66). Harold does not address how the Miami Garveyites could reconcile this conflict with the fact that they too adopted conservative views in certain respects (72-73). She also fails to recognize the contradiction and difficulty Miami Garveyites faced within their mission statement, which claimed to desire the uniting of Africans all over the globe. Yet, they could not breech the gap between them and native African Americans (82). Her story is therefore a narrative and lacks analysis. The bulk of her sources are secondary, and her major primary source is an edited volume of the Negro World paper, which leads to the question of how much editing was involved in its compiling and how correct her information is

Ultimately, Harold’s greatest achievement is in the way she fused three different stories together as unique examples on one hand, but on the other hand part of the same movement and influenced by some of the same situations such as the end of the Black Star Line and Garvey’s arrest. In all three cases, her argument is that pervading difficulties aside, it was the Great Depression that acted as the true catalyst to the end of Garveyism. In each of the three cases, according to Harold, the Great Depression left such an economic mark throughout the country and changed ideals so much that Garvey’s organization could not be monetarily sustained and people fell out of line with many of Garvey’s points such as self-sufficiency and economic power. The message became irrelevant. The Garvey movement was damaged not only by the internal influences chronicles throughout, but one of many victims of an economic disaster that hurt many. This, of course, calls into question the scope of the title, dates which promise to trace events from 1918 to 1942. Since the Great Depression caused a general decline in the first portion of the 1930s, Harold continues the chronology of her narrative beyond to show how Garveyites used their political training to move on to different causes. Some formed new groups, some joined radical groups, and some grew increasingly supportive of the NAACP. According to Harold, it was the activity of the Garvey movement that trained participants for a political, activist life. In this way, Harold shows the lasting legacy of the Garvey movement to later pushes for civil rights, placing her work within this historical chronology.

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Disclaimer(s):

- More can be found in my Reviews section or on my Biblio page. If you would like to see my book list for 2009, go here.

- If you would like me to review your book, send an email to me at morbidromantic@gmail.com. Read my Book Review Policy for more information.

1. The following review was part of an assignment and was turned in for a grade. [↩]

Title: The War with Hannibal: The History of Rome from Its Foundation, Books XXI-XXX
Author(s): Livy
Genre: Nonfiction – History
Finished: February 27, 2010
Rating: 3 Stars

The three Punic Wars Rome fought against Carthage were as iconic to the Romans as they are to us. Romans passed on the stories as part of their historical tradition and even threatened their misbehaving kids with Hannibal the way that we do the boogeyman. The most popular of those three wars saw Hannibal crossing the Alps with his elephants, and then proceeding all the way to Rome. Collecting old Roman allies, Hannibal proves that while he is a good tactician, his strategy skills are lacking. Nevertheless, he is the sort of leader than the Romans can respect even as they fear him. Livy pays homage to this war in typical Livy style, less about the battles and maneuvers than about the dynamics and implications. This text is a great deal easier to read than some of Livy’s other writings, complete with dramatic battle scenes and impressive tactics. It is at times emotional, at times heated, and at times you will wonder who the good buy and bad guys are regardless of Livy’s intent (he does, after all, say there is nothing better than being a Roman). Clearly, in the end, the Romans win and fight the good fight.

But before you begin to think that this is a mere make believe story loosely based on fact, think again. You will get a distinct sense of what it means for a Roman to be a Roman, and come to understand the virtues they prized and vices they condemned. Livy also, whether intentional or not, shows us how the Romans saw the outside world and the other peoples surrounding them. Also, within the social and political context, we see events taking place that were true to life and will have lasting impacts on the political order of Rome later. For instance, the ending of the law that limited terms to once every 10 years. By necessity of war, the law had to be thrown out of the proverbial window. This will have a very negative impact on the Republic and contribute to the later chaos with men like Marius.

You’ll love the Romans and feel nothing but awe for Hannibal despite his overall failure… Livy certainly does!

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Disclaimer(s):

- More can be found in my Reviews section or on my Biblio page. If you would like to see my book list for 2009, go here.

- If you would like me to review your book, send an email to me at morbidromantic@gmail.com. Read my Book Review Policy for more information.