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Title: The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction by Linda Gordon ISBN: 0-674-00535-X Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: April, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.83 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent examination of the evolution of race in US history
Comment: Ms. Gordon has told in a compelling, exciting manner the tragic story of how 40 orphans became a pawn, first in New York's reform movement, and then in the southwest labor struggles.
However, her book goes far beyond this simple story, by using it as a springboard for an examination of the evolving concept of "race" in american history, and how the concept of race was used in different ways, at different times--tied to economic, religious and gender issuses which prevailed at diiferent times in different places.
The central "action" in Ms. Gordon's narrative is not, as several reviewers seemed to think, the abduction of the orphans. It is the transformation of the orphans from "Irish"--a despised minority in New York--into "White"--a powerful minority in Arizona, as they took their 2,000 mile train ride to their new adopted homes.
The only reason that I did not rate this book five stars is because Ms. Gordon first does a very good job explaining the paucity of evidence for the actual abduction--poor people tend not to leave historical records. However, she periodically leaps beyond this limited records into wild speculation (which may well be correct, but certainly is not supported by her evidence), all without acknowledging the contradiction.
All in all, well worth the read for anyone who is interested in the role race has played in american history--which ought to be all of us.
Rating: 3
Summary: Can't quite decide...
Comment: Gordon divides her book into parts: the "facts" and the narrative. The narrative reads much like a novel (at least partially because Gordon doesn't have a lot of concrete research to draw upon so she can fill in the blanks in an... entertaining manner) while the rest of the book is filled with (often dry) research. It seems as if Gordon is torn between writing an academic work or a popular work and ends up not quite hitting the mark with either. If I hadn't been reading the book for class, I would probably just skim through the book for the story (there's a section of each chapter devoted just to the orphans' story) and then check with the rest of the book is I was very curious about a specific detail.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great book of history
Comment: Linda Gordon has done a fabulous job using a small incident to illustrate many aspects of US (& Mexican) social history at the turn of the (1900) century. It isn't the orphan abduction that this book is about, something that one of the previous reviewers showed that she had the wrong expectations about. This is straight slice-of-history work. I felt Gordon did a nice, if sometimes mechanical-feeling job, moving from the framework of social history in one chapter to the details of the orphan abduction in the next. And her chapters about the orphan thing in particular were interspersed with some of the most interesting observations about life 100-125 years ago. I thought the book was a very good read, not boring at all. I felt a drive to finish it more to see what new gems of historical trivia would appear than to hear the sorry ending to the orphan tale itself. After all, the sorry ending was known from the start, not the gems of history that Gordon teased out of the story.
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Title: Norman Rockwell : A Life by Laura Claridge ISBN: 0812967232 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz ISBN: 0465090974 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: August, 2000 List Price(USD): $19.50 |
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Title: Art For Beginners by Dani Cavallaro, Daniel Cavallaro ISBN: 0863162657 Publisher: Writers & Readers Pub. Date: 21 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Translating the Curriculum: Multiculturalism into Cultural Studies by Susan Huddleston Edgerton ISBN: 0415914019 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: January, 1997 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: You Are Being Lied To: The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths by Russ Kick ISBN: 0966410076 Publisher: The Disinformation Company Pub. Date: 01 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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