Why the Past, and Remembering the Past, Matter

"Although most people usually take it for granted and devote little time to studying or thinking about it, in fact the past is responsible for everything we are. It is the core of our humanity. The past is the world out of which we have come, the multitude of events and experiences that have shaped our conscious selves and the social worlds we inhabit. To understand how and why we live as we do, we cannot avoid appealing to the past to explain how and why we got to be this way.

"But it is not the past alone that plays this crucial role in shaping our identities. No less important is the act of remembering the past, the backward reflective gaze in which we self-consciously seek to recall the world we have lost, the vanished landscape of our former selves and lives, in order to gather the signposts by which we find our way and keep ourselves from becoming lost. If the past is the place from which we have come, then memory and history are the tools we use for recollecting that place so we can know who and where we are."

William Cronon, "Why the Past Matters," Wisconsin Magazine of History 84, no. 1 (Autumn 2000), 4.

PhD Reading List for Twentieth Century U.S. History

Okay, so here's my working list of titles for Twentieth Century U.S. History. I got my start on this project in a course I took at Texas Tech with Dr. Sean Cunningham, who is part of my committee for qualifying exams. The list has been a work in progress over the last six months or so. About 8 or 9 titles that also appear on my Religion list were deleted from this one because of the overlap. But from here, I don't think there will be many changes if any.

If I've posted something here at Frankly Speaking on one of these, I've added a link to that title. Sometimes at the end of an entry, I've included a few tags that identify some of the topics of that book.

I've tried to categorize the list, a project I thought might help me get an overall sense of what's here. So far, I've read or a least gotten into about 75% of these titles. Not knowing very much about the other 25% of the books made them harder to categorize. So I might be moving some of them around later. Trying to gain a good bit of mastery over this material should keep me busy for a while.

Background, Survey, General (7)

Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Klein, Maury. The Genesis of Industrial America, 1870-1920. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Painter, Nell Irvin. Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919. New York: W. W. Norton, 1987.

Patterson, James T. Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Patterson, James T. Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Sitkoff, Harvard, editor. Perspectives on Modern America: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Wiebe, Robert. The Search for Order, 1877-1920. New York: Hill and Wang, 1966.

Cold War, esp. Cuban Missile Crisis (7)

Dudziak, Mary L. Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Imagery of American Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011. Politics. Society.

Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History. New York: Penguin, 2005. Cold War.

Kennedy, Robert F. Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Introductions by Robert S. McNamara and Harold Macmillan. New York: Norton, 1969. Cold War. Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK Administration. Politics.

Leffler, Melvyn P. The Specter of Communism: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1917-1953. New York: Hill and Wang, 1994.

May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. New York: Basic Books, 1988. Cold War. Gender.

McNamara, Robert S. "The Military Role of Nuclear Weapons: Perceptions and Misperceptions," Foreign Affairs 62 (Fall 1983): 59-80. Cold War. Nuclear Weapons. Military Tactics.

Stern, Sheldon M. The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005. Cold War. Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK Administration.

Culture and Mass Media (9)

Bailey, Beth L. From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.

Berkowitz, Edward D. Mass Appeal: The Formative Age of the Movies, Radio, and TV. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Mass Media.

Boorstin, Daniel J. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. New York: Atheneum, 1987. Culture. Mass Media.

Culver, Lawrence. The Frontier of Leisure: Southern California and the Shaping of Modern America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Denning, Michael. The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century. New York: Verso, 1996.

Fraterrigo, Elizabeth. Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Pells, Richard. Modernist America: Art, Music, Movies, and the Globalization of American Culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011. Culture.

Slotkin, Richard. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. Culture. Media. Movies.

Zeitz, Joshua. Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006. Culture. Society. Women.

Politics (13)

Badger, Anthony J. The New Deal: The Depression Years, 1933-40. New York: Hill and Wang, 1989. New Deal. Great Depression. FDR Administration.

Brands, H. W. The Strange Death of American Liberalism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001. Politics. Liberalism. Vietnam War.

Cohen, Lizabeth, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939. 2nd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Goldberg, Robert Alan. Barry Goldwater. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. Conservatism.

Kazin, Michael. The Populist Persuasion: An American History. Rev. ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.

McGirr, Lisa. Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.

Postel, Charles. The Populist Vision. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Rodgers, Daniel T., “In Search of Progressivism.” Reviews in American History 10, no. 4 (1982): 113-132.

Rossinow, Doug. The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.

Rymph, Catherine E. Republican Women: Feminism and Conservatism From Suffrage through the Rise of the New Right. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Republican Party. Women.

Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. Boston: Little, Brown, 1998. Cold War. Senator Joseph P. McCarthy. Political Repression.

Self, Robert O. All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy since the 1960s. New York: Hill and Wang, 2012.

Wills, Garry. John Wayne's America: The Politics of Celebrity. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. Rhetoric. Imagery. Mythology.

Presidents (9)

Brands, H. W. Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Class and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. New York: Doubleday, 2008. Politics. FDR. Great Depression.

Dallek, Robert. Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. LBJ. Politics. Texas.

Dallek, Robert. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963. Boston: Little, Brown, 2003. JFK. Politics.

Gillon, Steven M. The Kennedy Assassination--24 Hours After: Lyndon B. Johnson's Pivotal First Day as President. New York: Basic Books, 2009. 

Greenberg, David. Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image. New York: Norton, 2003. Memory. Richard M. Nixon. Politics. Media.

Link, Arthur S. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954.

McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. Harry S. Truman.

Pietrusza, David. 1960: LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon: The Epic Campaign that Forged Three Presidencies. New York: Union Square, 2008.

Rauchway, Eric. Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America. New York: Hill and Wang, 2003.

Wills, Garry. The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power. Boston: Little, Brown, 1981. Politics. Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. Family. JFK.

Race and Civil Rights (10)

Boyle, Kevin. Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age. New York: Henry Holt, 2004. Race. U.S. Cities--Detroit. Law. 1920s.

Borstelmann, Thomas. The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.

Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988. Civil Rights. Martin Luther King, Jr. Religion--Black Church.

Brilliant, Mark. The Color of America Has Changed: How Racial Diversity Shaped Civil Rights Reform in California, 1941-1978. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Race. Civil Rights. California. Politics.

Hobbs, Allyson. A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. Race. Society.

Gerstle, Gary. American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. Race. Theodore Roosevelt Administration.

Gordon, Linda. The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

Lambert, Valerie. Choctaw Nation: A Story of American Indian Resurgence. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007. American Indians. Oklahoma. Politics.

McLaurin, Melton. Separate Pasts: Growing Up White in the Segregated South. 2nd ed. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998. Race. American South.

Roediger, David. Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. Rev. ed. London: Verso, 2007.

Sports (5)

Byrne, Julie. O God of Players: The Story of the Immaculata Mighty Macs. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Sports. Gender. Religion--Roman Catholicism.

Oriard, Michael. Brand NFL: Making and Selling America's Favorite Sport. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Sports. Professional Football. Society. Race.

Pope, S. W. "Sport History: Into the 21st Century." Journal of Sport History 25 (Summer 1998): i-x.

Sammons, Jeffrey T. "'Race' and Sport: A Critical, Historical Examination." Journal of Sport History 21 (Fall 1994): 203-78. Sports. Race.

Vecsey, George. Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game. New York: Modern Library, 2008. Sports--Baseball.

U.S. South and West, especially Texas (8)

Campbell, Randolph B. Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Texas. Politics.

Crisp, James E. Sleuthing the Alamo: Davy Crockett’s Last Stand and Other Mysteries of the Texas Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Texas. Archival Research. Textual Criticism.

Cunningham, Sean P. American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt: Conservative Growth in a Battleground Region. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great America Dust Bowl. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. Dust Bowl. Social History.

Foley, Neil. The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

Phillips, Michael. White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.

White, Richard. "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own": A New History of the American West. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.

Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Vietnam War (8)

Berman, Larry. Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent. HarperCollins/Smithsonian, 2007. Vietnam War. Espionage. News Media.

Bilton, Michael and Kevin Sim. Four Hours in My Lai. New York: Viking, 1992. Vietnam War. Military. Law.

Hammond, William M. Reporting Vietnam: Media and Military at War. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1998. Vietnam War. News Media. Society.

Milam, Ron. Not a Gentleman's War: An Inside View of Junior Officers in the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. Vietnam War. Military.

Moyar, Mark. Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Vietnam War--Revisionist Interpretation. Politics.

O'Brien, Tim. If I Die in a Combat Zone. 1975. Reprint edition. New York: Broadway Books, 1999. Vietnam War--Memoir/Novel.

Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Vintage, 1989. Vietnam War. Military. News Media.

Vuic, Kara Dixon. Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. Women. Gender. Vietnam War.

World Wars I and II, Holocaust (5)

Adler, Selig. "The United States and the Holocaust." American Jewish Historical Quarterly 64 (September 1974): 14-23. Holocaust. World War II. Religion--Judaism.

Dower, John W. War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. New York: Pantheon, 1986. World War II. Pacific Theater. Japan. Race.

Miscamble, Wilson D. The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. World War II. Pacific Theater. Truman Administration.

Wyman, David S. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945. New York: Pantheon, 1984.

Zieger, Robert. America's Great War: World War I and the American Experience. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.

1960s (3)

Anderson, Terry H. The Movement and the Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Flamm, Michael W. Law and Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

Isserman, Maurice and Michael Kazin. America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Stories from the Real Mayberry

McLaurin, Melton. Separate Pasts: Growing Up White in the Segregated South. 2nd edition. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998.

This memoir recounts what life was like for a white kid growing up during the 1950s in Wade, North Carolina, a racially-mixed small town. Melton McLaurin, the son of a respected family in the community, learned his lessons about racism and segregation like anyone else would--through day-to-day norms and specific incidents when boundaries were reinforced and tested. The historical value of the book centers on McLaurin's claim that things were essentially the same in most every other small town in the South during that time. He prefers to reveal the world he grew up in through some unforgettable characters and the stories he remembers about them. His chapters have titles like "Betty Jo" and "Sam."

When he wrote this book, McLaurin was a professor and chair of the department of history at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. So it's no surprise that he often wants to provide a bit of historical context for the stories he relates. But he never overdoes it, never turns his memoir into something like a history lecture.

From beginning to end, the book remains his story of struggling to make sense of what was happening in the cloudy world of his adolescence in the pre-Civil Rights South. He neither accuses nor absolves members of his own family. Instead, he describes them and everyone else in his hometown as people of their time. Fewer and fewer Americans today have a personal past that reaches back as far as the 1950s. It was a separate past, one we should remember and learn from.

A Philosopher, a Hermit, and a Rabbi

Kirschner, Robert. "The Vocation of Holiness in Late Antiquity." Vigiliae Christianae 38 (1984): 105-124.

At the time this article was published, Robert Kirschner taught in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. More recently, he has become the Director of the Skirball Cultural Center Museum in Los Angeles.

I

Kirschner begins his article by asserting that the transition from the world of classical antiquity to that of late antiquity marks a shift from the individual as a cell in the body politic to a more autonomous individual. This change created an atmosphere in which the distinctly holy man, the personification of a connection between heaven and earth, became more common. With that in place, Kirschner states his purpose: "The present paper discusses the vocation of holiness in late antiquity with reference to the pagan philosopher, the Christian ascetic, and the rabbinic sage. It seeks to describe the basic dimensions of each model of holiness" (105).

II

The "pagan vocation of holiness" was founded upon paideia, a good classical education (106). Pagan holy men tended to come from the circles of independently wealthy people who had plenty of time for study and contemplation. Yet, they were also ascetics who embraced things like celibacy and vegetarianism (106). Such discipline brought to them extraordinary powers, and, in fact, the consummate philosopher might be regarded as the son of a deity (107). Typically, the status of the philosopher showed up in his physical appearance. There was something about his face, eyes, manner, etc. that was different.

III

By contrast to the philosopher, who lived in the society of the governing class, Christian holy men lived in the place of anti-culture, the desert (109). This can be seen as the philosopher's renunciation taken to an extreme. While the pagan philosopher did not indulge, the Christian ascetic completely cut himself off. While the philosopher might identify demons, the Christian ascetic engaged them in battle (109). The hermit rejected society, which led to apatheia, the absence of feeling, so that one could adequately deal with the demons. The ascetic's power became equal and even superior to that of demons. The physical accomplishments of the hermits were astonishing (111). One way in which the monk was like the philosopher is that both were familiar with the illustration of the athlete in training (111-12). Also, as with the philosophers, "the Christian holy man's personal conduct and demeanor were carefully observed by his disciples" (112). In fact, for the disciple to see the holy man was, in itself, a significant part of the training he sought (113-14). "Having passed beyond human society and the human condition, the Christian holy man spoke powerfully to both. By departing from the flawed orbit of ordinary men, but waging heroic battle against the demons, he recovered the primeval perfection of Adam that existed before the fall from grace. His arduous and unearthly vocation made him visibly holy" (114).

IV

Unlike the pagan philosophers and Christian holy men, rabbis of late antiquity did not have biographers. Thus, in order to make any comparisons the historian is forced to sleuth other kinds of sources, like the Mishnah, Tosefta, the two Talmuds, and the Midrashim. Because these texts are typically juristic, they are unlikely sources of biographical information. Nevertheless, they do relate that the rabbis became much more significant after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. It was then that the rabbis concluded that the authority of Judaism's priesthood, which could no longer function, had been handed over to them (115). Study of the Torah and Mishnah became paramount and made the sages invincible. Attachment to the rabbinic sage, in the minds of some, superseded the disciple's first loyalty to his own father. The student's father brought him into this world, but his rabbi ushered him into the world to come (116). One difference between the Jewish holy man and the other two types is that, in this case, asceticism was rare and mild. Rabbis married, fathered children, lived in houses, and enjoyed good food and drink, albeit kosher. One pattern of continuity is that, with the rabbis as with the other two types, the holiness of the person was visible and important (117). In Judaism, the desire to witness the rabbi in every phase of life was sometimes taken to odd extremes. A student might follow the rabbi into "the bathroom" to see how he took care of his business there. Another would hide under the rabbi's marital bed to learn about his teacher's love-making. (One can only imagine how the rabbi's wife felt about that). The point is that even the rabbi's private actions and gestures were considered instructive and normative. He was in all phases of life the conduit of the divine revelation.

V

In the classical era, someone becoming holy, or a divine being, was truly exceptional. "[B]ut in Hellenistic and Roman society it was the aspiration of every poet, thinker, and artist to be divinized, to become a 'man of the Muses' " (119). The rabbinic sage, although he represents a separate tradition, "crystallizes a crucial attribute of the holy man: the paradigmatic impact of his person. Down to every detail of his being, the holy man is a divine revelation" (120).

This article is a succinct, concise survey of its topic. It is well written and contains a large number of interesting quotations from primary sources.

Some of My 2014 Books

In late August of 2014 I began full-time study in the field of history. That means I got in a lot of reading last year, especially in the fall. I either perused, skimmed, read, or completely-processed more than a hundred books. And then there were the articles, essays, and book reviews. Listed here are most of the books I thoroughly digested. Almost to a one, they're worth reading if your interested in the topic.

A. Early American History

Anderson, Jennifer L. Mahogany: The Costs of Luxury in Early America (2012)

Bolster, W. Jeffrey. The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail (2011)

Carp, Benjamin L. Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America (2011)

Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (1983)

Jasanoff, Maya. Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary War (2011)

Little, Ann M. Abraham in Arms: War and Gender in Colonial New England (2007)

Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (2004)

Richter, Daniel K. Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (2001)

Taylor, Alan. The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 (2013)

B. American Religious History

Conkin, Paul. Cane Ridge: America's Pentecost (1990)

Dochuck, Darren. From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (2012)

Fisher, Linford D. The Indian Great Awakening: Religion and the Shaping of Native Cultures in Early America (2014)

Hall, David D. A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England (2011)

Herzog, Jonathan P. The Spiritual-Industrial Complex: America's Religious Battle against Communism in the Early Cold War (2011)

Kidd, Thomas. God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution (2012)

Porterfield, Amanda. Conceived in Doubt: Religion and Politics in the New American Nation (2012)

C. History of Renaissance and Reformation Europe

Burke, Peter. The European Renaissance: Centres and Peripheries (1998)

Cunningham, Andrew and Ole Peter Grell, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion, War, Famine and Death in Reformation Europe (2000)

Davis, Natalie Zemon. The Return of Martin Guerre (1983)

Ginzburg, Carlo. The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (1980)

O'Malley, John W. Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era (2000)

D. Twentieth-Century U.S. History

Boyle, Kevin. Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age (2004)

Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 (1988)

Brands. H. W. Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (2009)

Brilliant, Mark. The Color of America Has Changed: How Racial Diversity Shaped Civil Rights Reform in California, 1941-1978 (2010)

Dallek, Robert. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 (2003)

Gerstle, Gary. American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (2001)

May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (1988)

Miscamble, Wilson D. The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan (2011)

Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (1998)

Self, Robert O. All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s (2012)

E. Primary Sources

Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave (1853)

Paine, Thomas. Age of Reason (1794-96)

Foster, Hannah Webster. The Coquette or, The History of Eliza Wharton (1797)

Perry Miller's "Errand into the Wilderness"

Miller, Perry. Errand into the Wilderness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956.

This post provides an overview of the "Preface" and of the leading chapter, "Errand into the Wilderness," in this classic collection by the great Perry Miller.

"Preface"

Miller says that while in central Africa he had an “epiphany” that revealed to him what he ought to do with his life. The task was thrust upon him. Since that time, he had spent 25 years studying “the innermost propulsion of the United States” (viii).

He tell us that, after all of that work, he and his generation of scholars have still not achieved anything like “the comprehensive understanding we presumptuously proposed” (ix), which is one reason he is so glad to see young scholars like Edmund S. Morgan and Bernard Bailyn coming along.

While acknowledging that "social" history can and does contribute to our understanding of the past, Miller is compelled to say that these sorts of probes really don't get at the essence of his subject. He seems to be saying that the most important facet in human history is intellectual history, and that the intellectual history of colonial America is essentially theological. Furthermore, people who think otherwise haven't examined the facts.

He describes the chapters of his book as “pieces,” not “essays.” The first word suggests a piece of work submitted by a deadline. The second word sounds like something much more definitive and timeless. Miller goes out of his way to mention that his pieces are incomplete. They are approximations. And since that’s the case, he’s glad to have had the opportunity to revise them. He comes across as a serious worker who does not take himself too seriously.

"Errand into the Wilderness"

In this fascinating piece, Miller begins with the seeming despair of the second- and third-generation preachers in New England. They seem to assume that their forebears, the first generation, were more devoted and much more capable than they were, and that the present generation had failed because they had not run as well as their predecessors. What, Miller wonders, was the source of this anxiety, and even dread?

He distinguishes between two connotations of the word "errand." These two meanings certainly would have been in the back of the mind of Samuel Danforth, the Puritan preacher who, in 1670, titled his election sermon "A Brief Recognition of New England's Errand into the Wilderness.": On the one hand, someone might be "an errand boy," merely doing someone else's bidding. On the other hand, one might be running errands for himself or herself. In the first scenario, the one running errands is not responsible for the list of things to do, only for the doing of them. In the second scenario, the one running errands is responsible for both. In which of these two had New England failed (or so it seemed to them)?

Plymouth was simple in that the Pilgrims were driven there by their convictions. Plymouth was more or less a forced migration. The only way that the Separatists could have had it otherwise would be if they ceased being Separatists.

The Great Migration of 1630 was completely different. Those people chose to go. The "Massachusetts Bay Colony come on an errand in the second and later sense of the word: it was, so to speak, on its own business" (5). Later, again: "These Puritans did not flee to America; they went in order to work out that complete reformation which was not yet accomplished in England and Europe, but which would quickly be accomplished if only the saints back there had a working model to guide them" (11).

A great section on the experience of change (economic and social) among the first generations of the Bay Colony, and how the jeremiad sermons of the preachers were a sort of ritualistic public venting, which took for granted that such change would continue and accelerate, and that sort of encouraged them, actually. Having grown up in little England, where no more land was to be had, Winthrop could never have imagined how the physical realities of the American experience would change everything for the residents of Massachusetts and their descendants. Expansion, which was impossible in England, was guaranteed in America (9).

Miller sets out to show that the migration connected with John Winthrop was intended “to vindicate the most rigorous ideal of the Reformation, so that ultimately all Europe would imitate New England” (12). In the words of Winthrop, the eyes of the whole world were upon them. The whole world would be watching to see whether or not a purified Christianity would emerge in the New World. And, because they were doing this for the Lord's honor and glory, there is a real sense in which their "errand" was being carried out in the first sense, i.e., at the behest of the Lord whose Word compelled them (11).

Miller says that this is precisely the reason why the second and third generations seem so dejected. What were the sources of this perception and problem?

1. Winthrop and his group had set the bar so incredibly high. To get the whole world to look on and to emulate New England as New England did everything right?

2. Not only that, there were many in England who took an interest in the American project, but who did not appreciate or approve of the policies and actions of the leaders in New England, namely the banishment of the likes of Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, Anabaptists, and Antinomians. Any one of these types would have been welcomed into Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army. And, upon winning, Cromwell would insist on all these being able to enjoy liberty of conscience (13).

3. And, the Civil Wars in England during the 1640s distracted the English and took away the “audience” of those in New England.

People in New England in the mid-1600s were having what Miller describes as a crisis of identity, which was even more troublesome to them than all of the natural hardships. Miller suggests that these events were a real turning point in America. His last few sentences read, “Their errand having failed in the first sense of the term, they were left with the second, and required to fill it with meaning by themselves and out of themselves. Having failed to rivet the eyes of the world upon their city on the hill, they were left alone with America” (15).

Aargh! A Book about Pirates!

Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004.

Marcus Rediker's Villains of All Nations is a cultural and social history of pirates on the Atlantic. By all accounts, the book distills Rediker's previously published writings about pirates, which first began to appear in 1981. The author identifies the years 1650-1730 as piracy's "golden age." He says those 80 years break down into three distinct periods, each one connected to a particular group: (1) the buccaneers: European "sea dogs" who attacked the ships of Catholic Spain, 1650-80, (2) pirates who worked the Indian Ocean, with their base on Madagascar, during the 1690s, and (3) the subjects of this book, the largest, most successful of the three groups: pirates who terrorized the Atlantic just after the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714)—which had established the perfect conditions for the rapid growth of piracy—until 1726, by which time the war against pirates was won.

This book focuses on those few thousand outlaws at sea who were active from 1716 to 1726, the decade described by the author as the heyday of piracy. Rediker highlights that, even when standing on the gallows, pirates routinely and defiantly announced that their short lives of crime were at least happy lives. Compared to serving on the crew of an abusive, tyrannical captain, their lives of piracy had been downright “merry.” Essentially, condemned pirates claimed that they had been driven to live as outlaws. Taking their claims seriously, Rediker argues that, in spite of the common image of pirates as greedy treasure seekers, the subjects of his book started out as abused, impoverished working seamen. Upon becoming pirates, they organized themselves in ways that were highly democratic, and they spoke of themselves as "honest" men (and a very few women) who were not seeking loot so much as justice for the common sailor.

As the foregoing suggests, Rediker works with what appears to be a wide array of sources, and seems to have had the primary data under a microscope for a long time.

To see and hear Rediker himself, check out this presentation he made about pirates back in 2007.

All's Fair in War? Larry Berman's Wonderful Book about Pham Xuan An

Berman, Larry. Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent. New York: HarperCollins/Smithsonian, 2007.

This finely-written book tells the story of one of the most fascinating real-life characters ever. If you like history with a bit of mystery, you'll love this.

*Spoiler Alert*

In early 1953 in the southernmost province of Vietnam, the legendary Le Duc Tho presided over a ceremony in which Pham Xuan An, the subject of this riveting story, became a member of the Communist Party. Shortly afterward, the Party determined An's career. They realized he had the intellect and disposition to become a first-rate spy. For many years to come, An would lead a brilliant double life.

As historian and author Larry Berman explains, in the early 1950s, the leaders of the Communist Party fully realized that the United States was in the process of replacing the French colonialists in Vietnam. To the U.S.--in spite of American propaganda--Vietnam was never about the Vietnamese people. It was always about Cold War containment and the incredible task of keeping all of the dominoes in Southeast Asia standing straight.

For their part, many of the Vietnamese people had no interest in being told by the French or the Americans or anyone else that they would not be allowed to determine their own national future. As they had with the French, the Vietnamese would do everything they could to resist the Americans. Secretly, Pham Xuan An and his network would become a powerful component of that resistance.

In 1957, An came to Orange Coast College in California where he learned English, became acquainted with American culture, and developed many contacts inside the U.S. He even worked for the college newspaper where he made several new friends. Upon returning to Vietnam, An was at first quite nervous. Living in Saigon, he wondered, would he be suspected and arrested? Once he settled down, An began to develop relationships with important Americans and high-ranking leaders within the South Vietnamese government. In the years to come, An worked for the Reuters news service, the New York Herald Tribune, and eventually for Time magazine. All along, he was one of Hanoi's most valuable informants. He didn't have to steal information. It was freely discussed and shared with him by people who considered An a colleague and friend.

In short, Pham Xuan An may have been the one of the greatest con men and informants ever. For many years, he lived as both a first-rate journalist in Saigon working for American news outlets, and also as a hero of the Communist government headquartered in Hanoi.

Church of Christ in Altus, Oklahoma: Some Photos from the Archives

Ground-breaking for the Hudson and Elm Church of Christ building, c. 1925. The façade indicates the building was completed in 1926. From left to right: 1. ?  2. Hilton Stacy  3. ?  4. J. C. Chisum  5. not wearing a hat, J. A. Cullum, preacher for the congregation  6. D. C. Oliver  7. W. A. Chisum  8. J. R. McMahan, who reportedly donated the land.

Silas and Willie Howell, c. 1936. Silas was then preacher for the congregation.

A closer look at Silas and Willie Howell

October 2, 1966. The photographer's notes on the photo identify two people. Wallace Gooch, preacher for the congregation at the time, is on the first row, second from the left (head tilted to his right side). Don Hayes, song director, is on the first row, first to the left of the aisle.  Full-time preachers for the congregation included the following:

1927-34 W. Claude Hall (left when invited by N. B. Hardeman to come back to F-HC)...
1934-37 Silas Howell
1937-41 Glenn Green
1941-43 Frank B. Shepherd
1943-46 Wallace Layton
1947-50 G. C. Abbott
1950-53 W. S. Boyett

Mack Lyon

Claude Robertson

Don Kern

L. N. Moody

Wallace Gooch

Gary Colley

Gene Gilmore

Wayne Price

Bill Osborne

Others who preached from this pulpit: Foy E. Wallace, Jr., G. C. Brewer, Ernest Highers, O. C. Lambert, V. E. Howard, Maxie Boren, Jimmy Allen, S. H. Hall, J. D. Tant, Horace Busby, Jesse B. Sewell, Delmar Owens, N. B. Hardeman, Roy Cogdill, Homer Hailey, John Bannister, C. E. McGaughey, George DeHoff, Perry Cotham.

Report on Forrest M. McCann, "Changes in Worship Music in Churches of Christ"

McCann, Forrest M. "'Time is Filled with Swift Transition': Changes in Worship Music in Churches of Christ." Restoration Quarterly 39 (Fourth Quarter 1997): 195-202.

This article was originally a speech, delivered at Abilene Christian University in 1997. Forrest McCann, a musician and historian, identifies and describes distinct episodes in the musical history of the Churches of Christ. According to him, they are as follows:

The Nineteen Century: The Campbell Tradition

No surprise, Alexander Campbell was the most significant influence on the worship music of the Disciples movement during the nineteenth century. Campbell had been raised a Presbyterian. Consequently, he favored the "metrical versions of the Psalms" well-known among the Presbyterians. His original hymnal of 1828 was republished a number of times. And, it served as the basis for hymnals produced by the American Christian Missionary Society between 1865 and 1882.

First Major Transition: Competition

In 1882, James Henry Fillmore published a song book that was much the same as the one produced by the ACMS. But, Fillmore's book was cheaper! Consequently, Campbell's dream of the the united Disciples having just one hymnal was crushed. Too, a new era of song-book competition began. Standard Publishing produced a hymnal in 1888, and in 1889, the Gospel Advocate came out with a hymnal whose lyrics were overseen and edited by E. G. Sewell. Interestingly, there was evidently no one among the Churches of Christ at the time who was qualified to oversee the music for the Gospel Advocate hymnal. So, a Methodist musician, Rigdon M. McIntosh who was on the faculty at Vanderbilt, did the job.

Second Major Transition: Advocate Books

Following the official separation between the Christian Churches and the non-instrument, non-society Churches of Christ in 1906, hymnals produced by the Gospel Advocate always had a non-instrument, Churches of Christ text editor. But, again, there was apparently no one in the group who was qualified to oversee the musical part of the hymnal. Consequently, an "instrumental" brother or someone like the Methodist Rigdon McIntosh edited the tunes. "The sad fact is that since the 1906 separation, Churches of Christ have never been a part of the mainstream of church song in America" (196).

Third Major Transition: Competition Again

Just as there was competition among Disciples hymnals in the 1880s, the emerging Churches of Christ witnessed similar competition. There were the Gospel Advocate hymnals, which competed with hymnals produced by the Firm Foundation, plus a large number of hymnals produced by independent editors. None of these hymnals featured songs whose words and music were consistently good.

Among the many hymnals published in the early 20th century, The Wonderful Story in Song (1917), by F. L. Rowe, was more substantial than most, and had some staying power (197). Some of the song books produced by the Churches of Christ in the first half of the twentieth century were of very low quality.

West of the Mississippi, Churches of Christ typically used the hymnals produced by the Firm Foundation headquartered in Texas. Hymnals were edited by G.H.P. Showalter, editor of the Firm Foundation magazine. The content of these hymnals was heavily influenced by F. L. Eiland, "the most prominent singing-school teacher among the Churches of Christ in Texas" and his proteges (197). Eiland's own Trio Music Company and subsequent Quartet Music Company produced several small, paperback hymnals, none of which lasted very long. These were filled with the words and music of Eiland and his students, songs which no one had ever sung before (and hardly since). Especially in the west, Churches of Christ were going their own way musically. This was a regional, mediocre tradition which produced very few songs which have lasted. Eiland's best-known book was The Gospel Gleaner (1901).

(FVB's guess is that the two best-known songs from this time and place are F. L. Eiland, "Time is Filled with Swift Transition," and a song by one of Eiland's students, Will Slater, "Walking Alone at Eve").

Fourth Major Transition: Great Songs

In May 1921, E. L. Jorgenson, a trained musician, completed Great Songs of the Church. Commendations poured in and were published in Word and Work, which had produced the new hymnal. Among Churches of Christ hymnals, the quality was unprecedented. And, this hymnal "reconnected the Churches of Christ with the great historic tradition of hymns and spiritual songs" (198). The book was a combination of Christian history and more-recent music produced by the Restoration Movement. Here was the best music from Christendom and from Restorationism. The musical isolationism of the Churches of Christ was coming to an end.

In producing Great Songs of the Church, Jorgenson was heavily influenced by the lesser-known W. E. M. Hackleman. For example, like Hackleman (and Fillmore), Jorgenson divided his collection into "Hymns" and "Gospel Songs."

Fifth Major Transition: The Dominance of Great Songs

The Gospel Advocate was silent about Great Songs, which was published by Word and Work, associated with R. H. Boll and premillennialism. Nonetheless, Great Songs became the standard everywhere, apparently because of its quality and despite its connections to "Bollism." By 1958, Jorgenson could say, "Nearly three million souls, in some 10,000 churches, now sing the Saviour's praises from its pages" (200). In the 50s, Jorgeson sold his standard-note edition of the hymnal to the Christian Standard, and the shaped-noted edition to Abilene Christian University. "The result of these transactions was that for the next decade and a half the heirs of the Stone-Campbell Movement again approached Alexander Campbell's dream of one hymnal for the churches" (200).

Sixth Major Transition: Imitation

Beginning in the mid-50s, producers of song books began simply copying songs straight from Great Songs of the Church. Sometimes the new books were 50 percent reproductions of songs from Jorgenson's work. They did so with impunity and apparently came to imagine that what they were doing was right. "His work, which has greatly elevated and standardized our hymnody, is now in its death throes because of inveterate copying. Perhaps my speech today is its requiem" (201). (Seems like this section should be called "Duplication" not "Imitation").

Seventh Major Transition: Current Events

McCann clearly saw the 1990s as an era of decline. A summary of his observations:

1. Only seventeen years later, it is astonishing to read McCann's assumption that part of the answer is to keep the best hymnals in print. (How many Christians sing from a printed hymnal anymore? They sing words projected onto a screen. In many cases, there is no musical notation).

2. Publishers of song books operate on the premise that more songs makes for a better book. McCann notes that by that time, there was a hymnal with over 1000 selections.

3. The advent of "so-called praise songs."

4. A trend toward performance music, music written for choirs and other trained musicians, not for "the average worshiper" (201).

In his conclusion, MaCann hints that the introduction of more-complicated music makes the adoption of instrumental music more likely. He quotes approvingly from a 1861 article by Isaac Errett in the Millennial Harbinger, which discusses the importance of music and singing.

See also, Forrest M. McCann, "Changing Our Tune: The History of Hymnals," Gospel Advocate 140 (December 1998), 12-16.

Abstract of Everett Ferguson on "Alexander Campbell's Sermon on the Law"

Ferguson, Everett. "Alexander Campbell's Sermon on the Law: A Historical and Theological Examination," Restoration Quarterly 29 (1987): 71-85.

This article explains the historical, religious, and polemical contexts of a sermon which, in printed form, became one of the seminal texts of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, especially in connection with attitudes toward the Old Testament. Ferguson observes that statements from the sermon were later taken out of these contexts and applied in ways that had the effect of discounting the authority and usefulness of the O.T. Ferguson argues that Campbell did not intend to demean the O.T. Instead, he was interested in cutting off typical Protestant appeals to it for practices such as infant baptism, observing Sunday as a Christian Sabbath, national covenanting, and the establishment of civil law. He concludes that if someone wants a better understanding of how Campbell understood the O.T. and used it as Scripture, he should read Campbell's Familiar Lectures on the Pentateuch.

South Thornton Church of Christ in Piggott, Arkansas: From Early Beginnings to the Mid-20th Century

The historical roots of the South Thornton Church of Christ in Piggott, Arkansas go back to the small band of Christians who first began meeting together in the Haywood community around 1917. The first building was erected on a plot of ground donated by Jake Haywood. About the same time, another small church was meeting in homes and in a theater in Piggott. Around 1932, the Haywood church decided it would be better for them to meet in town. The two churches merged.

The newly-formed congregation first met in a lodge hall at the corner of Front and Court Streets. Occasional preachers for the church in those early years were A. B. Shaver, Elvis Huffard, Cecil Wright, Thetus Pritchard, Thomas Pack, and B. G. Hope. Several special efforts to evangelize the community by public proclamation were conducted by C. L. Wilkerson, Joe Warlick, and G. C. Brewer. The consensus of recollection is that the most notable of these efforts was a 1931 tent meeting in which the preaching of G. C. Brewer attracted much attention and during which many were baptized.

In November of 1940, the plot of ground at the corner of South Thornton and Bruce Streets was donated to the church by Randall Davis. Soon, a frame building was erected, utilizing lumber from the old Haywood building. In May 1948, continued growth necessitated more space. A brick auditorium was built. The old building was turned ninety degrees, placed at the back of the new auditorium in the early 1950s. In 1963, a large auditorium was constructed adjacent and parallel to the existing one. The older building was partitioned to provide classrooms and a remnant of the old auditorium was retained as a fellowship area in the center.

In many respects, the most notable character who contributed to the tremendous numerical growth of the 1940s was Harbert D. Hooker. At first, Hooker commuted to Piggott from his home in Poplar Bluff, Missouri in order to preach and to promote the gospel. Around 1945, Hooker became the first full-time preacher employed by the congregation. His five years of work with the church were very fruitful.

Note: The bulk of this brief overview, which I wrote in November 1991, comes from histories recorded in several South Thornton Church directories, and from C. Ray Miller, "Church of Christ: Its History in Piggott," Piggott Times, Vol. 1, February 29, 1968. For a sketch of the lives of A. B. Shaver and C. L. Wilkerson, see Boyd E. Morgan, Arkansas Angels (Paragould, AR: College Bookstore and Press, 1967), pp. 93-94 and 136-38, respectively.

Notes on Robert A. Orsi, Madonna of 115th Street

Orsi, Robert Anthony. The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.

The following are my notes on the title listed above. In a few minutes, you can get an overview of the contents of this book. The introduction and successive chapter titles appear in bold print.

Introduction: Popular Religion and Italian Harlem

Orsi begins by explaining, "This is a study of religion in the streets. It is the story of a religious celebration, the annual festa of the Madonna of Mount Carmel on East 115th Street in New York City, . . . " (xiii).

He states that there are two senses of the word religion: (1) rituals, practices, symbols, prayers, statements of faith, creeds, etc., and (2) what really matters to people: their cosmology, the collection of their ultimate values, what they deeply care about. Naturally, this raises the question: So how does a historian get at (2)? Orsi says that there are basically two ways: (a) you talk with and ask people and (b) you observe, you watch people.

"The main subject of this study, then, is the history of the devotion to and the festa in honor of the Madonna of 115th Street and its place in the religious life of the people who lived in the tenements, shopped in the stores, courted in the parks, and walked the streets around la casa della Madonna in Italian Harlem" (xxi).

Orsi says that when conducting his research, he had some secondary interests as well:

1. To analyze a modern, urban religious experience. How to do that?
2. To make a contribution to the understanding of Catholicism. Orsi notes that official spokesmen for Catholicism often speak of only a slice of what that religion actually does and is all about.
3. To offer a social history of a religious symbol.
4. To show how popular religion serves as the sacred theater of a community like Italian Harlem.

1. The Days and Nights of the Festa

An engaging description of the festa. Pilgrimage to the church took place on July 16th, but special events carried on for days. People came to Italian Harlem from all over the Northeast U.S., and even farther away. The devotional activities were extravagant: candles that weighed as much as a man, wax body-part replicas, expensive outfits, plenty of food and drink. Orsi says that he wants to get at what this meant, what it was all about.

2. Italian Harlem

Italian Harlem was upper east side Manhattan. Italians came there from the old country and also from lower Manhattan. Orsi provides a good section on the realities and hardships of immigration. Many of the first immigrants were single men, working enough to either return to their families in Italy with money, or to send remittances on which their relatives could survive and eventually buy passage to America.  The author emphasizes how vulnerable immigrants were and how hard they worked. Italian immigrants were often despised by other ethnic groups in New York because the Italians were used by labor to end strikes. Apparently, Italians were hired to take the place of striking workers. They were much more desperate for work, willing to labor under all sorts of conditions.

Orsi emphasizes the slum character of Italian Harlem. It was overcrowded and conditions were poor. A very high rate of infant mortality in that part of the city. As Italians began to do better for themselves, they would sometimes move out to the Bronx or to Astoria Queens.

3. The Origins of the Devotion to Mount Carmel in Italian Harlem

The author describes the beginnings of the festa in the early 1880s. He notes especially how the status of the Madonna matched the status of her devotees. Orsi states that origins go back to the earliest mutual aid societies in Italian Harlem. He describes how that feste were very important in Italian-American Catholicism. The feste, and the Italians who held and participated in them, were looked down on and condemned by Irish Catholics. It should be remembered that the feste were largely conducted by the laity. Italian American Catholic clergy were also no fans of the feste. But the Catholic Church depended on the Italians because of the large contributions they made to feste societies.

Orsi says that there were really three festas of the Madonna on 115th Street: the one that took place inside the church under the direction of the Catholic clergy, the one that took place in the streets and had next to nothing to do with official Catholic teaching or liturgy; and the one that was somewhere in between the first two, and which was expressed in both the church and in the streets (p. 59).

In 1903-04, the Madonna of 115th Street was elevated by authorities in Rome from the status of a shrine to that of a sanctuary. This has occurred in only three places in the New World: New Orleans, Mexico, and 115 Street in Harlem. Orsi explains the Vatican's motives for doing this: the move appealed to Italians in America and sent a signal to American Catholic leaders that, although they looked down on the popular practices and devotional activities of Italian Americans, they were not in charge of the American church.

At the end of the chapter, Orsi describes the decline of the festa in Harlem; how that on 115th St. it went from a situation where a festa had a church, to one where a church had a festa. Italian Americans were moving out of the old neighborhood, going to places like the Bronx, New Jersey, and Westchester.

4. The Domus-Centered Society

An interesting chapter on the family as a near or virtual religion in Italian culture: Sunday gathering of the group was expected; people could be "excommunicated" for certain infractions, etc. This was reinforced by a kind of anti clericalism among Italians. Good section on the significance of rispetto (esp. 92-93).

5. Conflicts in the Domus

Emphasizes inter-generational conflicts; those between immigrants who had been born and raised in Italy and their American-born children. Rules and norms of the older generation seemed quaint and suffocating to the much-more-American second generation.

Also, conflicts within the domus that impacted particularly women. Wives and mothers were granted a large measure of authority within the home, although they were submissive in public. Seems like what Orsi is getting at is that men insisted on public authority, but that they did not accept an equal measure of responsibility at home. That burden fell to the wife and mother, who typically worked night and day, and who appealed to and empowered the eldest son to carry out her orders in public. (Was this because she resented her husband for this abdication?) Single women had virtually no autonomy.

6. Toward an Inner History of Immigration

Orsi describes the anxieties and paradoxes of the immigrant experience. They wanted to be free from desperate poverty. They came to America and met with back-breaking work, unscrupulous bosses, etc. There was the tug and pull of leaving Italy, and then wondering if it was the right decision. They had grandiose visions of what New York would be like, and were bitterly disappointed. They had not anticipated that they could not simply come to America and make money without America changing them and their families. After immigration, impoverished village or farm life in Italy seemed wholesome and preferable to the dark and hard, unhealthy life in the huge city.

7. The Meanings of the Devotion to the Madonna of 115th Street

A. The Madonna was seen as the person, the power who brought people together from across great distances, and who cared for and protected people who were distant.

B. The Madonna "was a visible link between Italy and East Harlem" (168).

C. The experience of the festa put Italians in touch with their "preverbal environment" (171). Orsi focuses on the combined power of sights, sounds, and smells. He also mentions the significance of scapulars.

D. "Participation in the celebration of the feste and worship of the summarizing symbol of the Madonna  became the nexus between the individual domus and the neighborhood in Italian Harlem" (178). Orsi mentions, among other things, the assertion of Italian presence and pride during the processions which marked off the boundaries of the Italian community in East Harlem.

E. "The community reveals itself to itself" says Orsi. One example he gives: Through volunteer projects for the purpose of enhancing, beautifying the church on 115th Street, the community became aware of what it could do. Also, the festa was a community expression of the solidarity of that group, a time of heightened awareness of and commitment to their interconnection.

F. Orsi says that devotion to the Madonna of 115th Street was partially the result of American Catholicism's rejection of the culture of Italian immigrants. Thus, the Italian community turned to the Madonna as a sort of alternative to a church that did not accept them.

G. Orsi says that the "sense world" of the festa was the context in which healing in the Italian community was effectual.

H. "The festa of the Madonna of Mount Carmel announced that the entire texture of Italian humanity was good, that these people's needs and styles of organizing their inner and outer lives were good" (196).

8. The Theology of the Streets

A wordy condensation and summary of the book. It makes sense, but it's still hard to get a handle on this book, whose points are sometimes slippery and amorphous.

Some Time with Bill Humble

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to share lunch and to spend some time with Dr. Bill Humble, well-known among Churches of Christ as a historian, teacher, author, and international tour guide. For many years, he taught and served as an administrator at Abilene Christian University.

So what is he up to these days? At nearly 87 years old, he still walks about a mile and a half every morning, six days a week. When the weather is bad, he uses the treadmill.

He has given away almost all of his personal library. Only a few dozen volumes remain. He says that his days of deep study are over. He doesn't actively research anything anymore. That sort of thing "no longer holds the same attraction" for him. Of course, he reads a little, mostly in books or magazines that are available in large print. It helps that the head of the nearby branch of the public library just happens to be one of his former students. She is able to get him a large-print copy of most any book he wants to read.

He told me that he spends some time almost every day working on his memoirs. His daughter insisted that he write up at least some of his remarkable experiences. But he emphasized that these would be only for his immediate family. With that, he read to me a beautiful passage about how he, a first-year college student from the hills of Missouri, sat and listened as 70-year-old N. B. Hardeman spoke about his time in the Holy Land. That, said Bill, was the beginning of many trips that he would eventually make to Israel and to other parts of the world.

His wife, Geraldine "Jerry" Humble, died in March of this year. Their son, Eric, passed away about three years ago. It can't be easy for Bill anymore. Yet he remains cheerful and his mind is still sharp. I sat and talked with him, feeling lucky, thankful for the opportunity to be in the presence of this great man.