Book Description
This condensed version of Lawrence Goodwyn's Democratic Promise, the highly-acclaimed study on American Populism which the Civil Liberties Review called "a brilliant, comprehensive study," offers new political language designed to provide a fresh means of assessing both democracy and authoritarianism today.
Customer Reviews:
Major Work Relevant to Reuniting America Today.......2007-06-27
I was moved, impressed, and inspired by this book. There are a couple of other reviews that do excellent jobs of summarizing, so I will try to limit my ten pages of notes to a few highlights, and some other books that I believe can help the 3 out of 5 Americans that want "none of those now running." The Republican and Democratic parties have sold out (this is best documented in Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It) and it is time we restored the Constitution and demanded Electoral Reform to restore We the People as sovereign.
Written in 1978, this book could not have come to me, and others in the transpartisan movement, at a better time.
The author opens with very helpful overviews of how a mass culture, a mass indoctrination, if you will, is a much cheaper and easier way to keep the mass docile, than a forced or fascist solution. He reminds me of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.
He then moves to the manner in which industrialization eroded democracy, making it a poor facade. I am reminded of Manufacture of Evil: Ethics, Evolution, and the Industrial System
He then stresses how in a damaged or constrained democracy, public resignation and private escapism are the dominant features of the mass public.
He then moves into an overview of the agrarian-based populist movement that was crushed by the railroads, Pinkerton's as an illegal army, and the banks, with the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 being the consummation of the banking victory over the people.
He notes that mass protest requires a higher order of culture, education, and achievement, especially in harmonization of disparate nodes. He identifies four steps within which the third is clearly of vital importance:
1. Autonomous institution emerges as a hub
2. Recruiting of masses takes place
3. Educating of masses takes place (40,000 "lecturers")
4. Politicization of the masses actualizes their power to good effect.
The author does a superb job of stressing the importance of internal communication, and says that IF this can be achieved, THEN a new plateau of social responsibility is possible. He calls this plateau of cooperative and democratic conduct "the movement culture."
The populists achieved a "sense of somebodyness." I am reminded of All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (Bk Currents) as well as Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People.
He examines the Civil War and concludes that it changed everything--it fragmented the nation into sectarian, religious, and racial prejudices. Latter in the book he examines the pernicious effects of white supremacy, which ultimately undid the potential collaboration among poor whites, poor blacks, and poor Catholics factory workers in the Northeast.
The populists tried to break free of the railroads and banks that conspired to keep them in debt forever. Among their brilliant leaders, one stood out, conceptualizing both a large scale credit cooperative (i.e. public ownership of the essentials of society including food, water, energy, and communications), and a sub-treasury that would ensure that natural resources were applied to the needs of the people and not to squatter or absentee landlords.
The seven "demands" of the populists, ultimately crushed by the banks:
1) Abolishment of banks, issuance of government tender
2) Government ownership of the means of communication & transportation
3) Prohibition of alien ownership of USA land
4) Free and unlimited coinage in silver
5) Equitable taxation among classes
6) Fractional paper currency
7) Government economy
The populists opposed "organized capital", emphasized living issues over dead or archaic contracts, and tried to establish their own newspapers because they understood that the mainstream media had been co-opted by the railroads and the banks.
The following quote on page 168, from the year 1892, is eerily relevant to today:
"The people are demoralized. ...The newspapers are subsidized or muzzled; public opinion silenced; business prostrate; our homes covered with mortgages; labor impoverished; and the land concentrated in the hands of capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down our own wages; a hireling standing army (Pinkerton's), unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down; and they are rapidly disintegrating to European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes, unprecedented, while their possessors despise the republic and endanger liberty."
Wow. I am reminded of virtually every book I have read in the past four years on unilateral militarism, virtual colonialism, and predatory immoral capitalism. Just a couple can be mentioned here:
The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - and What It Will Take to Win It Back
The Working Poor: Invisible in America
The author draws the book to a close by observing four trends that spelled the demise of the populist movement:
1. Banishment of "financial issue" from public debate
2. Corporate mergers (and one could add, corporate "personality")
3. Decline of public participation in democracy
4. Corporate domination of mass communications
He identifies three persistent flaws in the existing American economy:
1. Land ownership permitting alien, absentee, and predatory landlords
2. Basic financial structure that imposes debt rather than credit
3. Corporate centralization
He stresses that populism is not socialism, but rather a democratic promise emergent. He is optemistic that lessons from the populist failure could be used by farmers, laborers, and others to do a mass insurgency, to "work together to be free individually."
If we are to defeat the current corrupt Republican and Democratic parties, we must do so in a transpartisan fashion: a third party must be based on the disaffected from both of the corrupt "main parties" while attracting back to the debate and the electoral process the lapsed voters and the new voters. I think we can do that for 2008.
Populism was more then a rhetorical style...........2005-06-26
Most college kids in the 70's were force-fed RICHARD HOFSTADTER's book, The Age of Reform, which ridiculed populism.
But having grown up the son of a immigrant farm boy and county agent, my view of the midwestern populism and farm culture was much much different.
So Goodwyn's book was a welcome documentation of what I had known all along--that populism was a uniquely American movement, and the spirit of the frontier was never rugged individualism, but community.
The Farmer-Laborer Alliances of the late 19th Century, and the People's Party that resulted, always referred to their reform movement as 'cooperation', and quoted Thomas Jefferson, and the founding fathers. In this context, populism was uniquely American. It was a struggle between democratic capitalism vs. speculative and monopoly capitalism.
Real populism was about creating cooperative systems to consolidate farmer's economic power in competition with the railroads and the banks. It was the alternative to the disasterous crop-lien system of the rural south that turned so many of Jefferson's yoeman farmers into destitute sharecroppers, that forced them out of their homes to settle the western plains.
Goodwyn's book debunks the idea the William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech was the defining highpoint of populism, when in fact it was it's destruction. Goodwyn points out that free silver was never more then a shadow movement of an immensely popular political movement.
Goodwyn also debunks the later-day revisionists like Michael Kazin's book, author of The Populist Persuasion, that populism was a style of rhetoric than a coherent set of political ideas or reforms.
While the People's Party was co-opted and destroyed by the Democrat Party, most of the reforms advocated by the populists came to pass in the 1930's with the agricultural reforms of the 1930's. Things like the rural electrification, the regulation of the railroads, the Farm Credit Administration, and the federal reserve all grew out the original populist ideas. Because of the populist complaints, eventually government intervention in the grain and other food commodies marketplace was recognized as the means of democraticizing and strengthing the market system, stablizing the food supply, and strengthening the market system.
But most importantly, the dignity of the common man against the rich and powerful urban elite entered American political discourse.
This is an important book, and a welcome understanding of perhaps the most successful movement by common folks to control their own destiny.
The Last Great Mass Democratic Movement.......2003-12-20
Seldom in our nation's history have there been widespread, grass-roots challenges to the economic and political system. According to the author, the agrarian movement of the late 1880s, otherwise known as Populism, was in fact the last such great challenge. Beyond the history of the movement, the author is much concerned with the implications for future democratic movements.
The small farmers in western Texas in the 1880s recognized that the economic cards were stacked against them. The crop lien system and the "furnishing" merchant, the exorbitant prices paid for goods combined with low prices paid for cash crops, and the price gouging of railroads - all of these inspired some farmers to begin forming local alliances that would try to use cooperative methods to bypass those powerful interests that placed farmers in economic thralldom. Lecturers that spread across the South, and even westward and northward, drew upon close-knit farming community ties to eventually establish some 40,000 "sub-alliances" involving two million people, all finally part of a National Farmers Alliance. Through local trade stores, warehouses, and state exchanges, these sub-alliances attempted to buy and sell in bulk. But these efforts met with varying and limited success. Banking interests, grain elevator operators, and stockyards, among others, refused to deal with these farming groups, to accept their notes based on their cash crops and land.
It is hardly surprising, given their radical critique of economic interests, that agrarian organizers would turn to political action to seek redress for farmer grievances. Yet the turn to politics was a highly complicating development for agrarian reform. The agrarian platform was highly radical for the times involving such issues as land reform, labor rights, government ownership and control of transportation and communication, and banking and currency reform with the elimination of the gold standard. But the hold of generational allegiances to the Democratic and Republican parties prevented many farmers from shifting to independent politics despite the fact that their traditional parties were resolutely opposed to many of the farmers' measures. Attempts at reform through the traditional parties were met by cooptation and demagoguery.
The People's Party was formed at Omaha in July, 1892. The party's platform was the agrarian platform containing not only the National Alliance's sub-treasury plan, which was a plan for the issuance of greenbacks, but also calling for the free coinage of silver, both planks having the effect of increasing the money supply. Electoral success was limited. The Democratic Party through coopting of the silver issue and flagrant electoral fraud was able to defeat the Populists throughout the South, where they had their greatest support. In 1896 the People's Party through pre-convention intrigue actually nominated a staunch silver Democrat, William Jennings Bryan, for president, thus essentially ending the Populist movement. According to the author, Populism had become a "shadow" movement, a mere shell of its former orientation.
For the author, democratic mass movements that take issue with core aspects of society face almost insurmountable odds. In the first place, there are the assumptions that the "system" works, that the system contains mechanisms for continual progress and for overcoming problems. In fact, there exists an entire school of thought among historians that contends that the Populists were cranks unwilling to accept social progress and sought only to maintain an antiquated way of life. That school of thought is most closely associated with historian Richard Hofstadter. However, the author finds that the Populists' grievances were real enough while admitting the difficulties of overcoming the received culture. In addition, the author contends that the hierarchical nature of social structures and the accompanying deferential behavior make independent thought and action exceedingly difficult.
Genuine mass movements cannot be top-down driven. The formation of a mass movement that can achieve political viability must proceed from the ground up. Key to any such movement is the establishment of an independent institution that through the participation of its members develops an ideology and strategy that counters prevailing authority. The counter organization must educate and recruit new adherents. The agrarian movement was based on the sub-alliances and their cooperative ventures and achieved extensive recruitment and education through a lecturing system. The politicization step is often difficult to take and sustain because member activism takes on an indirect element in that it is geared to electoral success allowing party elites to then fully engage in the governmental process. Populism was ultimately unable to successfully take the political step.
The author suggests that the failures of Populism essentially defined the boundaries of the possible in fundamentally changing basic structures of American culture. First Progressivism and then liberalism all operated on a basis of incremental reform. In other words, the system works. The policies forming the Federal Reserve, allowing the constant rise of farm tenantry, and permitting the continued centralization and rise in influence of corporations all rejected or minimized the scope of the Populist program.
This book is a short form of the author's complete work, "The Democratic Promise." At times the book takes on the feel of an overview. For example, it would have been interesting to see far more details concerning the actually workings of the various cooperative efforts at the sub-alliance level. And following the twin threads of the Alliance and the People's Party across many states and conventions over a ten year period can be a little sketchy.
The author's insights into forming mass democratic movements and mounting cultural challenges are outstanding. Those insights add to the understanding of Populism. It should give anyone pause when considering the ability of modern movements to impact the status quo.
A Short Review of the Populist Moment.......2000-02-19
Obviously influenced by the New Social history and the Sixties' social movements, Lawrence Goodwyn attempts a major reinterpretation of the Populist movement in The Populist Moment, an abridged version of his epic Democratic Promise: The Populist Movement in America. Although Goodwyn's main project is a redefinition of Populism and stress on the movement's culture, he also provides a theory for social action that serves as the narrative structure for his history and a useful philosophy in itself. Placing the origins of Populism in Texas and conceptualizing the Farmers' Alliance as the movement's ideological core, Goodwyn's analysis marginalizes the Fusionists and Free Silverites, providing a powerful reinterpretation and the main strength of the book. However, by stressing these aspects of the movement, Goodwyn fails to take in the whole of Populism in all its disparate manifestations.
Before proceeding to the history of Populism, Goodwyn begins his book by introducing his "sequential process of democratic movement-building:" forming, recruiting, educating, and politicizing. (xviii) It is this theory of building and maintaining a movement culture, which provides the outline for Goodwyn's history. For Goodwyn, the movement successfully formed, recruited, and educated a large body of supporters. However, in politicizing, the movement failed to maintain its educational program and cooperative institutions, thereby opening the way for Silverites and Fusionists while losing its movement culture that attracted and held the base supporters.
Throughout the book Goodwyn centers Populism in the Farmers' Alliance of Texas and sees Charles Macune and William Lamb as the movement's unofficial leaders. In response to increasing poverty, drastically reduced farm prices, and, most importantly, the centralization of power and resources, the Farmers' Alliance sprung forth from communities in central Texas as a way for tenants, sharecroppers, and small farmers to educate themselves about politics, economics, and agriculture. Building membership and loyalty through cooperatives stores and the joint marketing of crops, the Alliance expanded across the South and Midwest through a phalanx of itinerant lecturers spreading the group's message. As their cooperatives fell victim to the ongoing economic recession, Charles Macune developed a federal sub-treasury plan that would create a fiat currency for farmers, essentially issuing greenbacks as loans backed by the harvest. While the sub-treasury never came to fruition, Goodwyn defines true Populists as unaligned supporters of the plan and members of the Farmers' Alliance. Consequently for Goodwyn, everyone else falls under the 'shadow' movement of Silverites and Fusionists. With this conception of Populism, Goodwyn locates the movement's demise not in the failure of Bryan's campaign, but in the People's Party support of the free silver Democratic ticket.
Goodwyn attempts a major reinterpretation of the Populist movement and largely succeeds by marginalizing the 'shadow' movement. Furthermore, his detailed analysis of Populism's development posits a truly democratic movement of common folk united by a shared set of concerns. By tying the rise and fall of Populism to his movement theory, Goodwyn provides a tremendously useful framework for understanding the broad implications, successes, and failures of the movement. While his reinterpretation can not be overemphasized, his book falls short by not paying more attention to the 'shadow' movement in the West and Midwest. The 'shadow' movement of free silver and fusion was an important and influential component of Populism; by not giving it attention, Goodwyn tells only half the story. Finally, Goodwyn's analysis of Populism could have benefited from talking more about race. Despite the connection with the Colored Farmers' Alliance, at its heart, Populism was based on white supremacy, deeply problematizing Goodwyn's eulogy of Populism as the last truly democratic American social movement.
Goodwyn created one of the three classics of populism.......1999-02-06
In a very thorough manner, Mr. Goodwyn covers the history of the populist movement thru its years as the farmers' alliance and the Peoples' Party! The leading people, the main party newspapers,the conventions, experiments and actions of this great movement are covered in this excellent book! Put this powerfully written book next to the classics by Hicks and McMath! A must have!
Average customer rating:
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Albert Camus and the Literature of Revolt (Galaxy Books)
John Cruickshank
Manufacturer: OUP Australia and New Zealand
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Book Description
Classic science fiction action-adventure. Book #10 in the "Family d'Alembert" series.
Customer Reviews:
Wow, where to begin.......2006-08-10
People accept this as history? It is argued that Walsh looks at the facts and presents an unbiased view of history? Are we reading the same book?
I tend to agree with the reviewer who felt that Walsh was anti-Semitic. I won't go so far as to say that, but Walsh does seem to come off that way. First off, Walsh himself admitted that the Jews and conversos were in the minority. Not only were they in the minority but they were condemned and risked much of their well being for their faiths. Yet Walsh would have us believe that the Jews and conversos ran everything, that they controlled Spain before Isabella and Fernando came to the scene. I would agree partially, that they indeed did have some among the most wealthy, just from the fact that they tended to lend tons of money to the crown. But to go so far as to claim they ruled Spain, and not only ruled it but flaunted their religion and mocked the Catholic faith? Rubbish, pure rubbish. And I understand that we must put ourselves in the time of Isabella and try and understand the religious climate, but Walsh goes too far, so far in fact he brings his own beliefs into his telling.
His beliefs trick him into believing the totals given by propagandist chroniclers (Pulgar) and Inquisitors tales. When the Inquisitors came to town, everyone flocked to confess their sins and how they erred towards their faith. It was the only sure way of not having the finger pointed at you by someone else and receiving a harsh punishment, if not death! So to believe that there were that many conversos and sinners to their faith because the Inquisitors found them just doesn't make sense, yet Walsh believes this. He also uses as his main source, and he doesn't use many of them, Pulgar, who just happens to be Isabella's chronicler while she lived. Any amateur historian would know that chroniclers puff their patrons egos and make them sound better (read the Plantagenet Chronicles if you want a look at how they wrote); that they use it as propaganda not only to earn the respect of their patron but flatter their ego as well; that if they painted their monarch in a bad light they would be summarily executed or ruined politically. This is why it is hard to use chroniclers of that king/queen's lifetime, or even the king/queens of the same lineage. So these must be taken with a grain of salt and weed through it. Yet Walsh quotes Pulgar throughout the book, sometimes using him as the sole source for a chapter. And this is well researched?
As well, which hints of Walsh's use of Pulgar, Walsh paints Isabella as this royal saint who could do no wrong. When she rules she stands above everyone and blesses freed slaves at her feet, when she is struggling for her future she looks up at who she will conquer (metaphorically speaking of course; as not many queens or kings would do much differently in real life). When she says move the mountain, the Moors (those heathens in Walsh's eyes) laugh at her stupidity, then eat their words as Isabella proves them wrong. She sets out in the middle of the night in rain, all by herself racing on horseback to Ponce de Leon's castle and demands he hand his son or the castle over. Huh? First off, this is propaganda from Pulgar. But lets look at it. No King or Queen could traipse away on a horse without having a trail of servants, knights, you name it charging off with her. It is just unheard of. Yet Walsh uses the propaganda bit to fluff her up and make her magnanimous to the reader.
Walsh briefly mentions Frederick Barbarossa II and calls him an infidel. He doesn't do this trying to portray what the popes thought, and are instead his own thoughts. How does an unbiased historian/biographer come to call the Holy Roman Emperor an infidel? The popes of the time fought against and excommunicated him because he was a free thinker, because he didn't cow to the popes desire and was essentially an individualistic monarch in time where monarchs cowed to the Papacy. So Walsh takes the hardline Catholic view, or perhaps it is a view based on limited knowledge of that epic period in European history, and calls him an infidel! Unbelievable.
I could go on, but I will end with one quote from his book. "...some of his blood which had fallen profusely on the flagstones and had dried there, suddenly liquefied and bubbled up". How does Walsh treat this? He condemns Lea (a contemporary of Walsh) because Lea sneered at this bit of religious fervor and rumor. He doesn't write as though the people of the times believed it (which they certainly did) but instead writes as though he believes it because the "records were made by eye-witnesses of considerable intelligence". What does this tell us? That Walsh was most definitely not unbiased in his presentation of Isabella and most certainly caused his judgment to be skewed and twisted so that we have nothing more than one long propagandist piece.
How then does he do it, how does he write so that people believe him? Because he flowers his telling like a novel and tries to make it an easy and effortless read. How could he possibly know the detail that he gives? Writing about each individual on the street, what they were wearing and what they looked like. You can't you simply cannot know that kind of detail, yet his whole biography is full of it. Or he will show someone dashing off to war and just before they go to battle a cardinal will spontaneously give a speech, which Walsh just happens to know all three minutes of it. I understand written speeches, and even smaller speeches being recorded as they're given, but two and half page speeches? That becomes more someone interpreting what that person said, which is not reliable. Or how about when one of the estimable catholic Inquisitors who could do no wrong is ambushed by the dirty conversos, Walsh flowers it up by trying to quote what the killers said just before they attacked! This is not a biography, and should not be accepted as one. For a good example of a history book written like a novel but still sticks to the facts and is not clouded by his internal beliefs, read "The Armada" by Garrett Mattingly.
I should have known better looking at the "prestigious" awards he apparently received, all from very catholic institutions. Or perhaps the fact that the person that sent this book to me sells only religious books, and sends a newsletter out that focuses on David Irving (you know, the guy that says the holocaust never happened, yeah, nuts like that; kind of like Walsh). Some kudos for his writing ability, but certainly not for his biographical skills. I would definitely not recommend.
1.75 stars.
Isabella the Magnificent .......2006-01-28
This biography by William Thomas Walsh is one of the finest I've ever seen. It reads like a novel of high adventure. If all you know abut Queen Isabella is that she financed the voyages of Columbus then please pick up this book and settle in for a long and exciting read. Walsh vividly recreates the brutal world that baby Isabella was born into and actually mananges to create a feeling of suspense as the quiet little girl faces a world of dangers alone. Her father died when she was an infant, her mother was too depressed to function and her older brother was a spineless weakling who not only didn't look out for her but was an actual danger to her.
While still a pre-teen she found herself living in the most immoral court in Europe. Before she was 17 she survived terrible peril and worked her way into a successful marriage with Prince Ferdinand of Aragon. The marriage lasted 35 years and they only had two public disagreements. That's pretty impressive right there.
She fearlessly rescued her country from anarchy, attacks from Portugal and drove the Moors out after they'd occupied Spain for over 700 years. Walsh writes brilliantly of the huge battles and the desperate skirmishes. Isabella's triumphs, tragedies and rock solid faith come to life on the pages of this book.
Catherine of Aragon was a woman of extraordinary character and courage and after reading this book you will see where she got it from; her magnificent mother. I absolutely loved this highly entertaining biography.
Beautiful, Remarkable, Prophetic.......2005-11-01
William Thomas Walsh's "Isabella of Spain" is a masterpiece. Walsh herein relates a story more dramatic and remarkable than fiction and more crucially relevant than today's headlines. The story of Isabella, the great Catholic Queen, is a tale of faithful determination, ingenuity, and the power of Christian love. Walsh relates how Isabella completes the 700 year struggle for the reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from Moslem domination with all the drama and style of the greatest of novelists. Here is a story of intrigue and valor, brought to life by the personal revelations of one of history's truly greatest monarchs, male or female.
There are extraordinary parallels between late 15th century Spain and 21st century America. Walsh relates that, behind the scenes, the Spain ultimately ruled by Isabella was one where Jewry had greater power than in any other Western nation in history. It was known in some clandestine circles as the "New Jerusalem". Remarkbably, Michael Collins Piper recently sytled the United States in the same manner in a like titled volume. Isabella was confronted with a fifth column in her work of reconquering and reuniting Spain, that of the Conversos, or false Christians. How like the situation of modern America this is. Isabella was able to triumph over this subversive movement, ultimately through invocation of Pope Sixtus' bull of Inquisition, one of the least understood epics in history.
As sovereigns of the reunited Spain, Isabella and her spouse, Fernando, made Spain the world's leading power. This was accomplished through the insightful commissioning of the voyages of Christopher Columbus and the well chosen marriages of their children. Prince Juan and Princess Juana were doubly wedded to Hapsburg Austria. Although Isabella's first born, the aforementioned Prince Juan, died very soon after his marriage and before reaching his twenties, her youngest daughter, Catalina, whom the English knew as Catherine of Aragon, went on to make her significant mark on world history.
This is tremendous history, soulfully told and beautifully written. The world desperately needs another Isabella. And we certainly need more historians who can write with the skill and courage of William Thomas Walsh. This is a great book.
The finest History I Have Ever Read..........2005-03-11
As a life-long student of History with a BA in Medieval History from UCLA, I was absolutely floored by the triumph of historiographical method this book represents. The "reviewer" (who didn't have the integrity to name himself) certainly has no understanding of the role of the historian - to document, NOT to judge. All the great modern medievalists have striven with the utmost of care to cast off the biases of the historians of the past (mostly English Protestants writing about a Catholic Europe) and examine the Middle Ages in a way that will lead to a deeper understanding of the mentality of those who lived in those times. It is completely IMPOSSIBLE for anyone who did not grow up in Isabella's age to come close to fully understanding her motives, her experiences, her thoughts, her beliefs, or her reasons for doing what she did. We live in such a faithless, godless, hyper-secularized world that we rush to judge harshly those who were steeped in faith and unwaivering in belief, as was Isabela La Catolica. If you want to understand medieval Spain and the glorious victories and achievements of this magnificently brilliant and faith-filled woman, read this masterpiece. If you have no interest, like the anonymous "reviewer" in understanding the world as it once was, stick to the politically correct, completely useless "history" that so often passes for scholarship these days.
Towers over baseless criticisms.......2004-03-15
A well-researched and documented account of Isabel of Spain and her times. Despite the wild and ignorant condemnations by a very few biased and unhistorically-minded individuals, this book is very honest, well-argued (if one considers the use of logic and reason as the key to effective argument or propositioning) and historically sound. Walsh makes no statement which is not at least supportable using the historical documents available to us. Contrary to one statement I have heard, the book was in fact appreciated and recognized by the professional historical community, though it is true that some had criticisms of it on this point or that (the case for almost any good work of history.) One particular case of this is the La Guardia case, which Walsh's treatment of came under fire from Dr. Roth. Walsh, however, defended himself brilliantly in a published article afterwards and maintained the probability (or at the very least the possibility) of his own position regarding that much disputed case. Any serious and honest researcher of the period could, regardless of personal biases and viewpoints, vouch for the essential faith to and adherence to the available primary sources by Walsh. Once upon a time, during research for my B.A. in history, I had occasion to closely study many of the documents relating to this Queen and which Walsh made use of, and can safely say that I never found anything contradictory to a single one of Walsh's important propositions. The charge of anti-semitism, which those same few whom I have mentioned already above level against him, fails for two main reasons. 1) Walsh's already mentioned historical soundness and integrity (i.e.- straightforward use of the availabe information...thats what history is!!). This is to say, that Walsh does not twist or manipulate the documentary evidence in any way so as to present a false picture of the conversos or Jews or anyone else. His account does not mismatch with the facts that we know. 2) Walsh's own attitude towards the Jewish faith and it's adherents, has been well published and can be seen collectively as definitely not anti-semitic (see particularly his essay on Moses in 'Characters of the Inquisition' and others of his works.) One must understand that, yes, Walsh was a practicing Catholic and that entails a certain theologic viewpoint towards the Jewish faith (which, incidentally, includes a recognition of its unique and important character and mission in history) but to assert that a believing Catholic (that is, one who believes that what his Church teaches is true..such as regarding its teaching towards those who reject the divinity of Christ) cannot write accurate history is itself pure prejudice and indefensible bias. For the record, it is also important to note that Walsh detested Nazism, as a hateful, irreligious, and violent force. He and it had nothing in common.
I recommend this book as an excellent full-length study of Isabel whose only comparable rival is Dr. Carroll's much newer 'Isabel of Spain'. Good reading.
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- Voices from Legendary Times: We Are a Bridge Between Past and Future
- Wolfsbane
- Women and The American Experience, A Concise History
- Working with Precious Metal Clay (Jewelry Crafts) (Jewelry Crafts)
Books Index
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