An unprecedented account of one of the bloodiest and most significant racial clashes in American historyIn May 1866; just a year after the Civil War ended; Memphis erupted in a three-day spasm of racial violence that saw whites rampage through the city's black neighborhoods. By the time the fires consuming black churches and schools were put out; forty-six freed people had been murdered. Congress; furious at this and other evidence of white resistance in the conquered South; launched what is now called Radical Reconstruction; policies to ensure the freedom of the region's four million blacks―and one of the most remarkable experiments in American history. Stephen V. Ash's A Massacre in Memphis is a portrait of a Southern city that opens an entirely new view into the Civil War and its aftermath. A momentous national event; the riot is also remarkable for being "one of the best-documented episodes of the American nineteenth century." Yet Ash is the first to mine the sources available to full effect. Bringing postwar Memphis to vivid life; he shows us newly arrived Yankees; former Rebels; boisterous Irish immigrants; and striving freed people; and how Americans of the period worked; prayed; expressed their politics; imagined the future; and how they died. Ash's harrowing and profoundly moving present-tense narration of the riot has the immediacy of the best journalism. Told with nuance; grace; and a quiet moral passion; A Massacre in Memphis is Civil War–era history like no other.
#1025288 in Books Jennifer Guglielmo 2012-02-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.20 x .80 x 6.10l; .91 #File Name: 0807872245416 pagesLiving the Revolution Italian Women s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City 1880 1945
Review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. A highwayscribery Book ReportBy Stephen SicilianoOh; the ever-changing face of America!Who among us can even envision a northern New Jersey clutching tight to New York via the tendrils of the garment and other departed industries; pocked with recently arrived anarchists from places like Avellino?Jennifer Guglielmo's "Living the Revolution;" assembles the research and words necessary to conjure that distant and disappeared time.Some of this reviewer's antecedent's hailed from Avellino and the revelation in Guglielmo's book goes a long way toward explaining his own anarcho-syndicalist tendencies.And explanation is necessary; because the Italian-American milieu in which he grew up was far from revolutionary. Uncles and aunts in Brooklyn and Queens loathed John Lindsay in favor of a hack named Mario Procaccino. When a black family moved into the neighborhood; a call of alarm went out.To be Italian-American in mid-century New York was to be conservative; closed-minded and to wont for a liberal; higher education (generally speaking)."Living the Revolution;" goes a long way toward explaining how that happened: Italian-Americans desperately clinging to their classification as "white" by federal authorities; their frantic efforts to establish "American-ness" while the U.S. made war on Mussolini's Italy; the devastating impact of the Palmer Raids on the anarchist culture that took root in the tri-state area among Italian immigrant women.Later on; according to this book; Italian and Italian-American women became active in the union movement; although their efforts to gain power were often thwarted and their contributions to the Ladies Garment Workers and other syndicates undervalued.Guglielmo's book recuperates the ladies' names and actions; making great strides in combating the widely-held notion that they were somehow not militant. This appears to be the primary task she set out for herself in penning this text."Living the Revolution;" sets the record straight. It's a work of historical scholarship and; from time-to-time; bogs down in minutiae; however necessary. Sometimes; the task at hand causes the author to wander far from the focus of her discussion and into the 19th-century uprisings in southern Italy or the writings of Antonio Gramsci.In the end; it all ties together and Guglielmo's passion for the subject ultimately drives the narrative and should win over those who come to her story with a healthy curiosity."Living" is a feminist tract. It pulls from the rich filigree of events; that make up the first half of the 20th century; the prevailing policies; traditions and mores of patriarchy and white supremacy.It dramatizes how these things weighed upon the activist women and illuminated the creativity they employed in combating them."Living the Revolution;" not only rescues the names and profiles of some worthwhile people otherwise condemned to anonymity; it helps explain how we got where we are as a nation today; the good and the bad alike.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Eye-opening; and not at all the usual dry; slow-to-read historical account.By mint EThis is a revelatory story of the real involvement and strength of Italian and other immigrant women in the making of America and the american labor movement. It is extremely well-written; easy to enjoy and follow but highly researched--an usual combination. I had forgotten just how brave and liberated women of 20's; 30's and 40's could be for their time; and their stories profoundly move me. After the hysteria of the Cold War era and the disappointments of our modern political era; we have forgotten what it was like to be deeply devoted to your ideals and have ideals with a truly pragmatic goal for family and humanity. Thank you; Jennifer.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Wow; best women's history I've ever read.By Melanie WintersWow. This book is full of cameo highlights on real Italian /Italian American women who resisted power (husbands; employers; fascists; etc). Page-turning and very well written. I am an historian- would assign it in class and give it away for Christmas presents.
