May 2023 MBR The American History Shelf

The American History Shelf

The Lionkeeper of Algiers
Des Ekin
Prometheus Books
c/o Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
4501 Forbes Blvd., Suite 200, Lanham, MD 20706
www.rowman.com
9781633888630, $29.95, HC, 272pp

https://www.amazon.com/Lionkeeper-Algiers-American-Captive-Homeland/dp/1633888630

Synopsis: In 1785, just a few years after U.S. Independence, a young American named James Leander Cathcart is kidnapped at sea and carried as prisoner to the maverick North African statelet of Algiers, where he is held as a political hostage along with hundreds of other seamen captured on the open seas. The piratical corsairs of Algiers have decided, without any warning, to exploit the vulnerability of the newborn United States by seizing its mariners and holding them for ransom while ruthlessly exploiting their free labor.

Today, the name of James Leander Cathcart has been all but forgotten by history. And yet he was one of the most remarkable figures in the early history of the fledgling United States.

With the publication of "The Lionkeeper of Algiers: How an American Captive Rose to Power in Barbary and Saved His Homeland from War", author Des Ekin reveals the extraordinary and unlikely story of Cathcart, who, thanks to his flair for languages and his formidable human intuition, rose steadily up the ranks from lionkeeper at the Dey's private zoo to becoming Chief Clerk at the Palace, along the way amassing a chain of taverns in Algiers that functioned as safe houses and food banks for American prisoners.

Eleven years later, just one among more than one hundred US hostages in Algiers, Cathcart was paroled back to America and charged with delivering a vital letter to President George Washington, saving a tenuous peace deal and bringing the other captives home. Remarkably, his sense of honor compelled him to go back to Algiers (where he had never formally been made free) to see the peace project through. Cathcart would go on to become a U.S. diplomat in the lands where he was held captive for more than a decade.

Featuring some of the most prominent Americans of the era like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, as well as ordinary citizens like Hannah Stephens, the wife of a sea captain who tirelessly lobbied Congress until she was finally reunited with her husband after more than a decade, author Des Ekin's captivating storytelling brings this adventure to life. This page-turning narrative follows the twists and turns of Cathcart's own life upon the international stage of diplomacy, trade, and maritime statecraft at a time when America's place in the world was hanging in the balance.

Critique: The American story is replete with heroes and heroism that have faded into an undeserved obscurity -- and the story of James Leander Cathcart is one of the most deserving to be brought to the attention of a new general of Americans. Exceptionally well researched, written, organized and presented, "The Lionkeeper of Algiers: How an American Captive Rose to Power in Barbary and Saved His Homeland from War" deserves as wide a readership as possible and so is unreservedly recommended for community, college, and university library American History collections. It should be noted for the personal reading lists of students, academia, historians, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "The Lionkeeper of Algiers" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $21.49).

Editorial Note: Des Ekin (https://obrien.ie/des-ekin) is an historian and journalist. Former Deputy Editor of the Belfast Sunday News, he worked as a journalist, columnist, and finally Political Correspondent for The Sunday World (Ireland's second biggest newspaper) until 2012. Twice shortlisted for the Irish Nonfiction Book of the Year (The Stolen Village, 2006; The Last Armada, 2014), he is the author of five books. Stateside, his writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, and the Dallas Morning News, among others. "The Lionkeeper of Algiers" is his first project of wholly American history.

War Along the Wabash
Steven P. Locke
Casemate Publishers
1940 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083
www.casematepublishers.com
9781636242682, $37.95, HC, 320pp

https://www.amazon.com/War-Along-Wabash-Confederacys-Destruction/dp/1636242685

Synopsis: On November 4, 1791, a coalition of warriors determined to set the Ohio River as a permanent boundary between tribal lands and white settlements faced off against an army led by Arthur St. Clair -- the resulting horrific struggle ended in the greatest defeat of an American army at the hands of Native Americans.

The road to the battle of the Wabash began when Arthur St. Clair was appointed to lead an army into the heart of the Ohio Indian Confederacy while building a string of fortifications along the way. He would face difficulties in recruiting, training, feeding, and arming volunteer soldiers.

From the moment St. Clair's shattered force began its retreat from the Wabash the men blamed the officers, and the officers in turn blamed their men. For over two centuries most historians have blamed either the officer corps, enlisted soldiers, an entangled logistical supply line, poor communications, or equipment. The destruction of the army resulted in a stunned Congress authorizing a regular army in 1792.

This book, the result of 30 years' research, puts the battle into the context of the last quarter of the 18th century, exploring how the central importance of land ownership to Europeans arriving in North America resulted in unrelenting demographic pressure on indigenous tribes, as well as the enormous obstacles standing in the way of the fledgling American Republic in paying off its enormous war debts.

With the publication of "War Along the Wabash: The Ohio Indian Confederacy's Destruction of the US Army, 1791", historian Steven P. Locke presents the story of how a small band of determined indigenous peoples defended their homeland, destroyed an invading American army, and forced a fundamental shift in the way in which the United States waged war.

Critique: Rescuing from an undeserved obscurity one of the great triumphs of 18th Century Native Americans over the U. S. Military, "War Along the Wabash: The Ohio Indian Confederacy's Destruction of the US Army, 1791" is a seminal work of meticulous research and scholarship that is further enhanced for the reader with the inclusion of a six page Bibliography, fourteen pages of Endnotes, and a six page Index. While also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $22.95) for the personal reading lists of students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject, "War Along the Wabash: The Ohio Indian Confederacy's Destruction of the US Army, 1791" must be regarded as a core and unreservedly recommended addition to community and academic library 18th Century American History and Native American History collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.

Editorial Note: Steven P. Locke is a retired curator of history for the Ohio Historical Society. He served in the US Army National Guard, then taught history in the Granville, Ohio, Exempted School District. He studied at both undergraduate and graduate level at the Ohio State University. (https://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-P-Locke/100069884282603)

This Place of Promise
Gary R. Kremer
University of Missouri Press
113 Heinkel Bldg., 201 S. 7th Street, Columbia, MO 65211
https://upress.missouri.edu
9780826222480, $40.00, HC, 328pp

https://www.amazon.com/This-Place-Promise-Historians-Perspective/dp/082622248X

Synopsis: Conceived of as a way to commemorate Missouri's bicentennial of statehood, "This Place of Promise: A Historian's Perspective on 200 Years of Missouri History" is a unique work that presents the perspective of Professor Gary Kremer (one of the Show-Me State's foremost historians), as he ponders why history played out as it did over the course of the two centuries since Missouri's admittance to the Union.

In the writing of what is much more than a survey history, Professor Kremer, himself a fifth-generation Missourian, infuses the narrative with his vast knowledge and personal experiences, even as he considers what being a Missourian has meant across the many years and to this day, to all of the state's people, and how the forces of history (time, place, race, gender, religion, and class) shaped people and determined their opportunities and choices, in turn creating collective experiences that draw upon the past in an attempt to make sense of the present and plan for the future.

Key elements of "This Place of Promise: A Historian's Perspective on 200 Years of Missouri History" include the centrality of race to the Missouri experience from the time Missourians began to seek statehood in 1817 all the way up to the Black Lives Matter movement of the 21st century -- as well as ongoing tensions created by the urban-rural divide and struggle to define the proper role of government in society.

Critique: A fascinating and informative history of the state, "This Place of Promise: A Historian's Perspective on 200 Years of Missouri History" is an exceptionally well written, organized and presented study that is especially and unreservedly recommended as a key acquisition for personal, professional, community, and academic library American History collections in general and supplemental curriculum Missouri History studies lists in particular. It should be noted for students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "This Place of Promise: A Historian's Perspective on 200 Years of Missouri History" is also available in a paperback edition (9780826222879, $27.95) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $20.99).

Editorial Note: Gary R. Kremer (https://shsmo.org/about/trustees/gary-kremer) is a fifth-generation Missourian, born and raised in a small, homogenous German Catholic community in Osage County. Since 2004, he has served as the Executive Director of the State Historical Society of Missouri and a Senior Fellow in the Society's Center for Missouri Studies. Among his many publications are James Milton Turner and the Promise of America: The Public Life of a Post-Civil War Black Leader; George Washington Carver: In His Own Words; Women in Missouri History: In Search of Power and Influence; George Washington Carver: A Biography; and Race and Meaning: The African American Experience in Missouri. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Missouri Historical Review.

Left in the Midwest
Amanda L. Izzo, editor
Benjamin Looker, editor
University of Missouri Press
113 Heinkel Bldg., 201 S. 7th Street, Columbia, MO 65211
https://upress.missouri.edu
9780826222688, $50.00, HC, 554pp

https://www.amazon.com/Left-Midwest-Louis-Progressive-Activism/dp/0826222684

Synopsis: Despite St. Louis's mid-twentieth-century reputation as a conservative and sleepy midwestern metropolis, the city and its surrounding region have long played host to dynamic forms of social-movement organizing. This was especially the case during the 1960s and 1970s, when a new generation of local activists lent their energies to the ongoing struggles for Black freedom, lesbian and gay liberation, feminist social transformations, environmental protection, an end to the Vietnam War, and more.

Collaboratively compiled and co-edited by Amanda Izzo and Benjamin Looker, "Left in the Midwest: St. Louis Progressive Activism in the 1960s and 1970s" is a seminal and groundbreaking work that offers fifteen scholarly contributions that together bring into focus the exceptional range of progressive activist projects that took shape in a single midwestern city during these tumultuous decades.

In contrast to scholarship that seeks to interpret the era's social-movement initiatives in a primarily national context, the works presented in this expansive collection emphasize the importance of locality, neighborhood, community institutions, and rooted social networks. Documenting wrenching forces of metropolitan change as well as grassroots resilience,

"Left in the Midwest" also shows us how place powerfully shaped agendas, worldviews, and opportunities for the disparate groups that dedicated themselves to progressive visions for their city. By revising our sense of the region's past, this volume also expands our sense of the possibilities that the future may hold for activist movements seeking change in St. Louis and beyond.

Critique: Informatively enhanced for the reader with a listing of the contributors and their credentials, seventy pages of Notes, and a twenty page Index, "Left in the Midwest: St. Louis Progressive Activism in the 1960s and 1970s" is an extraordinary contribution to 20th century American Political History collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. While unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and academic library Civil Rights, Gender Studies, and LGBTA Demographic Studies collections, it should be note for students, academia, political activists, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "Left in the Midwest: St. Louis Progressive Activism in the 1960s and 1970s" is also available in a paperback edition (9780826222862, $35.00) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $35.00).

Editorial Note #1: Amanda L. Izzo is an associate professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Saint Louis University. A scholar of US women's history, she received her PhD from the American Studies program of Yale University. She is the author of Liberal Christianity and Women's Global Activism : The YWCA of the USA and the Maryknoll Sisters. (https://www.slu.edu/arts-and-sciences/women-gender-studies/faculty/izzo-amanda.php)

Editorial Note #2: Benjamin Looker is an associate professor of American Studies at Saint Louis University, with a PhD in American Studies from Yale University. His most recent book, A Nation of Neighborhoods: Imagining Cities, Communities, and Democracy in Postwar America, was a recipient of "best-book" awards from organizations including the American Studies (https://www.slu.edu/arts-and-sciences/american-studies/faculty/benjamin-looker.php) Association and the Urban History Association.

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