If you love musicals, you can spend hours poring over this collection of reviews for the Broadway musicals that followed in the wake of OKLAHOMA. Hits and flops, all are here -- with some great insights and theatre diah provided by Suskin. For serious research or just plain fun reading, this is one of the most rewarding books ever published on the subject. (And the sequel is equally worthwhile!)

I bought "Opening Night on Broadway" when it was first published. I found it to be much more than a written recorded history of the Broadway Musical. It is a time capsule that captures the feeling of the periods when these shows first opened. The reader can almost feel what it was like to be there in 1956 at the opening of "My Fair Lady". Mr. Suskin gives useful biographical information about some of the theater's biggest stars. As someone involved in the business end of the theatre, I also enjoyed finding out whether or not a show was a financial success or failure. My only criticism is, I wish the book was laid out chronologically, not alphabetically. That way readers could get a better perspective of what else was running when "Guys and Dolls", or "Kiss Me Kate" or even "Donnybrook opened" All in all though, I found "Opening Night.." to be the hit of the season

"Confederate Ordeal: The Southern Home Front" and its counterpart "Twenty Million Yanks: The Northern Home Front" provide the civilian perspective on the war in the Time-Life Civil War series: (1) The Pulse of Independence looks at how the Southern made up with gallantry what it lacked in industry and agriculture; with so much acreage devoted to Cotton the South had relied on what were now Union states for essential food stuffs; (2) A Culture Transformed looks at how life in the South changed during the war (e.g., wallpaper being used to print newspapers), and how Confederates expressed their pride; (3) The Fires of Dissent looks at not only those Southerners who did not support the war, including pro-Union guerillas, but those who dissented on state's rights grounds to the Confederate government dictating policy; (4) Long Cruel Roads focuses on Southerners who had to endure occupation by Union troops and the first steps of slaves towards freedom; and (5) End to the Dream talks about the end of the War as it became clear to even the most die-hard Confederate loyalists that the Cause was doomed. This chapter looks at the last attempts by Confederate Commissioners to negotiate a peace, a rather interesting footnote to the last days of the war. Steven A. Channing does a nice job of providing a representative look at the Confederate home front, especially when you take into account that unlike most volumes in the Time-Life Civil War series, which have a limited time frame, "Confederate Ordeal" starts before the war and ends well afterwards. The volume is illustrated with historic photographs, illustrations, etchings, and such, the vast majority of which you have probably never seen before even if you are a die-hard Civil War buff.

"Confederate Ordeal: The Southern Home Front" and its counterpart "Twenty Million Yanks: The Northern Home Front" provide the civilian perspective on the war in the Time-Life Civil War series: (1) The Pulse of Independence looks at how the Southern made up with gallantry what it lacked in industry and agriculture; with so much acreage devoted to Cotton the South had relied on what were now Union states for essential food stuffs; (2) A Culture Transformed looks at how life in the South changed during the war (e.g., wallpaper being used to print newspapers), and how Confederates expressed their pride; (3) The Fires of Dissent looks at not only those Southerners who did not support the war, including pro-Union guerillas, but those who dissented on state's rights grounds to the Confederate government dictating policy; (4) Long Cruel Roads focuses on Southerners who had to endure occupation by Union troops and the first steps of slaves towards freedom; and (5) End to the Dream talks about the end of the War as it became clear to even the most die-hard Confederate loyalists that the Cause was doomed. This chapter looks at the last attempts by Confederate Commissioners to negotiate a peace, a rather interesting footnote to the last days of the war. Steven A. Channing does a nice job of providing a representative look at the Confederate home front, especially when you take into account that unlike most volumes in the Time-Life Civil War series, which have a limited time frame, "Confederate Ordeal" starts before the war and ends well afterwards. The volume is illustrated with historic photographs, illustrations, etchings, and such, the vast majority of which you have probably never seen before even if you are a die-hard Civil War buff.

Stephen Channing ascribes the secessionist movement of 1860 in South Carolina to a "crisis of fear." South Carolinians, ever conscious of the black majority in their state, worried continuously about controlling the Negro in the absence of slavery. This fear, according to Channing, was crystallized into rife paranoia in the wake of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. Internal tensions, such as the perpetual contest between upcountry and lowcountry planters for primacy in state government, were eclipsed by this terrible fear. Moderates, who had opposed secession or, at the least, the secession of the Palmetto state on its own, essentially handed over the reins of leadership to the radicals--at the time, it appeared that the dire warnings long spewed forth by the Fire-eaters were becoming reality. Channing implies that Southern culture differed from that of the North to such a degree that secession was inevitable, and he contends that slavery was at the core of the mindset that animated the War Between the States.