PAIN AND OTHER PETTY PLOTS TO KEP YOU IN STITCHES is an amazing, visually delicious book. The authors and artist have created a wildly eccentric universe where bizarre is normal. Only with creativity freewheeling at its fastest could these images and stories emerge.

In Pain and Other Petty Plots, Alan Clark has created a masterpiece of biological and psychological dysfunction that will leave the reader's relationships with hospitals forever scarred. Through a stunning array of paintings and stories, some written by collaborators, Clark guides the reader on an unforgettable journey through his sly and cruel mythos about a medical facility staff in the service of pain. Surrealistic torment and human folly serve as the foundation for a unique vision that disturbs while it amuses, and ultimately serves as a warning on the limitless possibilities for self-destruction in all of us.

Perfect company for those long waits in doctor's offices or hospital clinics. A must for ER visits.

-Gerard Houarner, author of THE BEAST THAT WAS MAX; ROAD TO HELL; VISIONS THROUGH A SHATTERED LENS

I find this book fairly understandable, easy to follow and a bit of interesting with good pictures!

Reading some of the other reviews of this book is proof enough that the Lost Cause orthodoxy is alive and well. It would be simple enough to ascribe this book to vile Yankee enmity for daring to challenge accepted assumptions about RE Lee.

That having been said, I am not totally satisfied with Nolan's approach. He rightfully criticizes various historians for drawing conclusions about Lee based on single statements or letters written by Lee (often after the fact). However, Nolan is often guilty of the same misdeed. While I suspect that the documentary record would tend support Nolan's thesis than undermine it, nonetheless the documentation Nolan provides is quite limited. Carefully selecting the evidence that supports your argument might work in a court of law, but not in a work of history.

I also think that Nolan at times indulges in unnecessary hair-splitting, such as in the 5-page Chapter 5, where he discusses Lee's feelings towards his adversaries. The chapter seemed to me to be totally superfluous and contributed nothing to the book overall.

Nolan, in an effort to discredit the dogma of the Lost Cause, at times goes overboard in his assumptions. When criticizing Lee for undermining the Confederacy's war effort by going too much on the offensive, Nolan states that the South actually had a realistic chance of winning the war. His argument is that if Lee had preserved his manpower more prudently, the South could have withstood the North's attempts at conquest. This is a valid argument, because it is obvious that Lee did a good job of wrecking his army from 1861-1863.

However, Nolan's larger argument rests on the supposition that the South was effectively managing its war effort elsewhere. Ironically, like many of the devotees of the Lost Cause, Nolan ignores the impact of the war in the Western Theatre while focusing on the Eastern Theatre. The reality was that in the Western Theatre, especially in the first two years of the war when North & South were more or less equally matched in the field, the South was steadily losing ground virtually from the beginning. This is due as much to the incompetent generalship of the Confederacy as anything else. Even if Lee had carefully husbanded his manpower, he could not have undone the damage caused by generals such as Polk & Bragg in the Western Theatre.

The best part of Nolan's book is the final chapter, where he discusses the overall effort by the South (with very willing collusion from the North) to turn the Civil War & the Antebellum period into some sort of idyllic fairy tale, due to the racist attitudes that both regions shared. He gives a convincing argument about century-long effort to change the very nature of the war, of which the Lee mythology is only one element.

While at times this book veers dangerously close to being a commonplace chop-job, overall it makes a decent contribution to the literature. If Nolan had provided more comprehensive documentation, its impact would be all the better. As it is, one cannot consider it the last word, but it has ushered in an honest debate on the subject.

Nolan's book isn't the Lee bashing book that I thought it would be thank goodness. My history instructor at college let me read this book when I told her I was a huge fan of General Lee's. Nolan states that he thinks Lee was a great man; moral, intelligent, and loved by his men. This is all true and any Lee basher will have to face up to these facts. Nolan simply tries to offer another side of Lee than many of the Lee "traditionalists" have not included, and that is the human side of Lee. Lee made errors like any man, and he was also the victim of the Southern way of thinking when Lee believed in a "gradual emancipation". Another important fact that was addressed by Nolan, which is the usual argument by Lee critics is his offensive strategy. Nolan points out that if Lee believed that the only way of truly winning a battle and ending the war was to fight "those people" on their own ground and drive them from it, which Lee did believe in, then he is not at fault. I don't believe this book is an attack on the ability or character of Lee, it is simply a well-rounded version of the "Lee tradition". My opinion of Lee has not changed since reading the book, I only feel he was human like the rest of us.

Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History by Alan T. Nolan is a book that brings us the human man and not he icon of the Civil War.

Lee is a paradox of sorts, while owning slaves he was opposed to the institution of slavery. Lee left the United States Army so as not to take his sword and use it against his native Virginia. A most revered but misunderstood man, Lee was a brilliant military leader who was tactically effective in bringing the exploits of the Confederacy to those of Northern aggression.

This book brings out a more human man, complete with all of the frailties and fallacies. A man or moral character, but a man whos job is that of a soldier. This book gives us a more honest view of Lee... a Lee not on his terms, but a Lee in the eye of history. No assumptions, just a rigorous reexamination through correspondence and historical sources.

Everyone knows the larger than life Lee, but knowing Lee is to know that he is a man... a man who happens to be the Commanding General of the Confederate Forces, a native Virginian, and a Southern aristocrat who opposed slavery.