This novel is about Beulah, a woman who despite her chances to have a "perfect" life refuses to submit to convention. Much of the book focuses on philosophy as a justification for her position and at other times a condemnation of her actions. A wonderful read for the deep thinker. Definitely not beach reading....

Fox-Genovese's book marks the culmination of decades of work in history and feminist theory. The range of knowledge represented here is staggering, yet her argument is elegant and clear: feminism, as the daughter of the liberal revolutions of the 18th century, creates both opportunities and serious dangers as postmodernism ascends. For anyone interested in feminist theory, postmodern theory, capitalism and the rise of the individual, or women's history, this book is a must-read. The bibliography alone is worth the cost of the volume.

This is an excellent book for students who are in, or who plan to enter AP US History. It's also excellent for History lovers.

This brilliant collection of essays by Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese covers numerous aspects of the spread of merchant capitalism in the colonial period of American history. They see the American experiment as begun in dread of modernity and as part and parcel of the most extreme early capitalist reactionary movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Far from intending to provide the cutting edge of historical development, many of the early colonists were trying to recreate a reactionary paradise before the Fall they saw occurring in European society.

This is an impressive and large-scale achievement. I would have appreciated more acknowledgment of the role that white male eurocentric paradigms played (and continue to play) in the south and oppresion of Women of Color. Overall, a good starting place.

"Time does not pass in a clock's ticking; oh no! It goes like gusts of wind past the north corner of a house. Stay in the sun on the south side and you never know a wind is blowing, but breast around the north corner, and it will jerk your breath from out of your ribs. It is blowing, but you don't notice it; always time is passing, but you don't notice it . . ."

The passage of time is what makes this book a pleasant read, and utterly depressing. There are few resolutions to the catastophies that occur throughout the story, leaving you with a sunken feeling of the depressing events and little to get you out of it. With much birthing and deathing, there are few rejoiceful passages in the book. However, the rewards of this read include watching time give Cean a new lease on life (though permamently hardened by the toils of her life in the rural Georgia (Georgy)) and Margot temporary happiness in her mid-life (though eventually hardend by the events that unfold before her).

The book suffers from a lack of depth in certain aspects of the story. Just as you are feeling pulled in by the characters, the author jumps ahead a year in time and instead of developing the story lists the children that were born to a character in the interim. In addition, you can only see glimpses of Miller's ability to write poignant passages (as the one above)- most of the words are much more straight forward and anxious.

However, if you read past some of the low points, you will get to the ending that is more clever than the rest of the novel.

Lamb in His Bosom is superb, but nonetheless if Gayle K Garrison had done her research she would undoubted have found that Miss Miller did write another novel called 'Lebanon'.

Caroline Miller's Lamb In His Bosom is a truly beautiful read. The unforgettable characters, the story line, the beautiful prose and dialect, all these make it the perfect book about the South and Southerners.
The book is set in Georgia about twenty years before the War Between the States, and eventually leads up to the War. The story revolves around the life and thoughts of Cean Smith (nee Carver), and how she manages as a young wife and mother in the Georgia backwoods. Her life is marked by hard work, love for her husband, and birthing, raising, and burying her babies.
I was first struck by the dialect. The more I read, the more I recognized my own mother's speech patterns and idioms. I should have expected as much, seeing as she was born and raised in a Kentucky holler, in a situation not far removed from that of Lamb's Cean and Lonzo. From the book's excellent afterward (which describes Miller's research technique), as well as from numerous contemporaneous reviews, the dialect in Lamb is probably the best record available of pre-War Between the States Southern speech, and the book therefore has historical value. Attempts by authors to portray "Southern-speak" usually come off as irritating, even insulting, poor imitations of a "Hee-Haw" script. But Miller makes the dialect not only effective, she makes it beautiful and even honorable.
The story line has several elements to commend the book. First is the utter believablity of the situations. There is nothing outrageous about the vicissitudes encountered by these characters. The power of the story is contained in large measure in the very plainess of life in the setting. Life for these folks is a few years of hard toil to scratch out an existence that is punctuated by brief moments of happiness and made joyful by enduring family ties and precious generational memories. Most prevalent in the story is the ubiquitous presence of death, which spares neither the elderly, the middle-aged, and especially the children and babies. The story made me remember the grave yards at my Alma Mater in southern Virginia, where the grave markers tell a story of a time when families had more deceased children than most people today have living relatives. And in this is the Southern heart most eloquently displayed in Lamb, for every passing is, of course, cause for mourning, but is also occasion to remember the blessing that death has become, as it is the Door that leads to the long hoped for encounter with the Great Maker, Redeemer, and Disposer of All. In Lamb, dread death is not feared as it gives way to Blessed Transfiguration.
Lamb In His Bosom has a rightful place in the Southern Canon. The story is unique; it has no real plot sublety or intricacy; it has none of disturbing Gothicity of O'Connor, none of the flagellation of Faulkner, none of the contrived humor of Welty. This in NO WAY is a diminution of those great Southern writers. Rather, it is a confirmation of the Southern Character and Ethos of seeing God and nature as good and living in close connection to both even in the face of hardship and death, loving our living, and honoring our dead. Lamb In His Bosom deserves to read, carefully and quietly. It is a book that is beautifully simple and simply beautiful, just like the South and Southerners.

This is the best book that I have ever read on black women,since it compared black women with black women. It's well-organised and very interesting with wonderful pictures. I really appreciated the many photos since it gave me a visual history of these women.

I was visiting with some friends in the South Carolina area when i first saw the author, Kibibi Voloria Mack, (now "Mack-Shelton"), being interviewed on the television show, "Inside Orangeburg". Her vivacious speaking style first caught my attention but after hearing her describe the contents of her book, I knew I had to read it for myself. I am not a history lover nor do I read many nonficition books, but I read "Parlor Ladies" and i must confess that I was pleasingly surprised! It is indeed the best darn book I have enjoyed in a long time!! The book is written in a fashion that makes it easy to follow but I was most impressed with the discourse she writes in that allows even an ordinary, nonscholarly person like myself to to read, understand, and appreciate a good peice of history. This book is a breath of fresh air when it comes to reading American history: it was never dull and is filled with information that I never would have known about southern black women or the black community had i not read this marvelous book. The photos were wonderful!

I first heard of PARLOR LADIES & EBONY DRUDGES when i saw the author, Dr. Kibibi V. Mack-Shelton, on C-SPAN BOOK TV in 1999; her vivacious speaking style and wonderful narration of her book aroused my curiosity. I read this book and must confess that this is the best book I have ever read on the history of southern African American women in the early 1900s. Mack-Shelton does an excellent job of not only comparing the upper classes of black women with their lower class peers, she provides some rather insightful information in her research that further explains the origins of modern day attitudes that some blacks still have in the black community in relations to how they still see light-skinned/straight hair blacks as being on a more superior level than those who are darker-skinned with non-straight hair. Her excellent use of oral history creates a picture of these women's daily life experiences in their own voices, bringing them to life. I am an avid reader of American history and am very impressed with Mack's style of writing. Her account of these women's historical lives is written in a discourse that both the trained, sophistocated scholar or an ordinary lay person (like myself) can follow easily. It's a breath of fresh air to read a history book that is never boring nor needs a dictionary to translate each word. It is a well-organized comparative study that is indeed an easy, interesting read that a person could actually read in a few days, if time permitted. This is a "must" read for everyone interested in American history, Women's history, or African American history must read this important book and add it to your personal library. Keep up the good writing and I can't wait to read your next book!!