Much touted "Southern Womanhood" at it's most self-absorbed. You get it all here. Crinolines, silks, swoons, duels, sabres, smiling slaves, dashing officers, horrid yankees laying waste to all that is beautiful and noble, backbiting jealousies, scandal. All of the stuff that made "Gone With the Wind" a bestseller. Tennessee Williams would have had a grand time with this narcissistic young lady. A modern day psychologist could have made a fortune on her. Imagine an egomaniacal preppie girl in a civil war setting and you have Sarah Morgan. She sighs, she weeps, she yearns for death to relieve her imagined sufferings. Gallant Confederate officers lay court to her and her sister, while she denies that they could take an interest in her plain, ordinary, self. This after spending endless pages describing her preparations to meet them, entertain them, etc. She is remarkable for her ability to deceive herself. Other than how it affects herself or her narrow circle, she is oblivious to what's happening around her. Battles that slaughtered thousands are barely, if at all, acknowledged. The slaves are pictured as happy, singing, smiling, non-entities who amaze and anger her when they give up their joyful lives to run off the the horrid yankees. Some of the other reviewers have called her a sort of "pre-feminist". A long, very long, stretch based on her mild yearnings "to be a man", or "being a worthless woman." Hardly Anthony or Stanton, or even Mary Chesnut. For the most part, she accepts, even embraces, the status quo. She describes endlessly and picturesquely her mourning over her brother killed in a duel over an imagined slight, but never questions the idiocy of the "code duello". She blathers about the "gallant grey coats", but ridicules and snickers at the common soldiers. She has no use for the lesser classes and disdains, with horror, any contact with them. There is no high adventure or heroics here. Though she whines a lot, her actual suffering is minimal. She and her family abandon their house in Baton Rouge (because of a threatened Confederate attack) and end up in a 3 story mansion in New Orleans provided by her Unionist brother. Two other brothers die of disease in the war which illicits melodramatic scenes of grief in which she portrays herself as outwardly stoic but suffering in martyred silence. In short, she is a typical adolescent, concerned only with how she looks to her circle.

Having said all that, I liked the book. It gives a vivid portrait of the thinking of what I imagine was common among the upper crust of Southern society during the horrendous slaughter they initiated. Arrogant,self-satisfied, self-righteous, horribly self-absorbed, and ruthless. By the end of the book, I wished Sherman had been less restrained, and reconstruction a lot more successful.

If you would prefer someone who actually thinks about the issues, who reports on the happenings, who questions the icons, try Mary Chesnut. Her attitudes aren't all that much different (with some notable exceptions), but her feelings are real, and, unlike Sarah, she does divorce herself from her mirror.

When reading this superb Civil War diary the reader is immediately struck by two things. One, it is hard to believe that so young a woman could have expressed herself and her feelings so beautifully, and two, it is even more amazing that everything contain in this diary is exactly as Sarah Morgan wrote it originally. That is to say, it was not polished and edited afterwards (as Mary Chestnut intended to do, but was not able). If you want to take a glimpse at what living through four years of war was like for a Southern family and especially a young Southern woman you need look no further.

What an amazing book! To read this book is to take a trip back in
time. Not a politically correct book, but the diaries of a complex
young woman who was haughty and kind, flirtatious and proper,
deferential to men and determined to be an independent spinster. Sarah
Morgan was a rebel in terms of both her Southern heritage and her
pre-feminism beliefs. Her words depict a white world-view that doesn't
recognize its own racism, as well as her personal defiance of
society's expectations of her as a woman. She was a talented writer
with opinions that varied from modern, by today's standards, to
cripplingly in sync with the standards of 1860s Louisiana. As a Civil
War book, as a woman's memoir, and as a journey into one of the United
States' most fascinating and tragic times, this book is truly
outstanding.

Sarah writes with all her emotion and holds nothing back. She writes very detailed however at times it can be a little slow in parts and I found myself trudging through it at times. However, it was an interesting view from a young woman in Civil War times with two brothers in the army and a brother who had been involved in a duel.

Sarah Morgan is a girl of apparent intelligence and wit with a palpable charm. I don't agree that her concerns were trivial. They are those of any young girl thinking about love, marriage, family and her future. Her worries for the safety of her three brothers serving in the Confederate army were certainly not unwarrented since two of the three were killed by war's end. The book is very involving. My sympathy is all with the Northern army but I do care what happens to Sarah and those she loves.

Ms. Morgan's diaries are so beautifully written that they read like a novel; there is never a dull moment as she describes with great detail life in Baton Rouge during the Civil War. Even if the reader is not a Civil War buff, he or she will find this book spell-binding. The book includes informative footnotes, fine copies of historic photographs, and is a MUST for those pursuing courses in women's studies, the American Civil War or Southern history and culture.

This book is good, not great. Its to small and many of the illistrations are too small,and hard to see. But for the money its worth it. They have many other books that are a bit better than this one. Here is one that is very good 'Masterpieces of the J.Paul Getty Museum Illuminated Manuscripts'. This book is awesome with easy to read text and wonderful pictures. Happy Reading.

This is one of my favorite illumination books. Being a practicing illuminator, I need photos much more than I need lengthy discussions, historical analyses, elaborate provenance notes, etc. They have to be color photos and they have to be large enough, and at a high enough resolution, that I can learn something from them--and maybe even copy an initial, a diapering pattern, a bit of the border, or more.

This book satisfies all these criteria. In fact, the only thing I dislike about this book is the fact that it's so small, it's really hard to keep open while I paint from it. REALLY hard, because if you get large and heavy enough items to hold both sides down, inevitably the items obscure parts of the page you are painting from!

Its size can be an advantage, though. I purchased this at the National Gallery in Washington, on a midday jaunt during a conference, then went back for the next conference presentation. When the speaker turned out to be droningly boring, I brought out this tiny book and paged through it inconspicuously under the table. Could I have done that with Janet Backhouse's monumental work? I think not...;)

The selections are wonderful, and they're usefully broken down into sections based on content--excellent when you need to find a quick animal or floral image for a border, a rendering of a king or queen, or a picture of a dragon or other supernatural being. Not so excellent when you need to find an example of, say, a late 1400's eastern French book of hours (there are many, just not in any kind of chronological or geographical order). But then, there are other resources that do that. This book is interesting for its variety, its excellent reproductions, and its well-selected and unusual miniatures.

Excellent reproduction of a number of styles, with reasonable commentary. Very valuable for me as a newbie, to provide a sense of medieval style and composition. The size is at once very handy and very frustrating.

"The Charles W. Morgan" is the revealing story of the whaler by the same name which is now the showpiece of the Mystic Seaport Museum. The ship, Charles W. Morgan, was a 19th century whaler which was unique, primarily, because it is the only survivor of its genre and era. As a typical whaler of its era, the story of the Charles W. Morgan gives the reader an insight into the whaling industry as well as a glimpse into life aboard a whaler.

Author John Leavitt begins the book with an description of the construction of the ship at New Bedford, Massachusetts. He then describes the nautical equipment on the Morgan as well as the equipment's employment on the its voyages. The usage of the equipment to sail the ship, capture the whales, the processing of the whales and the storage of the whale materials is described in interesting detail.

Leavitt continues his narrative with highlights from the voyages of the Morgan. He relates the economics of the whaling industry as well the routine of the sailors who manned her. The interesting characters who served aboard her add a human interest dimension to this book. The and the life of the occasional captain's wife who accompanied her husband on voyages is a surprising element of life aboard the Morgan. I found it interesting that the Morgan avoided the Civil War by being at sea for most of its duration.

The end of the American whaling industry and, with it, the commercial career of the Morgan are well described in this book. When the Morgan appeared to be condemned to follow the route of all other whalers which had outlived their usefulness, a group of preservationists came forward to preserve this unique representative of such a major portion of America's Maritime Heritage. The steps which led to the saving of the Morgan and its transformation into the most prominent exhibit at Mystic are reported in the book's final chapter.

The appendices provide lists of the voyages of the Morgan and the rosters of the crews which served her.

For this fan of Mystic Seaport, this short book provides an interesting and educational view into the world of whaling in general and the Morgan in particular. For anyone with an interest in this aspect of American history, "The Charles W. Morgan" is an interesting and worthwhile read.

Since 1919 the Hawthornden Prize has been awarded each year to an English writer "for the best work of imaginative literature" and among the winners thereof which I have read are David Garnett's inimitable Lady Into Fox (won in 1923), Kate O'Brien's Without My Cloak (won in 1931), The Power and the Glory (won in 1941), The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916, by Alistair Horne (won in 1963), Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion, by V. S. Naipaul (won in 1964), Monk, by Paul Piers Read (won in 1970), and In Patagonia, by Bruce Chatwin (won in 1977). The Fountain is laid during World War One, in Holland, and concerns an English officer interned there and the English wife of a German officer. The book does considerable philosophizing and the first two-thirds of the book really drug as far as I was concerned. The book picks up in interest after that, but I cannot say I was greatly interested in the prime characters and their excuses for adultery.

I bought this book hoping to gain a solid understanding of the potential legal "bullets" (contract disputes, copyright issues, etc.) that an Internet entrepreneur should be on the lookout to avoid...

What I got instead was a 250-page essay on the history of the (Canadian) legal system and the field of computer science...

Clearly intended as a college textbook, this book is profoundly misleading in its subtitle, "What You Need to Know About Doing Business Online."

I would avoid it.

It's scary. No fault of the writer's, because it made sense *3* years ago, but that would be like trying to sell a book in 1997 that is entitled "What Fax Machines Can Do For Your Business" or a 1948 book on "Why Your Company Needs Telephones". Doesn't anyone have anything new?

This book serves well in educating business executives on both the legal and business issues which are often overlooked in today's business transactions over the Internet.
Although I've not finished the book, this book at first read seems much too valuable to put down!

regards,
Nel,
Program Manager
E*commerce Division
Singapore Telecoms Ltd