In Belle Moskowitz: Feminine Politics And The Exercise Of Power In The Age Of Alfred E. Smith, Elisabeth Perry presents an impressive work of biographical scholarship on the woman who was four-term Democratic governor of New York and unsuccessful presidential candidate, Alfred E. Smith's closet political advisor. Bell Moskowitz (1877-1933) was the most powerful woman in Democratic party politics during the 1920s and served as Smith's strategist, public relations director, and campaign manager. She was also a major force in shaping the social welfare programs for which his gubernatorial administration is best remembered for today. A well-crafted feminist biography, Belle Moskowitz showcases a pioneering female activist who achieved unprecedented influence in American politics, only to fall into an undeserved obscurity. Belle Moskowitz redresses that historical oversight and is a very highly recommended contribution to women's studies, American political history, and feminist biography collections.

As American editorial cartooning becomes more and more irrelevant, Alice Sheppard's fine book shows what a powerful tool this once popular medium can be. For ten brief years starting around 1910, dozens of women came out of nowhere and began cartooning for the womens' right to vote. Two or three like Rose O'Neil were well known as illustrators but most of the others picked up their pens simply to fight for what they thought was justice. Imagine! They won no prizes. No reprints in Newsweek. No 401K plans through their newspapers' corporate pension plans. Their only prize was the 19th Amendment. Sheppard does a great job of exhuming the stories of these funny, talented, now mostly forgotten cartoonists. Signe Wilkinson

Having being taught only the "Mr. Rogers" version of American history by my previous teachers (the Revolutionary War started with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776), I found this book very disagree able. Then, of course, I realized that we had to hand a nice, happy, packaged to Americas young ones.

The book digs into the top soil of American history. It gives general happenings, events leading up to and following wars, and reactions to wars off the battlefield. It labels some of the key events in history as being "Turning Points" and devotes a section in chapter to these happenings.

This is a great resource for teaching freshman and sophomore American history and you are hearing this straight from a student himself.

most history books are pretty dry, but this one teaches me. i actually do learn the history of america from a concise text.