Marching Through Georgia

Rating:
Summary: One man's personal journey into his Southern heritage
Review: Don't look here for a historical dissertation concerning Sherman's role in bringing the South back into the Union. This is not a history book. Rather, it is the journal of a man who, through association with his region's tumultuous history, goes to greath lengths to come to terms with his heritage, his identity, and his future. The volume would have been just as impacting with less sexual imagery - but, afterall, this is a personal journal, and most of the other insightful thoughts contained herein are just as personal. If you wonder what being a Southern man means, if you struggle with putting your heritage into perspective, then give this book a read. Yankees beware! You will not understand this book!

Rating:
Summary: Groan!
Review: Ellis ignores the history of Sherman's march and proceeds on to an extended rant that focuses mainly on his adolescent hormones. The writing is weak. I finished it feeling cheated of the time I wasted looking for some substance. Leave this one alone

Rating:
Summary: Soul Searching walk in the South using Old South Perspective
Review: Imaginative, soul searching walk taken by author Jerry Ellis following Sherman's path to the sea. If you are looking for history--look elsewhere. If you want to see today's south from an author with perspective, insight and soul, read this book! His characters come alive and we also get a peak into his own heart. An enjoyable read you will want to own. This is one "Yankee" who understood exactly what the Old South was and what the new South wants to be because of this author's perspective.

Rating:
Summary: Does one have to be Southern?
Review: In 1864, General Sherman, Union general, began his infamous (or famous) trek through Georgia, vowing to make Georgia howl. Howl it did. And still does. More than a hundred years later, Jerry Ellis walked the same path. It was a trek in search of his own Southerness, and an homage to his father who had died not long before. Along the way, he met people who still remember Sherman and the devastation he and his army left in their wake as though it were yesterday. He found Southern hospitality. He found a South that finds it hard to forget.

This is a personal story, not meant to simply tell the history of the places and people he finds along the way. Their histories are interwoven with his own, their presents forming a framework for Ellis' coming to terms with the possibility of losing the woman he loves because of the journey, and with the death of his father. It adds to what he knows about himself and who he is, a Southerner with ties to the War Between the States, and part Cherokee with ties to a past unrelated in many ways to that war.

This is an interesting view of history and how it affects people's lives, even generations later. At times, Ellis becomes too bogged down in his own problems and we wonder if he misses telling about other things we might have found interesting. But all in all, this is a book for Southerners who know and understand their ties to the South, or who are still trying to find those ties and weave them back into their lives.

Readers who like this book might also want to read other of Ellis' journeys. Also "Womenfolks: Growing up Down South" by Shirley Abbott might be interest. They might also like to read an account of Sherman's march to the sea, such as those included in the nuemrous Sherman biographies, or sets of histories of the war, including the Time Life Civil War volume "Sherman's March."

Rating:
Summary: Does one have to be Southern?
Review: In 1864, General Sherman, Union general, began his infamous (or famous) trek through Georgia, vowing to make Georgia howl. Howl it did. And still does. More than a hundred years later, Jerry Ellis walked the same path. It was a trek in search of his own Southerness, and an homage to his father who had died not long before. Along the way, he met people who still remember Sherman and the devastation he and his army left in their wake as though it were yesterday. He found Southern hospitality. He found a South that finds it hard to forget.

This is a personal story, not meant to simply tell the history of the places and people he finds along the way. Their histories are interwoven with his own, their presents forming a framework for Ellis' coming to terms with the possibility of losing the woman he loves because of the journey, and with the death of his father. It adds to what he knows about himself and who he is, a Southerner with ties to the War Between the States, and part Cherokee with ties to a past unrelated in many ways to that war.

This is an interesting view of history and how it affects people's lives, even generations later. At times, Ellis becomes too bogged down in his own problems and we wonder if he misses telling about other things we might have found interesting. But all in all, this is a book for Southerners who know and understand their ties to the South, or who are still trying to find those ties and weave them back into their lives.

Readers who like this book might also want to read other of Ellis' journeys. Also "Womenfolks: Growing up Down South" by Shirley Abbott might be interest. They might also like to read an account of Sherman's march to the sea, such as those included in the nuemrous Sherman biographies, or sets of histories of the war, including the Time Life Civil War volume "Sherman's March."

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing and rambling.
Review: On his 1994 attempt to re-trace William Tecumseh Sherman's trek from Atlanta to Savannah, Jerry Ellis searches for vestiges of that traumatic time reflected in the people he meets along the way.

This book is an unsuccessful hybrid of social history and an "on-the-road" travelogue. Ellis uncovers no previously undiscovered traces of the effect of Sherman's journey in the New South and after a while it appears he loses sight of his goal. This book has one saving grace: Ellis's natural story-telling ability which captures the spirits of the people he encounters. However, this bright spot isn't enough to compensate for Ellis's failure to achieve his original objective; it just turns this into a passable diary of someone's hike.

Rating:
Summary: 'Terrible' would be a compliment
Review: This is probably one of the worst books I have read in a long time. Mr. Ellis travelogue fails to on so many levels it is difficult to list them all here. He provides little historical context, his opinions are pompous, his anecdotes are trite, his personal life stories are self-absorbed, and his grand attempt to define what it means to be 'Southern' fails. I can only attribute it to my Yankee's perseverance that I did manage to make it through this tripe. I believe that if General Sherman wanted to inflict true pain on the South, rather than burning his way to the sea, he should have forced the rebels read this book.

Rating:
Summary: 'Terrible' would be a compliment
Review: This is probably one of the worst books I have read in a long time. Mr. Ellis travelogue fails to on so many levels it is difficult to list them all here. He provides little historical context, his opinions are pompous, his anecdotes are trite, his personal life stories are self-absorbed, and his grand attempt to define what it means to be 'Southern' fails. I can only attribute it to my Yankee's perseverance that I did manage to make it through this tripe. I believe that if General Sherman wanted to inflict true pain on the South, rather than burning his way to the sea, he should have forced the rebels read this book.