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Rating: 
Summary: Circular History
Review: Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy by Stephen Kantrowitz is a well written and well researched voyage through an ugly chapter in American history that still reverberates strongly throughout the entire culture. The selection of Ben Tillman as the focus point through which to examine the victory of white supremacy in the South after Reconstruction is brilliant and frighteninly effective. This book is not so much the biography of Ben Tillman but really the biography of white supremacy as a political idea and ideal. This book captures all of the evil idealism, political pragmatism, the unique blend of bomblast and subtlety, and, especially, the terror and violence used by Ben Tillman and his ilk to secure their goals of making the political system of South Carolina all white and all Democrat. It is a wonderful book of an ugly time that is important, unfortunately, to understanding our own time. Well done.
Rating: 
Summary: A Most Innacurate Piece of Fiction
Review: Obvious agenda here by a shallow author looking to capitalize on a recently re-elevated subject. The entire book fails to make any positive remarks about the most popular and elected politician in the history of the state of South Carolina. Most of the research by this "author" is conveniently taken from anti-Tillman press while bypassing all of the many contributions to the state and to the U.S. Senate. Tillman was honored and revelled by many fellow U.S. Senators from opposing parties (and from Northern States). He established Clemson University, Winthrop College and the Charleston Naval Shipyard. There were two U.S. Navy Ships named after him. None of these accomplishments and honors are worthy of mention by this spin artist. He conveniently chose to omit, and obviously failed to research, Tillman's admirable private and personal life as it would destroy the credibility of the subject and agenda. Kantrowitz fails miserably in the area of accurate and balanced historical journalism. The slant is conspicuous and offensive and breaks the golden rule of interpreting sources and historic events in the context of the times they were written. Don't waste your time or money.
Rating:
Summary: A Most Innacurate Piece of Fiction
Review: Professor Kantrowitz, a professional historian, has written a book that is revealing of the man and the times but too long and detailed for the nonprofessional reader of history. He has mined old newspapers from South Carolina and other documents energetically--and it would appear that every one of his index cards, so to speak, has been carried over into the text. Consequently, there is more detail than this reader needed or could possibly absorb. This failing is compounded by the author's inadequate treatment of Tillman's life. Milestone personal and family events are mentioned in a sentence, with no indication that the author is interested in Tillman the person--although, to his credit, he does on several occasions remind us that Tillman was devoted to his wife and wrote her loving, and playful, letters. But Tillman's relations with his children are not covered adequately. Nor do we learn much about his nonpolitical relationships with friends, relatives and neighbors. In other words, Professor Kantrowitz has scanted the biographical aspects of his book in favor of doctrinal analsyis. He has given his readers too many excerpts from Tillman's speeches, letters and interviews--primarily on how he felt about the place of Negroes in a white-dominated society. Kantrowitz shows that Tillman took a hostile view towards Negroes, as African Americans were called (and worse) in the 19th Century, and yet he and other farmers needed them as low-wage laborers. His racism and support of violence, part of his calculated appeal to white "producers," are well established early on. But the point is made over and over. Tip to readers: Kantrowitz, a disciplined writer in some respects, introduces paragraphs with topic sentences. Very often the supporting detail that follows can be skimmed or skipped because the general point already has been made.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect Complement to C. Vann Woodward's "Tom Watson"
Review: Stephen Kantrowitz, a gifted writer, accomplishes that rarest of achievements in academia: theory that is actually readable. With "Ben Tillman & the Reconstruction of White Supremacy," recipient of the Organization of Amerian Historians' Hawley Prize, he wades through American history's murkiest waters, those of race and gender. And with remarkable clarity, Kantrowitz shows that you just can't sieve race from gender, or vice versa. Perhaps what makes all the theory understandable is how well Kantrowitz grounds it all in the dirt of real-life "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, a Red-shirt terrorist who advocated lynching and a reconstruction of white supremacy. Kantrowitz also reconstructs our ideas of what exactly makes the stuff of white supremacy (hence, the title of the book includes a double entendre of "the reconstruction of white supremacy," as both subject and author are engaging in projects of "reconstruction," making for what I think is the most creative history book title I've seen). Instead of racial instinct formed in primordial ooze, Kantrowitz exposes white supremacy as a political program, similar to Philip Gourevitch's exposition of the political--as opposed to inherent or inherited--nature of Hutu Power in his equally masterful "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families." This is a brilliant book: elegantly written, restrained, thoughtful, and thought provoking. It reminds us that white supremacy doesn't reside in our blood, but in our history--not just the past, mind you, but our still-unfolding history. As for whether Kantrowitz is fair to Tillman, the passages that made my skin crawl weren't accusations from Kantrowitz or the "anti-Tillman press" but words of hatred spewed directly from Tillman's lips. Don't get mad at Kantrowitz for putting Tillman up to the light illuminated by facts! I'm baffled by the accusation that Kantrowitz is a "shallow author." This is a book of soul-shaking depth, a political tragedy that cuts to the marrow, all the more tragic because of its factual truth. The "obvious agenda here" is not Kantrowitz's. The OAH doesn't give out awards to "spin artists." No, you have to do some research and back up what you say with footnotes (Kantrowitz has 55 pages of them, in itty-bitty print). Amazon.com, on the other hand, with its admirably democratic attitudes toward open forum, allows people to say just about any old thing in reviews. The "A Most Innacurate [sic]..." review accuses Kantrowitz of "conveniently [choosing] to omit and obviously [failing] to research Tillman's admirable private life as it would destroy the credibility of the subject and agenda." Well, I don't know what to say except that while I think Kantrowitz does expose the private life of the biography's subject, Tillman and his white supremacist agenda, I agree that such an exposition does in fact "destroy the credibility of the subject and agenda."
Rating:
Summary: marvelous distillation of powerful truths
Review: The reader from Washington says the book is too long, but he wants more personal detail! How would that happen? Fact is, for a major figure in American political history, Tillman has found biographer whose economy of language is commendable; Kantrowitz only uses 309 pages to do a magnificent job of storytelling and analysis. And it is a great read, especially given the deep and subtle insights that Kantrowitz squeezes from this Dixie demogogue's pernicious but important career. And he does so without turning Tillman into a demon, but rather by revealing that the Senator was not so much a tribute but a trickster of the people, and far from being a populist, served the richest and most powerful of his constituents as he poured salt into the worst of the nation's wounds--the scar of white supremacy. This book is eloquent and profound, and could scarely have been better crafted.
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