Rating: 
Summary: how they lost their center
Review: This book is an exploration and attempted explanation of how white Anglo-Saxon Protestants fell from grace through American history. E. Digby Baltzell's "The Protestant Establishment" was a drier, more social scientific survey made decades ago. Nelson Aldrich's "Old Money" was, like Frazier's "Family", a more personal account, but dealt with the very rich of the East Coast. In "Family" you can follow the history of several WASP families that lead to Frazier's nuclear family. The various Frazier forebears went from being biggish to medium-size fish in the small bowl of 19th century Ohio to typical middle-class suburbanites in the mid- to late 20th century. I watched this steady dimunition with more empathy than I thought I would feel.Frazier's style is almost telegraphic through certain passages where each consecutive sentence includes a story in miniature about some member of the family during a particular historical time-slice. For the most part this works as a way of imparting a lot of information in a condensed package and suggesting much more than is actually told. The chapters of the book that I found the least interesting were those concerning the Civil War. Two of Frazier's Wickham ancestors happened to be participants in several pivotal battles, most notably Chancellorville. Frazier devotes a great many pages to Stonewall Jackson because the Confederate general's deathbed words ("Let us cross the river and find rest in the shade of the trees") come to represent the most important theme in American history for Frazier. He makes a case for the hypothesis that a belief in salvation and a promised land were the organizing principle for his ancestors and the gradual dimunition of that faith is at the root of our collective modern malaise. It seems like a hypothesis worth fleshing out, although not by supplying so many details about several Civil War battles.
Rating: 
Summary: Capturing Time
Review: This is a remarkable book. Frazier did a monumental job of researching his family history and produced an eloquent family history that parallels the country's history as well. The book can be read as a beautiful and fascinating family history, a meditation on the role of religion in U.S. history, and as a portrait of many memorable figures both within and without the author's family. His descriptions of his brother, father and mother brought tears to my eyes.
Rating:
Summary: A beautifully written family saga and history of the US
Review: This is a remarkable book. Frazier did a monumental job of researching his family history and produced an eloquent family history that parallels the country's history as well. The book can be read as a beautiful and fascinating family history, a meditation on the role of religion in U.S. history, and as a portrait of many memorable figures both within and without the author's family. His descriptions of his brother, father and mother brought tears to my eyes.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for anyone who grew up in the Midwest.
Review: This wonderful book reminds me of some of the best writing by E.B. White. Beautifully written, with a gentle charm that invites you to explore the lives of the author's Midwestern ancestors. Especially relevant for anyone who grew up in northeastern Ohio, as I did.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for anyone who grew up in the Midwest.
Review: This wonderful book reminds me of some of the best writing by E.B. White. Beautifully written, with a gentle charm that invites you to explore the lives of the author's Midwestern ancestors. Especially relevant for anyone who grew up in northeastern Ohio, as I did.
| 
