A year in the life of America Villains just aren’t what they used to be. Rarely do we read these days of people being assaulted to the accompaniment of such inflated locutions as this: “Now you damned, perjured rascal, we will inflict upon you the penalty of your violated obligations.” The victim was a minister and his would-be assassin a man out to settle the minister’s hash for renouncing his vows to Freemasonry. Fortunately, the minister survived the assault in 1831. His story, reported by Louis P. Masur, a professor of history at the City University of New York, in his 1831: Year of Eclipse, illustrates a couple of things about reading this history, and history in general.

The first, though lesser, is that one of the great delights of history is coming across captivating gems like this. There are many other fascinating nuggets in Masur’s admirable work.

The second, more substantive, is that opposition to Masonry was a very big deal in 19th century American politics. The Anti-Masons, Masur writes, “became the first third party in American history and invented the presidential nominating convention.” The actual threat that Masonry posed to the national life was almost if not entirely, nonexistent, but that of course was not the first or last time politicians built their careers upon a chimerical fear. This lesson is perhaps of even greater value in reading history. For a modern parallel we might imagine an Anti-Cult Party or Anti-Satan Party whipping up the masses to much ado about nothing.

The year 1831 acts as more of a vantage point than a rallying point for Masur’s study. The full eclipse of the sun that occurred on February 12 had been widely heralded, and so was not the fright that some earlier eclipses had been. Though some, like Sen. Edward Everett of Massachusetts, tried to see in it a metaphor or omen, as such it was pretty much damp squib.

But it was and is perfect for viewing the storms that were gathering over slavery, abolition, religion, tariffs, states’ rights, nullification and a host of attendant issues. It was, for example, the year of the visit of Alexis de Tocqueville, the pre-eminent observer of America, who, like many other foreigners, saw civil war as inevitable. It was the year that a more caustic English observer, Frances Trollope, left the country, liking nothing and scorning in particular the “vehement expressions of insane or hypocritical zeal” offered by itinerant preachers for which another modern parallel might be the scarifying nutcases infesting the “paid programming” recesses of television.

Our observer, Masur, has the advantage of a longer view of some of the same phenomena the 19th century observers commented upon: Nat Turner’s slave revolt, the Cherokee Trail of Tears, the battle over the Bank of the United States. Behind these and other events and issues is the question at the heart of everything: “whether the United States could survive as a nation.” In examining these matters, Masur provides the reader another incidental, though not necessarily trivial, intellectual pleasure: savoring the hypocrisies and paradoxes accompanying the acts of history’s major and minor players. Most have to do with slavery, because that was far and away the chief circumstance behind the question of the nation’s survival. For example: � Though Virginia’s white community lamented that white women had been killed in Turner’s slave revolt, they gave thanks that at least they had not been raped.

� After the revolt, some Southerners saw a need to keep control through terror, thus giving the lie to the Southern doctrine that slavery was benign and the enslaved were loyal and contented.

� Not just Southerners, but Northern newspaper editors and Northerners in general were outraged by William Lloyd Garrison’s radical abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. Their fierce opposition only boosted the newspaper’s circulation.

� South Carolinians, in particular, took a kind of sour pride in the doctrine of nullification, because it meant resistance to the power of the federal government to interfere with slavery. Not many were able to see that it also contributed to an atmosphere of lawlessness that could incite the slaves.

Finally, the bitterest hypocrisy of them all. Garrison in his livid tirades frequently vilified the U.

S. Constitution as “an agreement with hell” because it accommodated slavery. He saw what too few Americans saw but practically every foreign visitor commented on the tragic irony of slavery in a republic that espoused freedom.

Roger K. Miller is a freelance writer in Wisconsin.

Andrew Johnson, the military governor of Tennessee, was chosen by the 1864 Union Party convention (a coalition of Republicans and so-called "War Democrats" opposed to the Civil War) as Abraham Lincoln’s vice-presidential running mate because he was a Southerner and a Democrat. A steadfast defender of the Union throughout the Civil War, Johnson was placed on the ticket as an expression of national unity.

After the assassination of Lincoln, Johnson’s greatest challenge was the reconstruction of the nation. The most adamant Congressional opponents of slavery, the Radical Republicans, sought major changes in the secession states and in ways to assist the freed slaves. Johnson did not share their principles or their goals. With increasing bitterness, the president and the heavily Republican Congress fought over issue after issue. When Republicans increased their numbers in Congress after the 1866 elections, they decided to take the extreme measure of impeaching the president, for the first time in American history.

In his magnificent Impeached: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy, David O. Stewart, author of the highly acclaimed Summer of 1787, provides an extraordinary narrative that brings the many key players vividly to life while at the same time exhibiting an admirable clarity in discussing issues and events.

Although procedurally judicial, impeachment is a political action. Stewart excels in describing the often-complex strategies and machinations of the politicians on both sides as they use all legal, and even illegal, means to prevail. The author notes that definite conclusions are elusive, but the evidence indicates that corruption–bribery and patronage–may well have determined one of the critical moments in American history: Johnson was acquitted by a single vote in the Senate.

At the heart of Stewart’s re-creation of the period is Rep. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. As a lawyer before the war, Stevens represented slaves and sometimes personally bought their freedom; his home had been a stop on the Underground Railroad. Stevens’ legacy includes the 14th Amendment to the Constitution as well as Reconstruction legislation. After two failed attempts to steer presidential impeachment through the House of Representatives, Stevens was successful on a third try. Although he was the logical choice to lead opposition to the president, he was frail and in poor health. He did serve on the Impeachment Committee and co-authored Article XI, the catchall article that had more support in the Senate than the other 10 Articles of Impeachment against the president. Six weeks after Johnson was acquitted, Stevens introduced five more articles of impeachment against the chief executive.

Historians and writers have drawn very different lessons from this episode in history. In an excellent overview–in which he discusses myths about the trial and disagrees with Woodrow Wilson and John F. Kennedy, who were more sympathetic than he is to Johnson–Stewart concludes that Johnson’s presidency can only be seen as a tragedy. Although Johnson’s personal rise from poverty to the White House is inspiring, his refusal to compromise with Congress on crucial aspects of Lincoln’s legacy was unfortunate. Lincoln was too good a politician to alienate Congress and too strong and compassionate a leader to accept violence and oppression toward the freedmen and the Southern Republicans.

Stewart’s book splendidly illuminates an important chapter in American history.

Roger Bishop is a retired Nashville bookseller and a frequent contributor to BookPage.

 

Closing the gaps in women’s history Talk to young women about the women’s movement, and their eyes glaze over. That’s ancient history. Women’s equality is a given, taken for granted by today’s college-aged women, who were born in the 1980s.

Historian Ruth Rosen discovered how little the younger generation knew about the topic when she stood before a classroom of college students and asked how the women’s movement had affected their lives. They couldn’t answer. The students stared in amazement as Rosen listed on the blackboard the myriad of indignities and roadblocks women had encountered before women’s liberation swept the nation in the 1960s and ’70s.

After her epiphany in the classroom, Rosen, professor of history at the University of California-Davis, decided to write a book that would document the origins and impact of the contemporary women’s movement.

The result is The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America (Viking, $34.95, 0670814628), a comprehensive account of the personalities and issues that dominated the drive for women’s equality. This modern movement marks the third major era of women’s rights the first two being the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention of 1848 and the women’s suffrage movement of the early 1900s and the one having the most profound impact on the lives of women. Rosen dates the beginning of the movement from the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique in 1963. Friedan was among the first to notice that the Donna Reed persona of the 1950s housewife had left many women with deep feelings of frustration and boredom. Rosen shows how the frustrations of these women led to an eventual revolt by their daughters, the young women of the 1960s who were determined not to live under the same constraints. As an activist herself, Rosen is particularly adept at capturing the passion that motivated many participants in the movement. From consciousness-raising sessions to protest marches, the new feminist culture served to energize converts and shake the establishment to its core.

Although Rosen is a noted feminist academic, with two of her previous books on the standard Women’s Studies reading list, in The World Split Open, she creates an accessible narrative account that should appeal to non-academic readers as well.

One battle cry of the feminist movement was, The personal is political. By this, women meant that politics and power structures affected the everyday occurrences of private life, from the home to the workplace. A first-rate description of how the women’s movement affected the personal lives of women can be found in Elizabeth Fishel’s Reunion: The Girls We Used to Be, the Women We Became (Random House, $23.95, 0679449833). Spurred by her 25th high school reunion, Fishel decided to trace the paths of ten classmates after their graduation in 1968 from the Brearley School, a girls’ school favored by New York City’s wealthiest families.

Fishel gives a fascinating account of how these young women were caught in the crossfire between the old world of wealth and privilege and the new world of social upheaval and changing roles for women. Women just a half generation older were secure in their lives as housewives and mothers, while women a few years younger aimed for careers as doctors, lawyers, and psychologists. The girls of the class of ’68 were left floundering, unsure which direction to take, as a social revolt erupted around them. Fishel follows them through suicide, divorce, drugs, alcohol, career changes, and spiritual seeking. Along the way, she points out broader generational patterns and statistical tidbits, such as this one: Women born in the 1950s have had fewer children than any other generation in U.

S. history. The women of the Brearley class conformed to this trend, with many remaining childless or choosing motherhood later in life.

Fishel’s book ends on an upbeat note when the class gathers in 1998 for its 30th reunion. Despite the anguish and confusion they have endured, many of these women reach a more peaceful plane as they approach their 50th birthdays. Although few have the lived the lives they dreamed of, most have come to terms with the choices they made.

Another good reading selection for Women’s History Month is Claudia Roth Pierpont’s Passionate Minds: Women Rewriting the World (Alfred A. Knopf, $26.95, 0679431063) which gives detailed and incisive portraits of 12 women writers who lived and wrote in the transitional era before the women’s movement leveled the playing field. Pierpont could have titled her book Hard-Headed Women, for if there is one quality these fiesty women writers have in common, it’s stubbornness. From Gertrude Stein to Eudora Welty, each woman stuck to the course she set, which was often outside the norm established for women of the day.

The 12 women profiled here are all what Pierpont considers literary women of influence (very different from women of literary influence). In other words, their writing changed the way people thought about race, about politics, and about sex.

Pierpont’s subjects include both the lesser known (19th century South African novelist Olive Schriner) and the wildly popular (Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell). One surprising inclusion is Mae West, who made her name as the Madonna of her era, more than willing to deny conventions of appropriate sexual behavior. It’s not nearly as well known that West was also a writer. As Pierpont notes, Mae West had to become a writer before she could be a movie star. In 1926, West wrote a three-act play titled simply, Sex, which delighted its sold-out audiences, but appalled the critics. West went on to the movies, where she often punched up her own part in the script to add sizzle.

Pierpont gives sympathetic portrayals of these often outlandish and avant-garde women, with the curious exception of Eudora Welty. This Mississippi writer earns Pierpont’s criticism for failing to condemn the racial bigotry that existed in her home state. Only once, in a short story about the assassination of Medgar Evers, did Welty express anguish over racial discrimination. For Pierpont, this studied avoidance of social reality casts a pall over Welty’s work.

And finally, for the younger woman in your life, Penny Colman has written an excellent overview of a neglected topic, Girls: A History of Growing up Female in America. Working from letters, diaries and other original sources, Colman pieces together a culturally diverse account of girls’ experiences throughout U.

S. history. Girls coming of age in the new millennium will find role models, encouragement, humor, and despair in the life stories presented here. From pioneer girls to future astronauts, each has a unique story to tell.

Closing the gaps in women’s history Talk to young women about the women’s movement, and their eyes glaze over. That’s ancient history. Women’s equality is a given, taken for granted by today’s college-aged women, who were born in the 1980s.

Historian Ruth Rosen discovered how little the younger generation knew about the topic when she stood before a classroom of college students and asked how the women’s movement had affected their lives. They couldn’t answer. The students stared in amazement as Rosen listed on the blackboard the myriad of indignities and roadblocks women had encountered before women’s liberation swept the nation in the 1960s and ’70s.

After her epiphany in the classroom, Rosen, professor of history at the University of California-Davis, decided to write a book that would document the origins and impact of the contemporary women’s movement.

The result is The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America (Viking, $34.95, 0670814628), a comprehensive account of the personalities and issues that dominated the drive for women’s equality. This modern movement marks the third major era of women’s rights the first two being the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention of 1848 and the women’s suffrage movement of the early 1900s and the one having the most profound impact on the lives of women. Rosen dates the beginning of the movement from the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique in 1963. Friedan was among the first to notice that the Donna Reed persona of the 1950s housewife had left many women with deep feelings of frustration and boredom. Rosen shows how the frustrations of these women led to an eventual revolt by their daughters, the young women of the 1960s who were determined not to live under the same constraints. As an activist herself, Rosen is particularly adept at capturing the passion that motivated many participants in the movement. From consciousness-raising sessions to protest marches, the new feminist culture served to energize converts and shake the establishment to its core.

Although Rosen is a noted feminist academic, with two of her previous books on the standard Women’s Studies reading list, in The World Split Open, she creates an accessible narrative account that should appeal to non-academic readers as well.

One battle cry of the feminist movement was, The personal is political. By this, women meant that politics and power structures affected the everyday occurrences of private life, from the home to the workplace. A first-rate description of how the women’s movement affected the personal lives of women can be found in Elizabeth Fishel’s Reunion: The Girls We Used to Be, the Women We Became (Random House, $23.95, 0679449833). Spurred by her 25th high school reunion, Fishel decided to trace the paths of ten classmates after their graduation in 1968 from the Brearley School, a girls’ school favored by New York City’s wealthiest families.

Fishel gives a fascinating account of how these young women were caught in the crossfire between the old world of wealth and privilege and the new world of social upheaval and changing roles for women. Women just a half generation older were secure in their lives as housewives and mothers, while women a few years younger aimed for careers as doctors, lawyers, and psychologists. The girls of the class of ’68 were left floundering, unsure which direction to take, as a social revolt erupted around them. Fishel follows them through suicide, divorce, drugs, alcohol, career changes, and spiritual seeking. Along the way, she points out broader generational patterns and statistical tidbits, such as this one: Women born in the 1950s have had fewer children than any other generation in U.

S. history. The women of the Brearley class conformed to this trend, with many remaining childless or choosing motherhood later in life.

Fishel’s book ends on an upbeat note when the class gathers in 1998 for its 30th reunion. Despite the anguish and confusion they have endured, many of these women reach a more peaceful plane as they approach their 50th birthdays. Although few have the lived the lives they dreamed of, most have come to terms with the choices they made.

Another good reading selection for Women’s History Month is Claudia Roth Pierpont’s Passionate Minds: Women Rewriting the World which gives detailed and incisive portraits of 12 women writers who lived and wrote in the transitional era before the women’s movement leveled the playing field. Pierpont could have titled her book Hard-Headed Women, for if there is one quality these fiesty women writers have in common, it’s stubbornness. From Gertrude Stein to Eudora Welty, each woman stuck to the course she set, which was often outside the norm established for women of the day.

The 12 women profiled here are all what Pierpont considers literary women of influence (very different from women of literary influence). In other words, their writing changed the way people thought about race, about politics, and about sex.

Pierpont’s subjects include both the lesser known (19th century South African novelist Olive Schriner) and the wildly popular (Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell). One surprising inclusion is Mae West, who made her name as the Madonna of her era, more than willing to deny conventions of appropriate sexual behavior. It’s not nearly as well known that West was also a writer. As Pierpont notes, Mae West had to become a writer before she could be a movie star. In 1926, West wrote a three-act play titled simply, Sex, which delighted its sold-out audiences, but appalled the critics. West went on to the movies, where she often punched up her own part in the script to add sizzle.

Pierpont gives sympathetic portrayals of these often outlandish and avant-garde women, with the curious exception of Eudora Welty. This Mississippi writer earns Pierpont’s criticism for failing to condemn the racial bigotry that existed in her home state. Only once, in a short story about the assassination of Medgar Evers, did Welty express anguish over racial discrimination. For Pierpont, this studied avoidance of social reality casts a pall over Welty’s work.

And finally, for the younger woman in your life, Penny Colman has written an excellent overview of a neglected topic, Girls: A History of Growing up Female in America (Scholastic, $18.95, 0590371290). Working from letters, diaries and other original sources, Colman pieces together a culturally diverse account of girls’ experiences throughout U.

S. history. Girls coming of age in the new millennium will find role models, encouragement, humor, and despair in the life stories presented here. From pioneer girls to future astronauts, each has a unique story to tell.

Closing the gaps in women’s history Talk to young women about the women’s movement, and their eyes glaze over. That’s ancient history. Women’s equality is a given, taken for granted by today’s college-aged women, who were born in the 1980s.

Historian Ruth Rosen discovered how little the younger generation knew about the topic when she stood before a classroom of college students and asked how the women’s movement had affected their lives. They couldn’t answer. The students stared in amazement as Rosen listed on the blackboard the myriad of indignities and roadblocks women had encountered before women’s liberation swept the nation in the 1960s and ’70s.

After her epiphany in the classroom, Rosen, professor of history at the University of California-Davis, decided to write a book that would document the origins and impact of the contemporary women’s movement.

The result is The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America (Viking, $34.95, 0670814628), a comprehensive account of the personalities and issues that dominated the drive for women’s equality. This modern movement marks the third major era of women’s rights the first two being the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention of 1848 and the women’s suffrage movement of the early 1900s and the one having the most profound impact on the lives of women. Rosen dates the beginning of the movement from the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique in 1963. Friedan was among the first to notice that the Donna Reed persona of the 1950s housewife had left many women with deep feelings of frustration and boredom. Rosen shows how the frustrations of these women led to an eventual revolt by their daughters, the young women of the 1960s who were determined not to live under the same constraints. As an activist herself, Rosen is particularly adept at capturing the passion that motivated many participants in the movement. From consciousness-raising sessions to protest marches, the new feminist culture served to energize converts and shake the establishment to its core.

Although Rosen is a noted feminist academic, with two of her previous books on the standard Women’s Studies reading list, in The World Split Open, she creates an accessible narrative account that should appeal to non-academic readers as well.

One battle cry of the feminist movement was, The personal is political. By this, women meant that politics and power structures affected the everyday occurrences of private life, from the home to the workplace. A first-rate description of how the women’s movement affected the personal lives of women can be found in Elizabeth Fishel’s Reunion: The Girls We Used to Be, the Women We Became. Spurred by her 25th high school reunion, Fishel decided to trace the paths of ten classmates after their graduation in 1968 from the Brearley School, a girls’ school favored by New York City’s wealthiest families.

Fishel gives a fascinating account of how these young women were caught in the crossfire between the old world of wealth and privilege and the new world of social upheaval and changing roles for women. Women just a half generation older were secure in their lives as housewives and mothers, while women a few years younger aimed for careers as doctors, lawyers, and psychologists. The girls of the class of ’68 were left floundering, unsure which direction to take, as a social revolt erupted around them. Fishel follows them through suicide, divorce, drugs, alcohol, career changes, and spiritual seeking. Along the way, she points out broader generational patterns and statistical tidbits, such as this one: Women born in the 1950s have had fewer children than any other generation in U.

S. history. The women of the Brearley class conformed to this trend, with many remaining childless or choosing motherhood later in life.

Fishel’s book ends on an upbeat note when the class gathers in 1998 for its 30th reunion. Despite the anguish and confusion they have endured, many of these women reach a more peaceful plane as they approach their 50th birthdays. Although few have the lived the lives they dreamed of, most have come to terms with the choices they made.

Another good reading selection for Women’s History Month is Claudia Roth Pierpont’s Passionate Minds: Women Rewriting the World (Alfred A. Knopf, $26.95, 0679431063) which gives detailed and incisive portraits of 12 women writers who lived and wrote in the transitional era before the women’s movement leveled the playing field. Pierpont could have titled her book Hard-Headed Women, for if there is one quality these fiesty women writers have in common, it’s stubbornness. From Gertrude Stein to Eudora Welty, each woman stuck to the course she set, which was often outside the norm established for women of the day.

The 12 women profiled here are all what Pierpont considers literary women of influence (very different from women of literary influence). In other words, their writing changed the way people thought about race, about politics, and about sex.

Pierpont’s subjects include both the lesser known (19th century South African novelist Olive Schriner) and the wildly popular (Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell). One surprising inclusion is Mae West, who made her name as the Madonna of her era, more than willing to deny conventions of appropriate sexual behavior. It’s not nearly as well known that West was also a writer. As Pierpont notes, Mae West had to become a writer before she could be a movie star. In 1926, West wrote a three-act play titled simply, Sex, which delighted its sold-out audiences, but appalled the critics. West went on to the movies, where she often punched up her own part in the script to add sizzle.

Pierpont gives sympathetic portrayals of these often outlandish and avant-garde women, with the curious exception of Eudora Welty. This Mississippi writer earns Pierpont’s criticism for failing to condemn the racial bigotry that existed in her home state. Only once, in a short story about the assassination of Medgar Evers, did Welty express anguish over racial discrimination. For Pierpont, this studied avoidance of social reality casts a pall over Welty’s work.

And finally, for the younger woman in your life, Penny Colman has written an excellent overview of a neglected topic, Girls: A History of Growing up Female in America (Scholastic, $18.95, 0590371290). Working from letters, diaries and other original sources, Colman pieces together a culturally diverse account of girls’ experiences throughout U.

S. history. Girls coming of age in the new millennium will find role models, encouragement, humor, and despair in the life stories presented here. From pioneer girls to future astronauts, each has a unique story to tell.

Closing the gaps in women’s history Talk to young women about the women’s movement, and their eyes glaze over. That’s ancient history. Women’s equality is a given, taken for granted by today’s college-aged women, who were born in the 1980s.

Historian Ruth Rosen discovered how little the younger generation knew about the topic when she stood before a classroom of college students and asked how the women’s movement had affected their lives. They couldn’t answer. The students stared in amazement as Rosen listed on the blackboard the myriad of indignities and roadblocks women had encountered before women’s liberation swept the nation in the 1960s and ’70s.

After her epiphany in the classroom, Rosen, professor of history at the University of California-Davis, decided to write a book that would document the origins and impact of the contemporary women’s movement.

The result is The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America, a comprehensive account of the personalities and issues that dominated the drive for women’s equality. This modern movement marks the third major era of women’s rights the first two being the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention of 1848 and the women’s suffrage movement of the early 1900s and the one having the most profound impact on the lives of women. Rosen dates the beginning of the movement from the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique in 1963. Friedan was among the first to notice that the Donna Reed persona of the 1950s housewife had left many women with deep feelings of frustration and boredom. Rosen shows how the frustrations of these women led to an eventual revolt by their daughters, the young women of the 1960s who were determined not to live under the same constraints. As an activist herself, Rosen is particularly adept at capturing the passion that motivated many participants in the movement. From consciousness-raising sessions to protest marches, the new feminist culture served to energize converts and shake the establishment to its core.

Although Rosen is a noted feminist academic, with two of her previous books on the standard Women’s Studies reading list, in The World Split Open, she creates an accessible narrative account that should appeal to non-academic readers as well.

One battle cry of the feminist movement was, The personal is political. By this, women meant that politics and power structures affected the everyday occurrences of private life, from the home to the workplace. A first-rate description of how the women’s movement affected the personal lives of women can be found in Elizabeth Fishel’s Reunion: The Girls We Used to Be, the Women We Became (Random House, $23.95, 0679449833). Spurred by her 25th high school reunion, Fishel decided to trace the paths of ten classmates after their graduation in 1968 from the Brearley School, a girls’ school favored by New York City’s wealthiest families.

Fishel gives a fascinating account of how these young women were caught in the crossfire between the old world of wealth and privilege and the new world of social upheaval and changing roles for women. Women just a half generation older were secure in their lives as housewives and mothers, while women a few years younger aimed for careers as doctors, lawyers, and psychologists. The girls of the class of ’68 were left floundering, unsure which direction to take, as a social revolt erupted around them. Fishel follows them through suicide, divorce, drugs, alcohol, career changes, and spiritual seeking. Along the way, she points out broader generational patterns and statistical tidbits, such as this one: Women born in the 1950s have had fewer children than any other generation in U.S. history. The women of the Brearley class conformed to this trend, with many remaining childless or choosing motherhood later in life.

Fishel’s book ends on an upbeat note when the class gathers in 1998 for its 30th reunion. Despite the anguish and confusion they have endured, many of these women reach a more peaceful plane as they approach their 50th birthdays. Although few have the lived the lives they dreamed of, most have come to terms with the choices they made.

Another good reading selection for Women’s History Month is Claudia Roth Pierpont’s Passionate Minds: Women Rewriting the World (Alfred A. Knopf, $26.95, 0679431063) which gives detailed and incisive portraits of 12 women writers who lived and wrote in the transitional era before the women’s movement leveled the playing field. Pierpont could have titled her book Hard-Headed Women, for if there is one quality these fiesty women writers have in common, it’s stubbornness. From Gertrude Stein to Eudora Welty, each woman stuck to the course she set, which was often outside the norm established for women of the day.

The 12 women profiled here are all what Pierpont considers literary women of influence (very different from women of literary influence). In other words, their writing changed the way people thought about race, about politics, and about sex.

Pierpont’s subjects include both the lesser known (19th century South African novelist Olive Schriner) and the wildly popular (Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell). One surprising inclusion is Mae West, who made her name as the Madonna of her era, more than willing to deny conventions of appropriate sexual behavior. It’s not nearly as well known that West was also a writer. As Pierpont notes, Mae West had to become a writer before she could be a movie star. In 1926, West wrote a three-act play titled simply, Sex, which delighted its sold-out audiences, but appalled the critics. West went on to the movies, where she often punched up her own part in the script to add sizzle.

Pierpont gives sympathetic portrayals of these often outlandish and avant-garde women, with the curious exception of Eudora Welty. This Mississippi writer earns Pierpont’s criticism for failing to condemn the racial bigotry that existed in her home state. Only once, in a short story about the assassination of Medgar Evers, did Welty express anguish over racial discrimination. For Pierpont, this studied avoidance of social reality casts a pall over Welty’s work.

And finally, for the younger woman in your life, Penny Colman has written an excellent overview of a neglected topic, Girls: A History of Growing up Female in America (Scholastic, $18.95, 0590371290). Working from letters, diaries and other original sources, Colman pieces together a culturally diverse account of girls’ experiences throughout U.S. history. Girls coming of age in the new millennium will find role models, encouragement, humor, and despair in the life stories presented here. From pioneer girls to future astronauts, each has a unique story to tell.

Rarely can a single volume fundamentally change one’s view of a major part of the planet and its complex history, but this epic account of the hundreds of states and thousands of colorful leaders who have figured in 5,000 years of turmoil and achievement on the Indian subcontinent is that invaluable exception. Not one educated, concerned, intelligent American reader in 10,000 knows a tenth of the information packed into this zesty history. That’s a safe bet, and so is this: Despite the very occasional thin passage, when the historical record is bare or a succession of patricidal nawabs becomes repetitive, John Keay grabs the reader by the throat on virtually every page with another vivid portrait of an unforgettable warrior or thinker, luminous evocation of art or bejeweled pageantry, or charge of elephant troops across a blasted plain.

In short, India: A History is seductive storytelling that reveals unexpected worlds of information, beginning with fairly recent discoveries about the Harappans, who may have invented writing and the wheel well before any other culture, and continuing through a myriad of Hindu, Greek, Mongol, Moslem, and other rulers through the British Raj down to the creaky but functioning federalism of today’s Indian Republic. Taking his story from Himalayas to Indian Ocean, as cultures rise and fall or destroy one another all over the subcontinent, Keay brilliantly renders tangled history into lucid narrative. Still, the 39 maps keyed to his story will be of great benefit to any reader.

Perhaps India: A History is most surprising in its introduction to Western readers of numerous personalities who clearly bestrode their times like colossi, such as the great lawgiver Ashoka of the third century or the admirable sultan Ala-ud-din a thousand years later.

Throughout his lengthy but never overlong story, Keay also illuminates religious differences, political movements and the eternal push-pull between Indian nationalism and regional aspirations. India: A History is a novelistic saga that provides Westerners with millennia of new experiences.

Charles Flowers, who lives in Purdys, New York, is writing a book about the fall of the Aztec empire.

Contrary to widespread public opinion several years ago, war in Bosnia was not inevitable. But once the war began, peace, or at least an end to hostilities was not inevitable either. It took a long, arduous, complex journey from shuttle diplomacy among warring parties to the signed Dayton Peace Accords. Richard Holbrooke, the U.

S. diplomat who was both chief negotiator and the primary architect of the Accords, recounts the experience in his important new book, To End a War.

Considering the formidable obstacles Holbrooke and his colleagues had to overcome, the wonder is that any kind of viable peace was realized at all.

The negotiators dealt directly with the leaders of the countries engaged in war. Commenting on his conversations Slodan Milosevic and Alija Izetbegovic, Holbrooke writes, “They both expressed surprise at the dimensions of what they had unleashed. Yet neither man had made a serious effort to stop the war until forced to do so by the United States.” U.

S. involvement came only after Holbrooke and others on his team convinced officials at the State Department and White House, and especially at the Pentagon, that it was the right course of action. There was strong resistance from the military and the American public to send American troops there. From the beginning, too, at least some European leaders felt that the war was a European problem that should be resolved by Europeans. But after ineffective efforts by the European Union and the United Nations, it became clear, however grudgingly, that U.

S. leadership, through NATO, was needed. The largest military action in NATO history was launched, which, with many other efforts, eventually led to productive negotiations.

Holbrooke is remarkably candid. He does not hesitate to point out that some of his team’s judgments were mistaken. He also shares the thinking behind major decisions and relates the inner workings of his carefully chosen team. This extraordinary book offers us the rare opportunity to see how complex issues of contemporary foreign policy are debated, decided, and implemented. Holbrooke closes with these words: “There will be other Bosnias in our lives areas where early outside involvement can be decisive, and American leadership will be required. The world’s richest nation, one that presumes to great moral authority, cannot simply make worthy appeals to conscience and call on others to carry the burden. The world will look to Washington for more than rhetoric the next time we face a challenge to peace.” When that time comes, a careful reading of this book may be helpful in deciding on an appropriate response.

Reviewed by Roger Bishop.

At the middle of the last decade, there were 56 wars being fought around the globe. Among other devastating effects, these conflicts created at least 17 million refugees and left 26 million people homeless. Another 300 million individuals suffered because of disasters not related to war. This state of affairs, following the end of the Cold War and the proclamation of a new world order, indicates serious disarray among the community of nations. And yet, each day dedicated human beings among them international civil servants, government officials, nongovernmental workers, and a broad spectrum of volunteers continue to cope with complex and seemingly intractable problems, in efforts to alleviate suffering and advance the cause of peace.

How did these problems originate and why do they persist? William Shawcross, noted journalist and acclaimed author of such works as Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia and The Quality of Mercy, explores the often harsh realities of this world in his probing and insightful new book Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict.

Shawcross traveled to Cambodia, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, and other trouble spots. Some of the trips were with Kofi Annan, when he was responsible for UN peacekeeping operations and later when he was secretary general. In his impressive overview, the author says he hopes to show in some part, how difficult, if not impossible, their decisions are, faced with the conflicting demands of politicians at home, members of the [UN] Security Council, generals on the ground and the evil which they attempt to face down. And beyond all that there is the question of whether intervention, often demanded for emotional reasons, is necessarily wise. As former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali noted, Everywhere we work, we are struggling against the culture of death. But urgent as the need may be, Shawcross demonstrates that the location and timing of a crisis, as well as the domestic political considerations of Security Council members, often determines what, if any, action is taken. He examines the case of Rwanda in 1994. Definitions were important, he says. Human rights organizations, the pope, and UN officials termed what was happening there genocide. But the leaders of the major nations consistently refused to use the word which, by treaty, would require them to prevent and punish genocide as a crime against humanity. The UN peacekeeping operation there was mandated, but never properly staffed or equipped.

As the author describes specific conditions in the various countries, he poses ethical and moral questions that must be faced. Does the UN Charter actually provide adequate defense against evil? In many ways the story of the last decade is not encouraging. . . . [T]he two warlords who had most successfully tortured their own people and the institutions of the world for the last decade, Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosovic, were still in power. Nothing that the international community had been able to do . . . had succeeded in dislodging them. Shawcross believes and this may surprise some readers that the overall story of world peacekeeping is a hopeful one. The crises with which the world has had to deal since the end of the Cold War are not new. Ethnic cleansing happened on a vast scale at the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, when there was no international community to do anything about it. Now there is and, with fits and starts, this community is making progress. He is keenly aware that not everything can be achieved. But he counsels that intervention must be consistent; it must be followed through. Roger Bishop is a regular contributor to BookPage.