In his account of the 500-year sweep of interaction between American Indians and Euro-Americans, British writer and historian James Wilson attempts to right some of the wrongs of earlier historians. Fitting 500 years of history into fewer than 500 pages is no small task, but part of Wilson’s success is based on his weighting the second half of the 19th century the period when most of the decisions (i.e., mistakes) about the Indian problem were made. Wilson also gives the 20th century, especially the first half, ample space. The settling of the West, the displacement and near annihilation of the Indians, and the modern consequences of those events are treated fully.

For example, a century ago there were more than 300 [American Indian boarding schools] across the country with a combined enrollment of nearly 22,000, close to 10 per cent of the entire native American population at the time. These schools were the result of the Dawes Act of 1877, a piece of legislation that followed a nearly unbroken series of disastrous policies toward native peoples. The first of these schools to open, located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was made famous by its most renowned athlete, Jim Thorpe, and the movie based on his life. The sugarcoating job done by that 1951 film (starring the decidedly non-Indian Burt Lancaster) typifies the ongoing revisionism done by white American historians until relatively recently.

Of those boarding schools Wilson writes that native American schoolchildren were thrown into a hostile universe in which everything that made them what they were was systematically ridiculed and condemned. Not surprisingly, many did not survive and many who did survive were scarred for life. . . . He quotes Lakota spokeswoman Charlotte Black Elk who asserted that the Dawes Act was bureaucratic genocide. Children who were successfully civilized were not accepted by their own people. Attitudes persist, so it is easy to understand why little value is placed, even now, on a young person’s leaving the reservation to attend a white university.

Throughout, promises were broken, treaties were broken, and the hearts and wills of many strong people were also broken. And yet today native people are again growing in number and importance. James Wilson’s The Earth Shall Weep affords a good overview of an unhappy segment of the American past.

Writer James Grinnell lives in DeKalb, Illinois.

Even historical amnesiacs will have no difficulty remembering the terrible images of American soldiers dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia, killed and mutilated by a rampaging mob that they had originally been sent to feed. The Battle of the Black Sea (as the events of October 3-4, 1993, came to be known) began as a simple Special Forces kidnapping scheme and ended in a desperate bloody retreat which left 18 Americans and at least 500 Somalis dead. Between the time the assault force (an airborne and motorized medley of Delta Force operators supported by U.

S. Army Rangers) broke into the house of their quarry (local warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid) and the time the force was pulled out in tatters by an international rescue team, something went terribly wrong. Mr. Bowden does a commendable job of showing just what went wrong, and how.

The book came about nearly four years after the event, but the author has done his homework. His list of interviewees is impressive, as is the extent of his research, which includes material which has only recently been declassified. What comes through is a no-holds-barred glimpse into the hell of desperate battle, of men (closer to boys, many of them) killing each other in order just to stay alive. Mr. Bowden describes the fighting through the eyes of several of the battle’s veterans, including Somalis whom he had to bribe his weight in khat (the indigenous drug of choice) to interview, and the result is a searing illustration of vicious urban warfare. In a frank and even-handed epilogue, the author discusses the pros and cons of the mission and its objectives, and shifts the focus from depiction of battle to a discussion of U.

S. foreign policy. The commitment of American forces to back UN famine-relief workers can be seen as President Bush’s parting shot to his successor Bill Clinton, and the difference between their military views became painfully clear in this and subsequent conflicts. Black Hawk Down is a savage reminder that real lives hang in the balance of such changeovers in administrative policy, particularly when heads of state have decided that might makes right.

Adam Dunn writes reviews and features for Current Diversions and Speak magazine.

On their 40th wedding anniversary, Winston Churchill sent the following message to his wife Clementine: My Beloved, I send this token, but how little can it express my gratitude to you for making my life and any work I have done possible, and for giving me so much happiness in a world of accident and storm. Your ever loving and devoted husband, W.

Their six-month courtship in 1908 led to a 57-year marriage. Winston had been elected to Parliament in 1900 and, at the time they married, was also President of the Board of Trade. His passion for politics and public service would take him in the years to come to primary leadership roles in both World Wars and acclaim as the greatest Western statesman of the 20th century. Their marriage survived the often turbulent seas of politics and was a source of strength throughout the years.

We are given an extraordinary look at the famous couple and their world through Winston and Clementine. Edited by Mary Soames, their youngest and only surviving child, this remarkable collection enables us to see them as individuals in the context of their times and understand the depth of their devotion to one another.

The Churchills preferred letter writing, and an occasional telegraph, to the telephone. One would expect Winston to be a good corespondent. He made his living, at least in part, as an author and received the 1953 Nobel Prize for Literature. His letters are well written, but so are Clementine’s. She is a keen observer, has good insight into people, and expresses herself clearly with sensitivity and grace. She does not hesitate to put forth her own opinions when she disagrees with her husband. An important aspect of this book is the editor’s admirable historical and personal commentary about matters that place the letters in proper context. Soames also helpfully identifies persons as they are mentioned in the letters. In addition, there are Biographical Notes at the back, which give more detailed information about some of those closest to the Churchills. Winston and Clementine is a treasure and a delight.

Roger Bishop is a regular contributor to BookPage.

Review by Pat Regel She was almost certainly of the class of the wealthy Egyptian elite, believed to have been petite and slender with brown eyes, light-brown skin, and wavy brown or black hair. But her name, literally a beautiful woman has come, hardly prepares visitors of the Berlin Museum for their first glimpse of her. From the moment her painted bust was first viewed in 1912, those who have seen it have been captivated by her image, acknowledging it as the hallmark of ageless feminine beauty.

The ancients universally regarded Egypt’s 18th Dynastic Period as a focal point of the civilized world. Its royal court was acclaimed as the epitome of sophisticated luxury, and the empire under Amenhotep IV (1353-1336 BC) stretched unchallenged from Nubia to Syria. Even women enjoyed unique legal freedoms, owning property and working outside the home. Into this enlightened climate, Joyce Tyldesley’s Nefertiti retraces the footsteps of the lovely wife of the heretic pharaoh Amenhotep IV, who has come to be known as the world’s first monotheist. Little is known of her parents or early life until she unexpectedly bursts upon the scene and is hailed by her infatuated husband as Fair of Face, Mistress of Joy, Endowed with Charm, Great of Love. Her story, set against the backdrop of privilege, prestige, and power, reads like a detective novel. Taking her place at her husband’s side, Nefertiti aids him in systematically erasing the image and worship of the supreme god of the Egyptians, Amen. In his place, the royal duo install the Aten, the One true god, as the only deity worthy of worship. Then, all too suddenly, she vanishes from Egyptian court records, never to be heard of again. Was she banished by her husband or raised to rule as his equal? Did she reign, in her own right, under another name? Could she have been the real power behind the throne of the young pharaoh Tutankhamen, her son-in-law? Join Tyldesley as she ferrets out clues, illuminates the past, and takes the reader further along in the quest to discover more about the ancient world’s most fascinating queen.

Henry Kissinger is one of the towering and most controversial American statesmen of this century. Even his critics can attest to his brilliance. In the third volume of his memoirs, Years of Renewal, Kissinger offers a detailed account of his service as Secretary of State to Gerald Ford. He also offers insight into the legacy Richard Nixon left foreign policy and reflections on the nature and practice of American foreign policy. Kissinger writes gracefully, and his subject is an important one.

Discussing Nixon the man, Kissinger writes, The Richard Nixon with whom I worked on a daily basis for five and a half years was generally soft-spoken, withdrawn, and quite shy. Nixon, according to Kissinger, had a fear of being rejected, but also a romantic image of himself as a fearless manipulator. Kissinger contrasts Ford’s decent, straightforward leadership style with Nixon’s. Ford worked hard to grasp the essence of issues, and, unlike Nixon, was far more involved in the execution of policy. Kissinger discusses Ford Administration foreign policy achievements, including disentangling the U.

S. from Vietnam and keeping the U.

S. military strong while continuing talks with the U.

S.

S.

R. Kissinger also answers his critics on both the Right and Left of the political spectrum. He and Nixon viewed foreign policy as a continuing process with no terminal point, unlike the dominant view among liberals and conservatives, who were seeking a series of climaxes, each of which would culminate its particular phase and obviate the need for a continuing exertion. This is a major work of diplomatic history, and anyone who wants to better understand American foreign policy from the 1960s on will want to read it.

Roger Bishop is a regular contributor to BookPage.

It is staggering to think how far women’s sports have come in the 1990s. Ten years ago, most sports fans couldn’t name more than a handful of female athletes outside of the occasional Olympic gymnast or figure skater. Now, any woman or, perhaps more importantly, man who reads the sports pages could name any number of players in two women’s professional basketball leagues, and the most well-known soccer player in the U.

S. is Mia Hamm, a member of the national teams which have won not only the Olympics but World Cup competitions.

What may surprise readers (or may only surprise male readers) of Nike Is a Goddess is that women were held back from competing in many sports because sports were seen as unbecoming, unfeminine, or hazardous to women’s presumably delicate physiology. Despite the rather pretentious title, Nike Is a Goddess contains fascinating stories of the evolution of women’s sports, especially in the 20th century. What might make men uncomfortable, and rightly so, is the premise that, in many cases, certain competitions were closed to women because the competitors themselves and/or the public support threatened male competitors and teams in a very real way.

That premise is presented several times, though only in addition to sports history that stands on its own as excellent sports writing. While the familiar names of recent years are present basketball star Rebecca Lobo and skater Tara Lipinski the real intrigue comes from stories like those of Jackie Mitchell.

Mitchell was a 17-year-old baseball phenomenon playing in amateur men’s leagues in Chattanooga, Tennessee, until she was signed to a minor-league contract. In April, 1931, she appeared in an exhibition game against the New York Yankees, striking out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, baseball’s first commissioner, however, voided Mitchell’s contract, insisting that baseball would be too strenuous a game for women. While the book is presumably aimed at female readers, all fans of sports history would do well to absorb this volume. Women’s sports weren’t invented this decade; they’ve been there the whole time.

Shelton Clark is a reviewer in Nashville, Tennessee.

When Col. Theodore Roosevelt led his Rough Riders up Cuba’s San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War of 1898, it transformed the little-known New York politician into a national hero. Just three years later, he was the 26th President of the United States. On the centennial of Roosevelt’s defining moment, Edward J. Renehan’s insightful The Lion’s Pride examines a small but poignant slice of the Roosevelt story: how his exaltation of military valor played out in the lives of his four sons Ted, Kermit, Archie and Quentin in World War I and beyond.

Why did heroism mean so much to Roosevelt? The Roosevelts, well-to-do New York investors and civic leaders, had almost no tradition of military service, according to Renehan, and Roosevelt’s father, Theodore Sr., avoided the Civil War draft by hiring an immigrant to take his place. Indeed, Renehan points out, the only war heroes among Roosevelt’s close relatives were his mother’s brothers from Georgia and they were Confederates. Perhaps, he suggests, Roosevelt’s attitude grew out of embarrassment over his father’s lack of a military record. Roosevelt not only became a war hero himself, he wanted each of his sons to be.

When World War I erupted in Europe in the summer of 1914, Roosevelt had been gone from the White House for five years. He was bored, and the war gave him a cause to champion. Roosevelt became the most outspoken advocate of U.S. intervention. President Woodrow Wilson, meanwhile, was just as intent on keeping America out of the war. In speech after speech, Roosevelt condemned Wilson, a non-veteran, saying he was blinded by his naivete. Then, in 1917, after the Germans repeatedly sunk American ships, Wilson had to declare war. Roosevelt was jubilant. He even went to the White House hoping Wilson would allow him to lead a company of soldiers overseas. Wilson refused. Roosevelt’s four sons, however, did get to serve.

Roosevelt was on hand when Ted and Archie set sail for France in June 1917. Writes Renehan: He made some of the party uncomfortable when he was heard to anticipate, with apparent elation, that at least one of his sons might be wounded, or possibly even killed, on the glorious field of battle. If glory was what the father wanted, surely the sons obliged. Ted, a major, was wounded. Kermit, a captain, was decorated for gallantry in the Middle East. Archie, also a captain, was so severely wounded he was declared disabled (he received France’s Croix de Guerre), and 21-year-old Quentin, an aviator, was shot down over Germany. Theodore Roosevelt never got over Quentin’s death. Within six months, Roosevelt, the Lion, was dead. The Lion’s Pride will have strong appeal to anyone who enjoys reading about Roosevelt, a fascinating character with remarkable staying power as a subject for biographers, or World War I. And it should resonate with any parent who has seen a son or a daughter off to war.

Harry Merritt is a writer in Lexington, Kentucky.

You’ve shopped and shopped for the perfect birthday present for Aunt Agnes, but to no avail. You need help, my friend, and you’ve come to the right place. What birthday gift is always in season, never spoils, and is just the right size? Books, of course! If you are in need of a birthday gift for Aunt Agnes, or anyone else, read on. Living in an age where information is readily available at your fingertips, old habits like letter-writing have been elevated to art form status. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has taken letters written to America’s most political pets and compiled them in Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids’ Letters to the First Pets (all ages). In addition to the wonderful letters (many reproduced in the original handwriting), Mrs. Clinton provides background information on her two pets and parenting advice. Funny photographs, mostly of Socks and Buddy making themselves at home in the White House, make this book enjoyable to read and just look at the pictures. Is Aunt Agnes (or someone else) turning 50? Then Fifty on Fifty: Wisdom, Inspiration, and Reflections on Women’s Lives Well Lived is just the ticket. Journalist Bonnie Miller Rubin interviews 50 women who are either approaching or have passed their half-century birthday. The interviewees are varied (Gloria Allred, Nell Carter, Erica Jong, and Diane Von Furstenberg, to name a few), and Rubin provides a biographical sketch for each. Some found success at an early age, others much later, and others aren’t convinced they are there yet. A good choice for anyone who is taking a life inventory.

Your birthday-er is a golfer, and you don’t know a nine iron from a fire iron? Don’t despair any golf lover would enjoy The Greatest Biggest Golf Book (Andrews McMeel, $9.95, 0836269373). Measuring in at only 1.82 x 5.97 x 4.02 inches, it’s packed with facts, statistics, tips, and even famous lies about this time-honored game. How far did Alan Shepard’s golf balls travel when he played on the moon? Who wore a suit of armor when he played? A must-have for any golf addict.

What if you don’t know Aunt Agnes very well, but well enough to send her a birthday gift? The solution: a book about birthdays. The Power of Birthdays, Stars, and Numbers: The Complete Personology Reference Guide (Ballantine, $24.95, 0345418190) isn’t a big book of horoscopes; it offers all sorts of information about astrology, fixed stars, numerology, and specific profiles for every birthday of the year. Be sure to peek at Aunt Agnes’s birthdate for insight into next year’s gift; it’s never too early, you know.

Our Oregon-based reviewer and outdoors expert Wes Breazeale suggests To the Summit (Black Dog &and Leventhal, $39.98, 1579120415) for the outdoorsperson in your life. He writes the following: To the Summit is both a magnificent look at 50 of the world’s most intriguing mountains and a fascinating exploration of the history of each mountain and the sport of climbing. With six sections representing each continent (Australia and Antarctica are combined), each chapter looks at an individual mountain and often includes profiles of famous climbers. Scattered throughout the book are anecdotal tales from people who have climbed the mountains, brief examinations of climbing gear and techniques, and bits of history from the world of mountain climbing. To the Summit would be an obvious favorite for anyone interested in climbing, but would also make a beautiful gift for any outdoor enthusiast, photography lover, or travel buff.

For anyone interested in things Irish, Heritage of Ireland: A History of Ireland and Its People would be a perfect present indeed. Not just another coffee table book, this weighty, new celebration of the Emerald Isle spans centuries of conquest, politics, art, and daily life taking readers from the arrival of the Celts to Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance. The photographs, at least one to every page, are stunning, and the fresh format with wide margins and attractive type adds to the general readability. There is no blarney here, just the first-rate effort to be expected from publisher Facts on File.