Matt Hoover > Recent Status Updates

This week on "Hoover can't make progress on the books he's currently reading, so he's going to blitzkrieg something else totally"

Painfully slow.

I've thus far jumped around read Chapters 1, 2, 8, 9, 3, and 4, (that is, all of parts 1 and 3). Admittedly slow progress, for me, which is telling. I have three observations. (1) Ch. 3 & 4, about the Community B question and the role of women in a mining community were cursory, but fascinating, (2) Ch. 8 & 9 were equally cursory and interesting, but, unfortunately, Singer isn't the storyteller that I recall Beik was

Flattering to Sickles as frequently as can be done. Critical of Meade in as many opportunities as arise.

"Dan Sickles' most admirable quality was his ability to conquer adversity, and the loss of his leg merely became one more career obstacle to overcome." (p. 246) Hardly an unbiased treatment.

All in all, well researched and evidenced, but a deeply apologetic book on Sickles' behalf.

Regarding Ch.1, von Balthasar's premise is lucid and defined. Regarding Ch.2, after some reflection on the substance and context of the verses von Balthasar proffers, I think he is grasping at straws. Few of the verses he addresses are as controversial or convincing as they may appear when taken in complete context. Ch.3 contains an imaginative description of hell and some stick-in-the-mud interpretations of Origen

Hessler seems to revel in the scoundrel qualities and romanticize the moral flaws of his character; hardly an objective perspective, but, then, how objective can one be when addressing "Devil Dan"? Hessler is occasionally critical of Sickles, but also hard on other officers, particularly Meade (sometimes undeservedly so) and Longstreet (tritely so). Still well-researched and well-written, but could be more polished.

Hessler seems to be attracted to the lurid side of Sickles, lionizing his undeniably entertaining side at the expense of criticizing his militarily bumbling qualities. He does, however, make a compelling case for the merits of the Emmitsburg Road ridge position in the eyes of Confederate command and Artillery officers. I wish the march from Chancellorsville had been covered more deeply.

I don't mind that his sentences are eight lines long or that he addresses four different concepts in a single sentence, most of which often do not have any relationship to each other. What I do mind is that his paragraphs are four pages long and are not at all organized so as to include only one topic per paragraph. Damn modernists.

Rovingly researched with impressive depth, Hessler never ceases to remind us in the first chapter that Sickles was a temperamental, reprehensible scoundrel, yet he never fails to skew the narrative in a favorable light toward 'Dan.' He also does give the impression that he truly understands the man's personality. Apart from the author's indisguisable subjectivity, I look forward to seeing how this book progresses.

Woodhead exhibits a very 'shoot from the hip' tendency toward many issues, assuming causation where correlation seems to exist. She seems to somehow both under-explain and over-explain concepts. Occasionally, incomplete analysis is offered: both Zwingli and Anglicanism are discussed without explanation of who/what they are. Additionally, the experience of a Sunday worship is never touched.

While Woodhead touches on some very deep concepts in her cursory survey, she also glosses over some very complex ones-matter of-factly. Especially in Ch.3, what occurred in the Great Schism? The Protestant Reformation? Clearly her aim is not to distinguish on the battlelines of church history rather than to illustrate basic cause and effect.