Enterprising Elite (1987) by Robert F. Dalzell, Jr.

Book Review

Enterprising Elite: The Boston Associates and the World They Made (1987)

by Robert F. Dalzell, Jr. 

Harvard University Press

   I go to Boston twice a year because my partner is from there and she fucking loves it.  I don't like it as much as she does but there is plenty to appreciate.  First off, the history- which- even in the shittiest, nothing small town in New England typically extends back to before the American Revolution.  There's Boston itself, which is a world-class city.  One of the things I've found interesting about the city is that Boston is like this shining crown jewel and then you go 30 minutes out of town and there are these super sad industrial suburbs- Lowell, Lawrence that are like caricatures of depressed-working-class towns.  What happened, exactly?  

  Fortunately I found this book on the shelf at the Boston Library and was able to check it out from the LAPL.  Voila, all my questions answered.  It turns out that the first wave of industrial capitalism in New England was started by a small group of interlinked family members who then relocated to Boston and turned their fortunes to improving the civic institutions that bore their names.  The lives of the people living in the towns they founded to put their factories- not so much.  Not at all, in fact.  One of the major points that Dalzell makes is that these guys (they were all men) were interested in community welfare but had a narrow definition of "their" community.  At its greatest, that encompassed everyone in Boston before the Irish showed up.  

   A later chapter on political involvement shows how narrow their appeal was- with men from the Lawrence family losing elections in Lawrence, the city they founded for their textile factories.  Dalzell points out that this was nothing close to what one would consider a "modern" industrial operation even though they were pioneers in the use of the corporate form to limit liability among owners. Most notably these textile factories didn't retain much capital instead handing out large dividends rather than reinvesting in the business.

The Modocs and Their War (1959) Keith A. Murray

 Book Review

The Modocs and Their War (1959)

by Keith A. Murray

University of Oklahoma Press

Civilization of the American Indian Series #52

   American Indian history has been pretty risible until very recently.  The Civilization of the American Indian Series from the University of Oklahoma Press represents the longest running effort in this genre, but most of the books, while well meaning, are dated in terms of attitudes and approaches to Native American history.  This book is pretty good from a 1950's perspective, in that it isn't openly racist, but it still reads as one sided.  All the sources are white people who were fighting the Modocs or contemporaneous accounts written by white journalists.  There is a brief mention of the ghost dance phenomenon but the Native characters are poorly drawn and one dimensional.  Captain Jack, the leader of the band of Modocs who gave the US Army their greatest beating in an Indian War- and killed a US general to boot, is portrayed as a vacillating coward.  Considering the Captain Jack Modocs were actually removed to Oklahoma, you would think that Murray could have talked to someone there and gotten a different perspective. 

   There's also no context about the Native environment prior to the arrival of the whites, which, to me, anyway, seems relevant to describing the Modoc experience.  But, if you are just looking for dates, names and a general description of how this war went down, Murray's book is an inoffensive starting point.

Gunflower by Laura Jean McKay

 Book Review

Gunflower (2023)

by Laura Jean McKay

   Australian author Laura Jean McKay won the Arthur C. Clarke award for her debut novel, The Animals in That Country in 2021. That win caught my eye, and I promptly checked out a copy from the library.  It was good, not great, but interesting enough to merit attention to the author going forward.  Late last year she published her follow-up, an entirely predictable book of short-stories compiled from her previous 20 years of writing.  Some of the stories echo the themes of The Animals in That Country, an early story delves into the family dynamics of a cat ranch (Yes, a cat ranch.)  Other subjects are prosaic/banal- like the lengthy story told from the perspective of supermarket clerk who makes a stand for the rights of smokers to take their hourly smoke break.   The Guardian called this collection virtuosic but the New York Times didn't even mention it.  It did get a US release back in October but with essentially no press- the Amazon product page only has seven reviews and Goodreads has 70 ratings, basically the equivalent of many books that haven't been published.