I'm currently reading The Katrina Papers by Jerry Ward, Jr. for Voices of NOLA and finding it to be a fascinating cultural document. Starting on September 2, 2005, Ward a professor of English and African American Studies at Dillard University in New Orleans, began recording his thoughts on a daily basis. These entries cover everything from the intensity of returning home to Gentilly St. after evacuation to thoughts while lecturing at universities across the country or pondering the works of Richard Wright, who he specializes in. (He was working on a book on Wright when Katrina hit and destroyed much of his research.)

What's really interesting here is the directness of the book; the way it transparently reveals his ups and downs and the evolution of his vision of New Orleans and his life post-Katrina. It's not stream-of-consciousness writing (the dates keep it focused) but it is pretty much someone's feelings and impressions laid out for anyone to see. (He also includes excerpts from lectures on Wright, etc. that he gave during the year after the storm.) Unlike books written afterward, when the writer could refocus or alter their thoughts as necessary, The Katrina Papers is as honest as it gets. Sometimes Ward writes himself in circles, not sure how he feels about something, but that is exactly as you would expect from someone whose world has been unmade. It's just really interesting stuff and quite valuable for those studying urban recovery. (A review to follow next month at Voices.)

I'm also still reading several books on war/foreign affairs for my March column including War Is...: soldiers, survivors and storytellers talk about war, edited by Marc Aronson and Patty Campbell. This is a teen directed anthology and I think quite important - there are remarkably few books written on war for teens and yet they are the ones who generally find themselves in the midst of it. I'm only halfway through and already some entries have really stood out like Christian Bauman's no holds barred "Letter to a Young Enlistee" and Bill Bigelow's detailed essay on the methods used by recruiters (including blatant lies) to enlist teens in "The Recruitment MInefield". I'm not so sure why the Mark Twain short story "The War Prayer" is included though. It is heralded as an antiwar classic but to me it seemed obvious to the extreme and also suffers from dated language (something that doesn't diminish its importance as Twain's work but does make it more difficult to read). The lyrics for a Bob Dylan song "Masters of War" are also here which to me says a lot more about the editors than the intended audience. As a child of the 80s, while I respect Dylan's contribution to American music, Bruce Springsteen and U2 speak much more directly to me and I'm sure someone like Kanye West would appeal more to modern teens. (And there are probably a dozen other antiwar songs by current musicians that I have never heard of that a teen would be more interested in reading.) It's an odd choice that dates a collection which already includes Twain, Ernie Pyle and a series of letters from a soldier who arrived in France near the end of WWI (and never saw action - this was a very weird inclusion to me).

There is an editor's note at the end of Bigelow's piece on recruiting that I think reveals a lot about how Aronson in particular views the book's audience. He writes: "As long as we have a volunteer army, the military will do whatever it can to fill its quotas. I feel that until there is some form of national service that all teenagers are required to do - whether by helping to house and clothe the poor, to clean up the environment, to aid and comfort the ill or elderly, or to serve in the armed forces - we will live in a nation poisoned by the gap between those who (for whatever reason) serve and those who do no."

Huh.

I was completely unaware of a "gap between those who...serve and those who do not." I've been on both sides of this issue as a civilian teacher of soldiers and as someone whose family has long served in the military. In my experience everyone who signed up had personal reasons to do so and everyone who didn't had personal reasons to do so. There may very well be people out there who regard one type or the other with disdain or disrespect but not in any sort of numbers to form a societal division. Simply put, for some folks the military idea works and for others it does not. (This is not at all about honoring our soldiers, but merely an attempt to dispute Aronson's gap idea.) More importantly, though it is Aronson's suggestion that teens should provide a year of national service that really bothered me. This is such a classic conceit for someone far past the target audience to suggest. Yes, of course - teens should go work for the country for the year while we adults just....well, we don't because we are old.

We have other things to do, more important things to do, apparently.

Aronson likely does not mean that but it comes across that way as written. It comes across as an editor who sees himself as superior to his readers and I'm surprised the note was included at the end of an otherwise teen supportive essay. I do want to stress that overall I like the idea of this book and as I said above there are several contributions so far that are excellent. I'm not sure if the balance works though or if it as strong a title as it needs to be.

Finally, I received They Made Their Mark: An Illustrated History of the Society of Woman Geographers by Jane Eppinga for Christmas and it is really awesome. Some of the women are famous (Amelia Earhart, Jane Goodall, Margaret Mead) but a lot of them are women I had never heard of who did extraordinary things. The society was a response to The Explorers Club which allowed women to present papers but not join (LAME). There are all sorts of women here, from actual geographers to anthropologists, oceanographers, mountain climbers, aviators, etc. A really cool bunch of people that have such compelling stories. There is now a list of women I want to learn more about and books I'll be seeking.

What struck me after reading the book though was how little I knew about these famous women - and how much I knew about men who had done comparable things. I always think that maybe history is not as skewed toward white men as feminists say and yet....then I read a book like this. I also just finished I'll Pass For Your Comrade by Anita Silvey about women soldiers in the Civil War. This is a great YA title (review to follow) about the hundreds of women who fought on both sides of the war. I had no clue there were so many. I have taken more than one class on this war and there was never more than cursory mention of women soldiers. Silvey has documented evidence, letters, pictures, etc. This is really just a tip of iceberg kind of book but it conveys a ton of information about how and why women fought in this war. I wish I had this one when I was teaching - it would have made for an interesting addition to our discussion on women in combat.