Originally published September 8, 2009
Tony Isabella, a renowned comic professional, does book and comic reviews on the website
World Famous Comics. Here is a great, short and sweet one of a startling book.
"After listening to one of the authors on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," I requested
The State of Jones: The Small Southern County That Seceded from the Confederacy by Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer [Doubleday;
$27.50] from my library. The book is a fascinating and frequently
horrifying account of the outnumbered, under-supplied Mississippi
unionists defying the wealthy slave-owners who launched the American
civil war to preserve their lavish lifestyles and their "right" to
enslave other human beings. It's also the story of the heroic,
remarkable Newton Knight and his two families, one white, one black.
This is a page turner, though the chronicles of brutality (on both sides
of the conflict) and atrocities (more on the Confederate side) often
forced me away from the book. At least when I was in school - and that
was before and not long after the Civil Rights Act became law - our
history books glossed over the darkest parts of this story. I never knew
the Confederate leaders plundered the families of the poor soldiers
pressed into fighting for a cause not their own or that those
Southerners who sided with the Union were subjected to even worse
treatment. I never knew that the racism of Andrew Johnson and the
weariness of Ulysses S. Grant allowed these same Confederate monsters to
reclaim their power shortly after the war and continue subjugating the
poor. Sadly, the reality of the common man blindly following leaders who
constantly act against his best interests is all too familiar to me. I
see its like whenever the ignorant scream their Faux News talking points
at "tea parties" and town hall meetings.
If I were a history teacher, The State of Jones would be required
reading for my students. It's an exceptional work of non-fiction and, as
such, it earns the full five Tonys."
Read more of his reviews
here.
"The same sixteen curators assemble all the shows all over the world, showing the same sixteen artists. It’s horrible and frustrating. If you’re not on the circuit you can’t get in the circuit. That’s bad. I see a lot of mid-career artists who have done something for years get passed over for a much younger artist doing essentially the same thing. I see younger artists getting passed over simply because another curator hasn’t given them the stamp of approval."