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lauraslibrarycard's review
Okay, I read most of this for book club. It was interesting enough, just sooo long and dense! There was a huge cast of characters that were sometimes hard to keep track of, and the method of writing was sometimes hard to follow, like at one point she was writing about wives who were writing letters and campaigning on behalf of their Confederate husbands. And then the author brings up Sarah Pryor and how she was writing letters (I think) trying to get permission to reunite with her husband who (I think) had been on the Confederate side, but then in the next two pages suddenly backtracks and tells all of the stuff that Sarah had done over the past decade that led her to this point in time. By the time the author gets back to the letter writing part I'd forgotten that was how we got to Mrs. Pryor in the first place.
I liked the audio book narration by the author! It cracked me up that you could hear her smile in her voice when she read bits that she found humorous.
I'm not a huge non-fiction fan, and also this topic was only mildly interesting to me, so I made the effort because it was a book club pick, and to sort of stick it to another member who complains that I "never" finish the boring books she picks.
I liked the audio book narration by the author! It cracked me up that you could hear her smile in her voice when she read bits that she found humorous.
I'm not a huge non-fiction fan, and also this topic was only mildly interesting to me, so I made the effort because it was a book club pick, and to sort of stick it to another member who complains that I "never" finish the boring books she picks.
kikiandarrowsfishshelf's review
4.0
A good history of women in Washington. A bit more disjointed than the other two, but still good.
cfish77's review against another edition
3.0
For some reason, Cokie Roberts' history books are slower reads for me, even more than some other non-fiction. Not sure what it is. However, that said, I also find them interesting reads.
alharrison's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Slavery
amibo's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting and inspiring look at the influential women of the capital area during the civil war area.
librarianonparade's review against another edition
3.0
So often women are given short shrift in histories of the American Civil War. War, after all, even today, is a man's world. And with so much attention paid to the men of the political and military spheres, women don't tend to get much of a look-in. So it's refreshing to see an entire book devoted to the experience of women during the Civil War, even if it is specifically focusing on the women of one particular city.
That said, I must confess to being disappointed with this book. Effectively, there is a word missing from the title, and that word is 'society'. This book focuses on the society women of Washington, the wives and daughters of notable political figures. Immigrant women, African-American women, poor women, working women, scarcely get a mention. And, for all its length, it is quite a superficial look at their lives before, during and after the war. More than anything else, it is a series of potted biographies of certain well-known women - Mary Todd Lincoln, Varina Davis, Kate Chase, Lizzie Lee.
Don't get me wrong, it is an enjoyable read. It was a fascinating, interesting, turbulent time, and the women's lives were every bit as uprooted as their menfolk's. Cokie Roberts is an engaging writer and I enjoyed this book. But I couldn't help for a bit more of a coherent narrative, a bit more depth and a look at more than just women of the political elite.
That said, I must confess to being disappointed with this book. Effectively, there is a word missing from the title, and that word is 'society'. This book focuses on the society women of Washington, the wives and daughters of notable political figures. Immigrant women, African-American women, poor women, working women, scarcely get a mention. And, for all its length, it is quite a superficial look at their lives before, during and after the war. More than anything else, it is a series of potted biographies of certain well-known women - Mary Todd Lincoln, Varina Davis, Kate Chase, Lizzie Lee.
Don't get me wrong, it is an enjoyable read. It was a fascinating, interesting, turbulent time, and the women's lives were every bit as uprooted as their menfolk's. Cokie Roberts is an engaging writer and I enjoyed this book. But I couldn't help for a bit more of a coherent narrative, a bit more depth and a look at more than just women of the political elite.
aimiller's review against another edition
2.0
In actuality, I might give this book 2.5 stars? But I definitely didn't really like it, and not just because I'm tired of reading about white upper class women in history (though that definitely played into how I felt about the book.)
It was also all over the place--it followed the war chronologically at first, which makes a lot of sense! But then, once the war ended, we focused on Elizabeth Keckley (who we'd been hearing about the entire time, though mostly as a way to get at what was happening with Mary Lincoln, which........... is Gross, frankly, but okay,) and went back to before the war started? And then gathering up all the Confederate women who we'd started with also borked the timeline. Which also: dealing with the Confederate women is a whole other host of issues, but needless to say there's not a whole lot of mention of white supremacy going on, and how it benefitted the lives of these women. And I get that this book is for a pop audience, but honestly that should not prevent us from being Real about White Supremacy, guys. It's very possible to engage in that kind of reading while still seeing women as whole people, and frankly it's incredibly needed in the popular market.
I will say that the little tidbits one gets--the very short stories--can be kind of amusing, and I've never seen anything about Mother Bickerdyke written in print before, so that was a good surprise, but otherwise, I think there are plenty of very accessible books that do a better job than this one in talking about women and their relationship to the Civil War.
It was also all over the place--it followed the war chronologically at first, which makes a lot of sense! But then, once the war ended, we focused on Elizabeth Keckley (who we'd been hearing about the entire time, though mostly as a way to get at what was happening with Mary Lincoln, which........... is Gross, frankly, but okay,) and went back to before the war started? And then gathering up all the Confederate women who we'd started with also borked the timeline. Which also: dealing with the Confederate women is a whole other host of issues, but needless to say there's not a whole lot of mention of white supremacy going on, and how it benefitted the lives of these women. And I get that this book is for a pop audience, but honestly that should not prevent us from being Real about White Supremacy, guys. It's very possible to engage in that kind of reading while still seeing women as whole people, and frankly it's incredibly needed in the popular market.
I will say that the little tidbits one gets--the very short stories--can be kind of amusing, and I've never seen anything about Mother Bickerdyke written in print before, so that was a good surprise, but otherwise, I think there are plenty of very accessible books that do a better job than this one in talking about women and their relationship to the Civil War.