European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 06, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Reviews Harriot Beecher Stowe a life by Joan Hedrick Oxford University press. When president Clinton met Ruth Bader gins Burg after nominating her for . Supreme court Justice he reportedly greeted her by exclaiming so this is the Little lady who made this big  instead of a rare lapse into patrician condescension on the part of the nation s chief executive Clin ton s remark was in fact a tribute to Ginsburg s historic importance As a Pioneer for the Legal rights of women. The president s greeting echoed Abraham Lincoln s half facetious comment of first meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe whose 1852 Uncle Tom s Cabin or life among the lowly had so powerfully aroused the political passions of americans on be half of the abolition of slavery. Hedrick s biography of the Little lady whose novel was widely credited with igniting the civil War is the first full scale Bio graphical portrait of Stowe at once a ferociously researched family portrait of the Beecher clan and a detailed cultural overview of 19th-Century politics Harriet Beecher Stowe enriches our understanding of a woman whose amal Gam of single minded religiosity and womanly sentimentality has always made her an uneasy figure in american literature a slightly cracked populist with a Genius for creating a National parable unprecedented in the history of american activism. Hedrick s biography is a historian s View of Stowe Hedrick is associate professor of history at Trinity College in Hartford Conn. And the absence of a heightened literary perspective sometimes shows. She gives Virginia Woolf whom Stowe obviously never met More attention than the novelist George Eliot with whom Stowe sustained an intriguingly substantial correspondence. Absent too is a Thor Ough sense of Uncle Tom s Cabin As an in daringly controversial Woric of american literature. Hedrick suggests that the novel s reputation As an artistic fail ure is the result of a longstanding critical hostility to popular female melodrama. But there Are deeper problems with Stowe s partisan tearjerker  Baldwin first noted when he denounced Uncle Tom s Cabin in a 1949 essay curiously unmentioned by Hedrick for its self righteous virtuous senti mentality which he saw As the signal of a secret and violent  Harriet Beecher Stowe a life for a Long time will remain the authoritative biography of a woman whose combination of spiritual piety and commercial daring seems As unsettling by american As the uncommon novel that Stowe once claimed with characteristic self Assurance god had  Richard Kaye new Day the Volle cops and kids in Urban Ameri Ca by Greg Donaldson Ticknor & Fields. This is not a Book about police and children in America s big cities. No Middle class upper class or even moderately Well off children Are to be found. The police Are not officer Friendly types dispensing care and concern. The Ville is about Black kids in the violent ghettos of Brownsville and East new York and the police charged with upholding the Law in an almost Lawless land. Dion Thompson the Baltimore Sun the rage off a privileged class Why Are Middle class Blacks angry Why should America care by Ellis cose Harper Collins. At a basketball Media Day at the . Naval facade my a ranking Navy official was greeting the news Media. Each journalist received a gracious hello but when the Navy Man got to me i was asked a question. So the official said extending his hand. Where did you play Ball at to get this Job his Assumption because i m an athletic looking african american male my education must have come in combination with an athletic scholarship. It s a question i m often asked although i be never played collegiate sports. Another incident happened As i walked on an afternoon last summer to my car. From an Angle i approached a a trite woman maybe in her Early 40s. She hesitated when she saw me. When it appeared our paths might Cross she stopped. And ran. Her Assumption although i was professionally dressed i was a threat. It was t the first time some Best Sellers dictionary of american portraits Uncle Tom s Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stow. One has run from me and it won t be the last. Still no matter  Many times such instances happen to me it s unsettling. Rage is an appropriate word then for the feeling described in the rage of a privileged class. In it cose a former editorial Page editor with the new York daily news who is a contributing editor and essayist for Newsweek provides a detailed look at the frustrations of Black professionals from newspaper reporters to management consultants to corporate lawyers with Ivy league backgrounds. Jerry Bembry the Baltimore Sun the Devil we knew americans and the cold War by . Brands Oxford University press. Losing our souls the american experience in the cold War by Edward Pessen Ivan r. Dee inc. With the United states and the former soviet Union now trying to Bury their nuclear arms instead of each other american historians Are writing More candidly about their own country s role in the cold War. Instead of holding the common View brands and Pessen appear to be saying i Togo s imperishable phrase the enemy is  independently both agree that the United states shares a Large measure of blame for nearly half a Century of nuclear confrontation and that the cold War diminished Washington As the moral Beacon for the world. Getting Down to cases brands Points to the casualties caused by the korean and Vietnam wars. He writes for two generations until the end of the 1980s, americans girded to fight communism on land on sea and in the air in the Arctic and tropics from the Barren Hills of Greece to the Jungles of Southeast Asia. In two instances american opposition produced full blown wars killing More than 100,000 americans and millions of in americans. Although the 1970s briefly moderated the Bol Shic bashing in the age of Ronald Reagan the communist Specter once More haunted  does brands hold the soviet Union blameless for the cold War not at All. Still his Book could have offered More of a balance Sheet of wrongdoing by both sides. The catalogue of the Kremlin s corrosive sins against its own people and its  Tion to suppress Freedom in Hungary Czechoslovakia and elsewhere is Long and damning. What finally caused the downfall of the soviet superpower the impassioned professor concludes the fact is that communism not capitalism or democracy has been the communists worst  Pessen who died a year ago after finishing losing our souls was a professor of history at Baruch col lege and at the graduate school of the City univer sity of new York. His searching Book clarifies the full extent of the cold War. He emphasizes that it was a real War not simply a theoretical War Between capitalism and communism. Herbert m1tgang, the new York times new York times list hardback fiction 1 decl flare by Michael  last week 1 week on list 3 2 the Bridget of Madison county by Robert James Walle last we k 2weeks enlist 78. 9 slow Witt in Cedar Bend by Robert James Wallet last Reck 3. Ecks enlist 14 4 fatal Curt by Robin Cook last week 4, weeks on list 2 5 bad love by Jonathan Kellerman last week. 5. Weeks on list 3 i like water Lor chocolate by Laura Esquival Oast week 7 weeks on list 43. J 7  Seurat by . Griffin last week 7 weeks on list 2 i without remorse by Tom Clancy Lasi week 9 weeks on list 24 i int client by John Grish arh last week 8 weeks on list 47 10 Smylla t sent of Snow by Peter Hoea last week 15 weeks on list 7 11 Nightmare a dream Cap to by Stephen King last week 10, weeks enlist 17. 12 voyager by Diana Gabaldon Loisl week on list 13 Trie Book of Guy by Garrison Keillor last week 11 weeks on list 8 14 the robber Bride by Margaret Atwood last week not listed weeks on list 15 or. Murder by Dean Koontz last week 14 weeks on list 13 / 11 the Hopt by Herman Wouk last week 12, weeks on list 9 nonfiction 1 embraced by the Light by belly Readic with Cuitis Taylor last week 1 weeks on list 39 2 the Book of Virtues by William a Bennett last week 2, weeks on list 7 3 soul mates by Thomas Moore last week 8 weeks on list 4 4 set i told you so by Rush Limbaugh Las week 3 weeks on list 12 5 the hidden Ufa of Yogi by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas last week 4 wee son list 24.  by Jerry Seinfeld last week 5 weeks on list 22 7 would t Takt nothing for my journey now by Maya Angelou last week6 weeks on list 18 8 having our say by Sarah and a. Elizabeth Clany with Amy Hill Hearth Las week 7 weeks on list 10 i private parti by Howard Stern last week 9, weeks on list 16 10 women who run with the worm by Clarissa Pinkola epics last week11 weeks on list 78. It further along the Road leu travelled by m. Scoll Peck last week to weeks on list 18 12 Reenal Neering the corporation by Michael Hammer and James Champy test week 12 weeks on list 27 13  through the old life crisis by  last week 13weeks on list 3 14 a Hli tory of god by Karen Armstrong last week 15, weeks on list 4 15 love can build a Bridge by Naomi Judd last week 14, weeks on list. 9 miscellaneous 1 Stop the Indian Pfyl by Susan pow Tor last week 1 weeks on list t5 2 men Art from Man women Art from venue by John Gray last week 3 weeks on list 37 3 magic Eyt by . Thing enterprises last week 4 weeks on list 3 4 age Leta body to Meleia mind by Deepak Chopra last week 2 weeks enlist 28 paperback fiction t 2 3 4 5 6 7 i i Ruby by . Andrews weeks on list 2 Winter Moon by Dean Koonfu weeks on list 3 sch toddler t Utt by Thomas Ken Aliy weeks on list 5 degree of guilt by Richard North Patterson weeks on list 6 the Pelican Brief by John Grisham weeks on us 51 prime witness by Steve Deveraux weeks on list 2 terminal by Robin Cook first week on list dry Pmj Force by Dick Francis weeks on list 2 int Urt command by Timothy Zahn weeks on list. 2 10 a time to kill by John Grisham weeks on list 95 11 along came spider by James Patterson weeks on list 11 12 suddenly by Barbara Zelinsky first week on fist 13 the children of men by  Lisl week on list 14 seduced by Virginia Henley first week on list 15 the invitation by Jude Deveraux weeks on list 7 nonfiction 1 cirt of the soul by Thomas Moore weeks on list 4 2 the Road lest travelled by m. Scott Peck weeks on list 535 3 the Way thing ought to be by Rush Limbaugh to weeks on list 21 4 i know Why the caged Bird so right by Maya Arig Elou weeks on list 51 5 a year a Provence by Peter Mayle weeks on list 121. I the to if poo by Benjamin Hoff weeks on list 14 7 or till by Nellie Bly weeks on list 8 b the to if of Kim by Benjamin howl weeks on list 10 b Mara a by Michael Jordan weeks on list 14 10 Cento by James Guelck weeks on list 10 11 the sent Niage by Gail sheeny weeks on list 36 12 every mint she wanted by Arm Rule weeks on list 10 13 where Angela waft by Joan Wester Anderson weeks on list 4 14 every living thing by James Herriot weeks on list 27 11 Yon just Dent undertone1 by Peter Mayle weeks on list 135 11 i of by Robert Fulghum weeks on list 25 miscellaneous 1 Bottom Cupl by Joyce Vedral weeks on list 8 2 int seven Halti of highly effective people by Stephen r. Covey wee son list 151 3 a return to love by Marianne Williamson weeks on list. 2 4 the world almanac and Book of Facto 1994 by almanac Funk wag Nalls weeks on list 6 most books listed Are available or on order at stars and stripes bookstores. February 6, 1994 sunday Page 25