The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 91, July 1987 - April, 1988 Page: 256

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

as Eugene D. Genovese, Herbert G. Gutman, and Lawrence W. Levine.
Her presentation, moreover, and the illustrations that accompany it,
are greatly weighted toward large plantations. The white, pillared
mansion on the cover is an accurate indication of what lies within. Sil-
verthorne does not ignore evidence of slave victimization and dissatis-
faction, and certainly does not return to the racism of the Ulrich B.
Phillips school of plantation studies. Nevertheless, she seems not to
question the essential benevolence of plantation paternalism. And
aided by a number of illustrations that verge on stereotypes, Silver-
thorne offers a portrait of slavery and plantation life that historians
may have thought had gone with the wind.
University of Pennsylvania DREW GILPIN FAUST
Simpson Speaks on History. By Harold B. Simpson. (Hillsboro, Tex.: Hill
College Press, 1986. Pp. xvi+ 124. Author's preface, introduction,
photographs, illustrations, index. $12.)
When a scholar reaches that exalted stage in his career when he is
widely known and respected by public and peers alike, he is entitled to
publish a book of his favorite essays. Such has been the case recently
with Arthur M. Schlesinger, Barbara W. Tuchman, and Theodore H.
White. Now comes Colonel Harold B. Simpson; some twenty-eight
books and twenty-five years in the field place him in a select company of
historians.
In a quarter century of writing, lecturing, and teaching, Simpson has
carved out a niche for himself as an expert on the Civil War, World War
II, and the western frontier. This book of essays is a collection of his six
most requested subjects over the years. His many fans who have re-
quested copies of his speeches will immediately recognize such topics as
Robert E. Lee in Texas, Hood's Texas Brigade, and Audie Murphy.
In his writing, as in his public speaking, Simpson has a special way
with assonance and alliteration, which is best illustrated in his classic
talk "Booze in Battle and Bivouac." This speech may have the distinc-
tion of being the most requested talk on the Civil War Round Table cir-
cuit during the last fifteen to twenty years. No matter how many times it
is heard, this popular essay is still as delightful and humorous a survey
of a particularly pernicious social habit as the first time it was heard. It
presents a Who's Who of fools, knaves, rascals, and scoundrels in the
officer's corps on both sides during the "Late Unpleasantness," not the
least of which were Generals Joseph Hooker, U.S.A., and B. F. Cheat-
ham, C.S.A. After purchasing this book, a lot of grizzled Round Table

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