Civil War Boston:
Home Front and Battlefield
Thomas H. O'Connor
Northeastern University Press: Boston, MA, 1997.
Thomas O'Connor is Professor of History, Emeritus, at Boston College and the author of many books and articles on the history of Boston, notably The Boston Irish: A Political History; Building a New Boston: Politics and Urban Renewal, 1950-1970; and South Boston: My Home Town: The History of an Ethnic Neighborhood. The publication of Civil War Boston: Home Front and Battlefield reaffirms Professor O'Connor's reputation as the dean of historians of the city of Boston.
To the hundreds, if not thousands, of Harvard Extension School students who have enrolled over the years in Professor O'Connor's famous two-course sequence, The History of Boston, 1630-1865 and The History of Boston, 1865 to the Present, his estimable skill as a lecturer and his encyclopedic knowledge of his subject are well known. They will want to read his latest book, as will Harvard Extension School alumni who have not had the pleasure of attending his classes, because Civil War Boston has an important story to tell, and Thomas O'Connor is the ideal historic voice to tell it.
Few periods in our nation's history have been as extensively documented as the Civil War, but no historian has focused on how the war transformed the city of Boston and its inhabitants. As Professor O'Connor notes, "The four-year war had changed the shape and direction of American history, and had also brought many changes into the life of the Boston community." His study shows in dramatic detail how "for the Boston business community, the war brought immediate prosperity, new solidarity for the Republican party, and renewed patriotic pride"; how "for the city's immigrant Irish-Catholic community, the Civil War brought surprising social and religious tolerance, reflecting the city's gratitude for the loyal Irish fight for the Union"; how "for Boston's African-American population, the Civil War perhaps raised highest expectations but delivered fewest substantial gains"; and how "the many Boston women involved in the Civil War brought back remarkable and stimulating experiences that gave them new skills and proficiencies, dramatically changing their way of seeing themselves as women and their purpose in the world."
By alternating his narrative from the homefront to the battlefield, Professor O'Connor provides the reader with a balanced view of this bloody war and its immediate and long-range effect on Bostonians of all ranks. As he aptly concludes: "For Boston, as for the rest of the nation, the Civil War marked the end of one era and the beginning of another."
Michael Shinagel, Dean,
Harvard Extension School
Muscovy and the Mongols:
Cross-Cultural Influences on
the Steppe Frontier, 1304-1589
Donald Ostrowski
Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, England, 1998.
The problem of the Mongols' role in Russian history and of their impact on
political and social institutions of Muscovy, as well as its culture and ideology, is well established by long tradition of thinking both in Russian scholarship and the scholarship about Russia. Although it is seldom acknowledged, from the beginnings of modern historiography this was one of the major issues for constructing the whole structure of Russian history as we know it, so much so, that now the problem of Mongols' influence is deeply integrated into the very fabric of Russian historical conscience and identification. Too much in Russian history depends upon solving this dilemma. The conventional view is that the Mongols' influence was a totally negative experience that for centuries kept Muscovy outside the dominant developments, and that it was only Peter the Great's efforts that finally put an end to lasting evil and brought Russia back to Europe, though many would insist that he never succeeded.
Needless to say, that image of the Mongols as a completely "bad" personage of Russian history as opposed to "good" European influences was formed not so much by thorough study of the problem as by adaptation of a predominantly negative view of things Asian formulated in the age of Enlightenment. Thus, for Russian scholars, the rejection of the Mongols' heritage as a significant, let alone a positive, part of historical experience was at the same time stressing that Russian history is fundamentally European.
Donald Ostrowski's book challenges these widely spread beliefs. It consists of two parts (and would only benefit, if the order were reversed). In the second part of his book the author shows that anti-Tatar ideology was developed rather late, when the political importance of the Golden Horde (though the author prefers to call this state "The Qipchaq Khanate" in order to avoid possible negative connotations) and its successor states were long gone and Muscovy appears to be the dominant power. As Dr. Ostrowski points out, by the end of the sixteenth century the virtual past was forged: Due to the efforts of Byzantine-oriented clergy the Mongols were depicted as absolute evil, which the Rus [lands] resisted since the first encounter; the Mongols caused great destruction and hardships among Rus people; the whole history of the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries was viewed as a long and gradual liberation from Mongol dominance. The very idea of a "Tatar yoke" is not attested before the second half of the seventeenth century, and even then it was formulated by Ukrainian sources, Synopsis of 1674 perhaps the most important among them. Thus the traditional understanding of Muscovite-Mongol relationships as a "Tatar yoke" and struggle against it (basic even for today's scheme of Russian history) appears to be an ideologically charged one. No articulated anti-Mongol ideology was in circulation when Muscovy was still a subordinated state, nor can constant hostility toward Mongol rule be found. Hence there should have been no impenetrable wall between two cultures and no ideological, political, or cultural ground for rejection of Mongol influences.
The first part of the book singles out several key fields, where the previous scholarship either denied any Mongol impact on Muscovy or viewed such an impact as a negative one. Among those are the Mongol influence on administration, political institutions, and military structures; the question of Mongol contribution to the seclusion of women in Muscovy; "Oriental despotism" as a result of Muscovite's exposure to Tatar influences; and finally the question of whether there were any negative economic consequences of Mongol dominance in Eastern Europe.
In evaluation of these problems, the author tries to stay beyond the framework of qualitative approach and moral judgment so often encountered in studies of Eastern impact on Muscovy. Contrary to the dominant fashion in Russian studies, he expresses great sympathy toward nomadic societies (though his feelings toward Muscovy are not that clear). Ostrowski's basic approach is a comparative one: due to his vast expertise in Oriental history he is able to utilize in his discussion an impressive number of Eastern polities, as well as Byzantium (although one might be surprised to come upon the National Basketball Association or IBM corporate culture as parallels to Muscovite developments). The book's most valuable contribution is deconstruction of old historiographical myths. But one may wonder if this quest did not lead the author too far, forcing him simply to arrive at the opposite extreme: All things positive (the improvement of government structures, the military technics, bojarskaja duma, pomest' e system etc.) came from the Mongols; all things bad (inclination toward autocracy, seclusion of women) were either indigenous to Moscow, or came via Byzantium.
Ostrowski's task was really difficult: He tried to find the correct answers to the questions neither raised by him nor shaped by him. Thus, his book is a valuable evaluation not only of the possible cultural exchange between the Mongols and Muscovy, but also of a long tradition of historical thought.
Oleksiy Tolotchko, Fulbright Scholar
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
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