Canada and the United States those who found, in the Kentucky hills and hollers, a population and an art as exotic as those earlier travelers had discovered in Tahiti or Melanesia. She is also familiar with landmark works on collectors and collecting, often a tale of doing well by doing good. She shows that those who encouraged Tolson to carve more of the charming Biblical figures he had only occasionally created also profited mightily from their kindness. For example, Michael D. and Julie Hall, who came upon Tolson soon after joining the University of Kentucky (Lexington) art department and bought some of his sculptures for three dollars, ended up selling their folk art collection to the Milwaukee Art Museum for $2.3 million dollars. Furthermore, Tolson's patrons influenced his subject matter and style, often suggcsting that he create another "Temptation," a unicorn, an Uncle Sam, or an "Expulsion," providing him with illustrations, and suggesting he not paint the carvings. The Halls and other early Tolson collectors created a market for the artist's work by alerting the Smithsonian Institution, the American Folk Art Museum, and various dealers to his work. They promoted Tolson's inclusion in the Whitney Biennial show of American art, saw to it that his work was illustrated in books about folk art, and helped him get an Artists' Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. As their own collections grew, they urged him to raise his prices and extracted from him colorful statements about his artistic intentions. Finally, they made Tolson an archetype for an invasion of dirt road America by well-heeled collectors getting red dust on their Volvos and Audis amid the poverty, ignorance, religiosity, alcoholism, and sloth surrounding any number of naive or "outsider" artists. The artists quickly learned what these people were looking for and did thcir bcst to oblige. They posed patiently for photos in their overalls and laconically accepted bottles of whiskey while sharing their own moonshine. Upon the rickety porch, they lined up their (often numerous) children in bare feet and raggedy jeans for more photos. All this fascinating material-and more-is in this beautifully designed and illustrated book. But the reader will have to shape the scattered pieces into a coherent whole. For example, the Tolson of 1976 appears as the quintessential outsider: a trim, toothless fellow in boldly striped pants, his hand on the shoulder of a carved Uncle Sam, grave, stiff, and painted (p. 8). In 1984, Tolson was on his deathbed (p. 171). But the book continues on for 100 more pages, with Tolson miraculously resurrected, repeatedly quoted, and pictured at various points in his life. Trying to reinforce theoretical points in what was obviously once a doctoral thesis, the author clumsily tramples back and forth through time and space, and clutches at every scholarly straw: what have Theodor Adorno, Reinhold Niebuhr, or Pierre Bourdieu to do with American folk art? Even in the few pages of her conclusion, Ardery is still quoting authorities, sometimes anonymously, instead of presenting the reader with her own final verdict on her subject. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW 1343 This book is amply documented, with twenty-three pages of footnotes and twenty-two of bibliography. What is sorely lacking is a chronology detailing Tolson's life and career. A chart or graph relating the upticks in value of his works to exhibitions, awards, and publications would also be helpful. Such documentations would not only benefit the reader but would have provided the author with a sturdy framework for the book. Virtually every historian faces the problem of how to move the factual story forward while simultaneously weaving in theory and interpretation. Perhaps a future revision will do this for Edgar Tolson's story. ALICE GOLDFARB MARQUIS University of California, San Diego WILLIAM M. LEOGRANDE. Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977-1992. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1998. Pp. xvi, 773. $39.95. In the words of former New York Yankee baseball great Yogi Berra, the crisis in Central America during the 1980s was "deja vu, all over again" for President Ronald Reagan and his advisors. The United States had traveled this path in Vietnam and appeared on the verge of doing so again in Central America. To avoid repeating the tragedy and embarrassment that the Vietnam War brought to the United States, the Reagan administration determined to act decisively in Central America. The Sandinistas were to be ousted from Nicaragua and the Farabundo Marti prevented from coming to power in El Salvador. But as William M. LeoGrandc explains, the challenge was not an easy task. Within the Reagan administration, "hardliners" who sought a military solution confronted "pragmatists" who argued for a more peaceful settlement to the crisis. In the Congress, Democrats came to challenge Reagan's policy, and in Central America, the so-called allies did not always cooperate with Washington's policy objectives. LeoGrande weaves this complex story together from declassified documents located at the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C., published government materials, personal interviews, and a wealth of secondary sources. Reagan's first secretary of state, Alexander Haig, led the "hardliners," and he was joined by United Nations Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William Casey, Defense Secretary Casper Weinbergcr, and Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs Elliott Abrams. While LeoGrandc criticizes the collective lack of Latin American experience that prevented them from coming to grips with Central America's internal economic, political, and social dynamics, hc savcs the severest criticism for Haig, whom LeoGrande characterizes as an intellectual lightweight. Haig was convinced that a military victory in Central America would come easy. OCTOBER 1999 1344 Reviews of Books All of the "hardliners" accepted Kirkpatrick's dictum that U.S. interests would be better served by right-wing dictators than by left-wing revolutionaries. Because Reagan shared the "hardliners' " perception of events in Central America, moderates such as Assistant Secretary Thomas O. Enders were forced to resign, and Haig's replacement George Shultz was ignored. In Congress, Democratic opposition to Reagan's Central American policy intensified over time, and as it did, the administration's spokespeople skirted telling the full truth before various congressional committees. In the House, Thomas Foley, Edward Boland, Thomas Harkin, and Clement Zablocki led the Democratic charge, and they were joined in the Senate by Christopher Dodd, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Republican moderate Nancy Kassenbaum. As the opposition intensified, the administration's half-truths became non-truths. Casey neglected to discuss CIA-sponsored covert operations against Nicaragua; the president's human rights and land reform certifications in El Salvador became vague assertions; the solicitation of foreign monies for the Nicaraguan contrfls was at first denied but, once public, defended as a moral good; and the administration's professed support for peace negotiations were mere fabrications. As the Democrats intensified their opposition, the most ardent Republican conservatives, such as Newt Gingrich, attacked them in McCarthyite fashion. The president himself charged that the Democrats were soft on communism. The Democratic opposition led to the passage of two so-called Boland Amendments, the first in 1982 and the second in 1984. The first prevented the use of CIA funds for military activities against Nicaragua. The second cut funds to the Nicaraguan contra forces. The cutoff of funds prompted Reagan zealots like Oliver North and John Poindexter to find foreign sources, including the sale of weapons to Iran. Despite the illegality of these actions and circumstantial evidence indicating the president's knowledge of the operation, LeoGrande explains that the Democrats recognized that Reagan's popularity prevented their seeking recourse. In hopes of convincing Congress to support its Central American policies, the Reagan administration understood the need to bring an end to human rights violations practiced by the Salvadoran military and paramilitary forces and the Nicaraguan contras; to have the Salvadoran elite accept the implementation of a land reform program, and to forge unity among the contra leadership. The Reagan administration failed, not for lack of trying but because the Central American actors refused to cooperate. Despite these failures, until the very end, Reagan insisted on a military solution and refused all offers for a negotiated settlement to the conflict. While the U.S. used economic pressure on Mexico to cease its peace initiative and to turn Honduras into a proxy obstacle to the Central American peace process, it ignored mediation offers from European and South American nations. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW Only because of the tenacity of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and the need of his Central American neighbors to terminate the conflict did peace finally come to Central America. LeoGrande's well-written volume will serve for a long time as a most serious analysis of Reagan's Central American policy. Those critics who assert that LeoGrande's association with congressional committees during the 1980s colored his perception should be reminded that Robert Kagan's equally massive study, The Twilight Struggle: American Puwer and Nicaragua, 1977-1990 (1996), which defends Reagan's Central American policies, may also have been colored by his association with the administration. THOMAS M. LEONARD University of North Florida HAROLD M. HYMAN. Craftsmanship and Character: A History of the Vinson and Elkins Law Firm of Houston, 1917-1997. (Studies in the Legal History of the South.) Athens: University of Georgia Press. 1998. Pp. xvi, 658. $60.00. Law firm histories share the general bias of American legal history toward studies of the Boston-to-Washington corridor. This history of a major institution in the American Southwest offers a welcome change of focus. Law firm histories pose difficulties for historians because lawyers are reluctant to share files with outsiders due to fear of breaching the principle of attorneyclient confidentiality. In this case, Harold M. Hyman enjoyed complete access to the firm's files and full cooperation from members of the firm. This book offers an institutional history of the firm, an internal account of its administrative operations. Hyman chronicles the growth of the firm from a two-man partnership, through a mid-size firm with an imperious and arbitrary senior founding partner, James A. Elkins, to its stature as a mega-firm with over five hundred lawyers, an equal numher of support staff, and perhaps a hundred legal assistants. The book explores pressures that growth placed on the firm to depart from the vision of the founders, who had hoped for a partnership of generalists. Instead, the firm gradually developed various departments, or specialties, and created various administrative committees and subcommittees charged with attending to thc complicated tasks of administering such a complex organization. Missing from this account is a clear sense of the role that the firm played in the city of Houston or the state of Texas. Hyman chose not to explore the web of political, economic, and social relationships created by Vinson & Elkins lawyers. The first substantial growth of the firm came during the Depression when legal business spawned by various federal and other government public policies resulted in a sharp increase in the number of associates at Vinson & Elkins. During World War II, Elkins threatened that lawyers who volunteered for service would find no job awaiting them at the end of the war. OCTOBER 1999
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