11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining and Intriguing American History, April 14, 2000
This review is from: Star-Spangled Eden: 19th Century America Through the Eyes of Dickens, Wilde, Frances Trollope, Frank Harris, and Other British Travelers (Hardcover)
I loved Star-Spangled Eden. This well researched history reads like a historical romance. Simmons covers 50 of the most critical years of American History, 1830-1850, through the eyes of eight British men and women who came here, traveled widely, and had marvelous adventures. Each traveler plugs into a major theme of the era when the country developed from raw frontier to a modern industrial state and provides a unique perspective on important events of this period - the Southern slavery system, the Civil War, the exploration and settlement of the West, etc.
My favorite chapter is the last one on Oscar Wilde's witty eleven-month cross-country American tour. To quote the author, "Here was the leading British snob, an effete poseur of highly refined sensibilities, lecturing American audiences from Boston to Leadville on the principles of aesthetics and becoming a popular celebrity in the process. Wilde found himself growing inordinately fond of Americans. A less unlikely love match could scarcely be imagined."
Simmons writes great history-of-travel books. I first discovered him with Castaway in Paradise: The Incredible Adventures of True-Life Robinson Crusoes. I recommend these books to anyone looking for a great read that's based on fact.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining, Offbeat Look at 19th Century US History, November 22, 2003
This review is from: Star-Spangled Eden: 19th Century America Through the Eyes of Dickens, Wilde, Frances Trollope, Frank Harris, and Other British Travelers (Hardcover)
In "Star Spangled Eden," James Simmons joins adventure story, mini-biography, and travelogue for a refreshing look at mid-19th century American history. He allows us to see through the eyes of British artists (Fanny Kemble) authors (Charles Dickens, Civil War reporter "Bull Run" Russell) and adventurers (Frank Harris, Richard Burton) trying to understand and succeed in a growing country just understanding itself.
"Eden" touches on the seismic events between 1820-1890: slavery, the Civil War and reconstruction, taming of the American West, manifest destiny, the Chicago fire and the start of Mark Twain's "Gilded Age." But letters, newspaper stories, biographies and other first person period literature allow Simmons to show the humanity behind them even at its most graphic (Part II, covering "The Western Frontier," contains most of the book's goriest images.)
You read of Dickens' "quarrel with America" over copyright infringement and Frances Trollope's disgust with perceived American misogyny, egalitarianism and even table manners. These resulted in two books causing national furor and turning American goodwill against their respective authors. (Several chapters repeat disgust with tobacco spittle and a savage American press.) Most notably, in Kemble's chapter, Simmons shows how America's shame of slavery tears a nation and family asunder.
But each of Simmons' subjects is astounded at America's natural beauty (most notably west of the Mississippi) and earnestness even while complaining of crude manners or(as Oscar Wilde did wittily in the chapter on his American tour)aesthetics.
Simmons allows some sense of closure when saying those gleaning the most from their American experience assimilated themselves best into it. This covered episodes from Wilde drinking American friends and rivals under the table to Burton and mountain man George Puxton adapting clothes, mannerisms and even speech from their new neighbors. This contrasts with Trollope and Dickens who,in Simmons words, "had no appreciation of America as a vigorous, expanding nation." Through his anecdotes, Simmons allows you to see American growing pains his characters often could not.
Simmons' only misstep is forgiveable. In Wilde's chapter he tells of presidential assassin Charles Guiteau, whose trial and execution for shooting James Garfield becomes a media circus, prefacing celebrity trials even as he identifies Wilde as "the first modern celebrity...famous for being famous." You expect Simmons to make a larger point on Guiteau's perverse interpretation of what Wilde considered the art of his own life, but Simmons never quite does. (It would also have helped to read of Wilde's meeting fellow iconoclast Ambrose Bierce.)
Regardless, Simmons succeeds at the aim of his acknowledgements. "With proper research and attention to the small details of place, action, and character," he writes, "formal history could be written to read as easily and effortlessly as the finest historical romance." Indeed, Simmons successfully wraps American hisory around his characters' adventures in "Star-Spangled Eden" (and includes a superb bibliography), making his an offbeat, informative and even reasssuring history lesson.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5.0 out of 5 stars
Us Becoming Us, October 31, 2011
This review is from: Star-Spangled Eden: 19th Century America Through the Eyes of Dickens, Wilde, Frances Trollope, Frank Harris, and Other British Travelers (Hardcover)
I'm always wary of books written by Europeans as a result of their time spent in the United States. I approached this book, therefore, with great caution, given that it dealt not only with the United States, but that it dealt with this country through the heart of the nineteenth century, from our true infancy through our emergence as an industrial and military power. I'm wary because I've lived long in Europe and have come to know, truly, that Europeans by and large have not the faintest idea what this country is all about. And even Europeans who have traveled to this place and done their best to move across it and over it and through it in the end grasp it but dimly. How could it be otherwise? The plain truth is that this country is larger than the sum of all western European countries combined, and has a population that is truly an amalgam of the entire earth. Getting to know this country requires vastly more than an intellectual effort. It's visceral, emotional, raw. We have weather that's far too ferocious for most Europeans to accept. Our distances are frightening. Our differences daunt understanding. But I needn't have worried. This was a DELIGHTFUL read from page one! Simmons walks us through from Frances Trollope's acid observations of Cincinnati in the first third of the century to Oscar Wilde's great tour d'Amerique in the last years of that period. The author takes charge of their observations in that he does not allow for long, inevitably dreary monologs, but instead attempts to summarize the observances made by these British travelers and then move to direct quotes and vignettes to reinforce what he says of them.
I liked these people. I was empathetic of their critiques. Imagine an English lady finding herself in Cincinnati where the ONLY garbage disposal consists of herds of hogs that wander the streets. Imagine her dealing with servants who look her in the face and expect to be treated like equals. And this is in the nineteenth century! Dickens can't get over the poor accomodations on the frontier. What do you suppose he EXPECTED on the American frontier in the mid-nineteenth century? It is the skill of Simmons that moves us briskly through these various vignettes and allows us to come away without resentment of the observations made by the British and with a kind of rueful pride in the sorts of folks who people this vast expanse during our frontier century.
Europe has always had a fascination with this country, as well it might. We are them, but once (or twice or three times) removed, and then multiplied times Indians and awful distances and horrendous weather and vast rivers and endless plains and all the rest. For some it was too overwhelming to bear. Others went native and couldn't get enough of the place. Simmons handles both extremes well. I came away with a better sense of the people of this country by seeing them reflected in the eyes of the British that Simmons has presented us with. In all, a first rate read, and a great one to give perspective as we enter the twenty-first century.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
