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Book Reviews These are some reviews from a recent issue of
The Civil War News:
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Fortress Alcatraz: Guardian of the Golden Gate
by John Arturo Martini.
Illustrated, maps, drawings, bibliography, appendices, bibliography, index, softcover, 164 pp., 2004 reprint. Ten Speed Press, P.O. Box 7123, Berkeley, CA 94707, $13.95 plus shipping.
Fortress Alcatraz is an almost identical reprint of the 1990 book by the same name. Former Alcatraz National Park Service Ranger John Martini does an excellent job discussing the island’s history, focusing on its role in the defense of San Francisco harbor. Starting with the first recorded sighting of the island in 1769 by Spanish explorers trying to find Monterey Bay, Martini discusses the geographic and architectural changes on the island through its opening in 1973 as a National Park, including a short section on its occupation by Native Americans. During the time of the Civil War, Alcatraz was the largest and most heavily armed fortress west of the Mississippi. The ironic hero of this part of the island’s history was its commandant, Albert Sidney Johnston, who refused to cooperate with Confederate sympathizers prior to his resignation to join the Confederacy. One thing that would have improved the Civil War portion of the book is a more comprehensive discussion of the threat of Confederate commerce raiders, such as the CSS Shenandoah, whose captain was said to have considered raiding San Francisco Bay. The latest edition could have also benefited from an update on the efforts to excavate at least part of the island’s Civil War-era batteries. In any event, this was an excellent book in 1990 and remains a superb book today, with what has to be one of the most excellent collections of the Civil war-era photographs of any harbor fortress, North or South.
Dave Page
Dave Page teaches writing at Inver Hills Community College in Minnesota. His second book on Civil War fortifications, Fort Fisher: The South’s Last Bastion, will be published by Casemate Books in 2005.
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