| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

A Lynching in the Heartland: Race and Memory in America. By James H. Madison. (New York: Palgrave, 2001. xiv, 204 pp. $24.95, ISBN 0-312-23902-5.)

James H. Madison, in this useful work, employs perhaps our most infamous lynching photograph to discuss the killing's place in history and memory. Madison generally makes good by using the 1930 lynching as a point of departure for a discussion of lynching, violence, and even redemption in Marion, Indiana, and America. The author's style is sparse, almost Spartan in its simplicity. While readers may occasionally wish for literary adornment and deeper analysis, the style moves things along nicely. 1

Readers will find no homage to Barbara J. Fields here. There is no evidence that Madison puts any stock in her deconstructionist denial of the validity of race as a category of meaningful analysis. For Madison, the book is all about race. Likewise, scholars will find no allegiance to a view of history that apologizes away plain-white agency or that blames their failings on elite manipulation: "ordinary people have choices, they can decide to work toward equality and justice or toward hatred and even violence." . . .

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