Howard B. Means

In May of 1970 I would have been eleven and a half years of age, and lived about half an hour's road time from the campus of Kent State University. For me, this is an exercise in interrogating myself as to what I actually remember of the events of May 4.

Be that as it may, I think that Howard Means did a good job of trying to tease out the decision points of why events played out as they did. Or is that non-decision points, as people on both sides of the firing line were just barreling along, show more acting out their personal standard operating procedures, without seriously considering the likely consequences of their actions.

That's the thing, for all the paranoia about a cadre of Communist insurrectionists, directing events on campus, there is just no good evidence that these people existed. Certainly the Students for a Democratic Society were no longer a presence on the campus, and likely would have been much more organized. The most one can imagine is a remnant of SDS enthusiasts who decided to engage in a little guerrilla theater, and the glorified shack that was the ROTC building was too tempting a target.

However, by the time the ROTC building was burned, there was a sense of general insurrection in the community, as the real flash point was a rowdy Saturday night that got out of hand, leading to the trashing of the business district, and Kent's mayor asking for help from the government of the state of Ohio. Governor James Rhodes saw this is a golden opportunity for a display of performative authority, and sent in the Ohio National Guard, with orders to keep Kent State open. It would seem most sensible people would have shut down the school for a week until tempers cooled, but no one seemed to be using common sense, and I read nothing that suggests that I should temper my continuing lack of respect for Rhodes.

Here's the thing, while the Kent State community keeps ever-green the memory of May 4, the reality is that no one was really talking about these events within a few years; certainly not after the Paris Accords, Watergate, and the fall of Saigon.

What haunts me is confrontations between students and parents where students witnessed the incompetence of government in action, and some parents ranted about how they wished their own children had been shot. Means has no after-the-fact testimony from the "Silent Majority" folks about their second thoughts, if any, though he has enough remembrance from the rank-and-file Guardsmen put in a bad situation, who felt let down by their supposed leadership.

As for myself, I don't recall my parents being particularly vocal about this disaster, though they were certainly appalled. Keep in mind that they were the children of coal miners, and were under no illusions about the good will of political authority, and their parents had been subjects of the Austrian Empire. They would have appreciated that if you see men in uniform with weapons on your street, you should make yourself scarce. Innocence amongst the Kent student body had a lot to do with the course of events, but there was a lot of innocence all around about the consequences of playing with fire to score political points. Maybe that was a lesson learned, and hopefully it stays learned; with the current administration in Washington one has to wonder. show less

While I learned a great deal about John Chapman/Johnny Appleseed in this interesting biography, I was a bit irritated by the author's style. He repeated a lot of the same phrases, and while the history surrounding John Chapman was interesting up to a point, including so much of it felt a bit forced. The religious angle was fascinating - I had no idea that Chapman was not a mainline Christian, and am interested in learning more about the Church of the New Jerusalem, strictly from a research show more standpoint. show less

Funny, in that peculiar, inexplicable way, the things we learn and don't learn in public school. I was seven years old when this happened, and none of my future history or social science classes ever so much as mentioned the event. This was a pivotal time and occurrence in our history, yet it passed by my school years unspoken. Perhaps it was too new and too raw to address in our schools, though I would think that is more reason to teach it, rather than less reason.

As the title implies, this show more book's focus is on Kent State and the tragic deaths - murders? - of four students in May of 1970. Unlike most books on this era, we don't get a buildup of the tumultuous culture of the sixties. We're dropped right into the madness of protests and politics on one college campus. If you're unfamiliar with the cultural upheaval of the time, you might first want to read a book encompassing the broader aspects, though I do think the author does a good job of showing the short version of how we got to that place in time.

This is an easy book to read, as far as the author's style and approach. The writing is engaging, not dry or overly academic. It's a reader-friendly book. The author does an excellent job of putting the pieces in some semblance of order, from both sides, and of trying to sort it out so that we might understand how and why it all went so wrong.

*I was provided with an advance ebook copy from the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.* show less

The Kent State shootings are something I had vaguely heard about but never actually studied. My history classes never got to 1970 I guess.

There is a disconnect for me regarding these events because I've never before experienced anything like this time in our history. It was so volatile with Nixon/Watergate, Vietnam, the assassinations, the civil rights riots... Everything was in an uproar. The students who were protesting and burning down ROTC buildings across the country were feeling show more something that I don't think has been equaled in my lifetime. The closest might be the Wall Street sit in's a few years ago, but those and the response were relatively tame comparatively. The apathy of my generation is in stark contrast to the activist zeal of the 60's and 70's.

All that is to say that I was most surprised about how much people at the time blamed the students instead of National Guard. Of course, it's all in how it was reported, but that reaction took me by surprise because I had always been under the opposite impression. Apparently the image of this event has changed a lot over the past few decades, but it's hard to believe that the students who were shot were blamed for themselves dying/being injured. I highly doubt that would be the case if something similar happened today.

Not that anyone was in the right on this whole thing. The author does a good job of showing the missteps on every single side that lead to this tragedy. From the student protesters, to the National Guard, to the Governor of Ohio, to Nixon, to the Kent State President, etc. The list goes on. He also explains in depth the ramping up of events that culminated in that Monday's shooting, as well as the aftermath and what little justice was to be had. However I didn't appreciate the authors opinion bleeding through in several places. There was some heavy sarcasm used, as well as opinionated comments that could have been left for the end if he wanted to express his personal views on everything. Seeing it in the main part of the book just made me begin to doubt the objectiveness of the author, and begin questioning the slant of everything else I read.

Overall though this was a good read, especially for someone like me who wasn't alive during the events and wants a birdseye view of the events and their consequences. It's a maddening set of events that continues to amaze, but I think it was important to read and understand the background and aftermath as well. We'll never know what exactly happened that made those 67 shots be fired, but through eye witness accounts and research Howard Means has done a commendable job putting it all together in one place.

Copy courtesy of Da Capo Press, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. show less