Justus S. Stearns: Michigan Pine King and Kentucky Coal Baron, 1845–1933 by Michael W. Nagle (review)

92 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY that occurred in 1963, and even the Occupy movements of 2011 and thereafter. Coxey’s Army has much to recommend it. Alexander writes clearly and crisply, and he effectively conveys the crisis of the moment that produced the Coxey movement as well as the considerable colorfulness of the characters involved, including not only Coxey (who named a son “Legal Tender” shortly before the march) but also accomplices such as A. P. B. Bozarro (mysteriously introduced at his public appearances as “the Great Unknown”), “Oklahoma Sam” Pfrimmer, and Carl Browne, “a journalist, political agitator, patent medicine salesman, carnival barker, and sketch artist” (40). The same brevity that serves as one of the book’s strengths (a U.S. history professor could easily envision assigning it to undergraduates) also becomes a weakness at times, though. The ties between Coxey’s army and other momentous and certainly related events of 1894, such as the emerging strength of the Populist Party, the Pullman strike, and, especially, the national miners’ strike led by Coxey’s friend John McBride, are not developed or considered as fully as they certainly could have been, and even the endnotes are lacking at times—more than once, this reviewer wanted to see the sources for certain pieces of information, only to find that no citation exists. This brief book will not supplant the older studies of Coxey’s army by Donald L. McMurry and Carlos Schwantes, but it certainly takes its place squarely alongside them. Matthew Hild Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of West Georgia