RAPHAEL, Ray

PERSONAL:

Male. Education: University of California at Berkeley, M.A., 1967; Reed College, M.A., 1969.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Northern California. Agent—c/o Author Mail, New Press, 450 West 41st St., New York, NY 10036.

CAREER:

Researcher, educator, and writer. Taught in a rural public high school; Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA, former teacher and fieldwork superviso; College of the Redwoods, Eureka, CA, former teacher.

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Best book of the year about California, Commonwealth Club, for An Everyday History of Somewhere, Being the True Story of Indians, Deer, Homesteaders, Potatoes, Loggers, Tress, Fishermen, Salmon, and Other Living Things in the Backwoods of Northern California.

WRITINGS:

An Everyday History of Somewhere, Being the True Story of Indians, Deer, Homesteaders, Potatoes, Loggers, Trees, Fishermen, Salmon, and Other Living Things in the Backwoods of Northern California, Knopf (New York, NY), 1974, reprinted, Real Books (Redway, CA), 1992.

Edges: Backcountry Lives in America Today on the Borderlands between the Old Ways and the New, Knopf (New York, NY), 1976, with an afterword by the author, University of Nebraska Press, (Lincoln, NE), 1986.

Tree Talk: The People and Politics of Timber, Island Press (Covelo, CA), 1981.

Cash Crop: An American Dream, Ridge Times Press (Redway, CA), 1985.

The Teacher's Voice: A Sense of Who We Are, Heinemann (Portsmouth, NH), 1985.

The Men from the Boys: Rites of Passage in Male America, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 1988.

(With Neil Raphael) Comic Cops: A Mystery, Real Books (Redway, CA), 1992.

Little White Father: Redick McKee on the California Frontier, Humboldt County Historical Society (Eureka, CA), 1993.

More Tree Talk: The People, Politics, and Economics of Timber, Island Press (Washington, DC), 1994.

(Series editor, with Howard Zinn) A People's History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence, New Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Voices of the American Revolution: A Popular History, New Press (New York, NY), 2001.

The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord, New Press (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

For seventeen years, Ray Raphael taught in a one-room school in northern California. A Phi Beta Kappa member who earned a pair of masters degrees, Raphael has written numerous books, including two works considered definitive on the subject of the American Revolution.

Prior to writing his books on the American Revolution, Raphael wrote a string of books on varying subjects. An Everyday History of Somewhere, Being the True Story of Indians, Deer, Homesteaders, Potatoes, Loggers, Trees, Fishermen, Salmon, and Other Living Things in the Backwoods of Northern California deals with everything from insects to how a potato becomes a French fry. The work focuses on the nature surrounding Raphael's home in northern California near the Oregon border. The author discusses the lives of ordinary people, animals, and plants, with black-and-white drawings by Mark Livingston. Martha Seffer O'Bryon, in American West, commended Raphael's work, noting that "the charm lingers, and suddenly the reader finds himself transported to the 'now' of everyday history." Ivan R. Dee, a reviewer for the New York Times Book Review, declared the book to be "fun" and that it "goes against the historical grain and gets down to the nitty gritty.… It's randomly organized, long on curiosa, and heavy with ecology." William Thomas Generous of Kliatt Paperback Book Guide found An Everyday History of Somewhere to be "fascinating" and called it "a serious study of humans, land, and creatures, by a man who can write brilliantly in describing events as well as in recording them."

Rural country dwellers are the subject of Edges: Human Ecology of the Backcountry. Raphael focuses once again on northwestern California, a sparsely populated area that must conform to a government that taxes too highly and makes building codes impossible to comply with so nearly everyone lives in an illegal building. Raphael contrasts the two areas of what he calls "human ecology." One is the growing influence of city culture on the countryside and the other is environmental damage. A Kirkus Reviews contributor wrote, "The easygoing and non-didactic tone of the author… is a fine correlate of his belief in thinking small and thinking organically." Los Angeles Times Book Review contributor Alex Raksin observed that Edges is "breezily written" while John Murray in the Bloomsbury Review found the book to be "unique" and "fascinating." Murray also noted that Raphael "writes with sensitivity, compassion, and intelligence about one of America's often-overlooked endangered species: people living in the rural backwaters of the country."

Interviews with environmentalists, loggers, and people who simply live near forests frame the debate of modern forestry in Tree Talk: The People and Politicsof Timber. In framing the debate, Raphael tries to cover all topics of modern forestry which Betsy Calvin, writing for Library Journal, found to be "confusing and irrelevant." A contributor to American Forests disagreed and commended Raphael's work, "With Raphael's own low-key and well-informed exposition tying the voices and themes together, the book achieves the exceptionally difficult task of transforming strident conflict into intelligible and usable debate." Sierra's John Hooper called Tree Talk "readable" and remarked, "The book makes a compelling case for drastically changing the way we manage our forests in this country." A follow-up to Tree Talk, More Tree Talk: The People, Politics, and Economics of Timber, updates the original forestry study. Kristin Linkugel of Workbook wrote that "More Tree Talk presents a vivid portrait of the people and politics involved in many critical timber issues."

In Cash Crop: An American Dream, the multi-billion dollar industry of illegal marijuana growth in northern California is examined. Both pros and cons are given plenty of space in Raphael's book, among them a narcotics officer, planters, and local residents. Carol Rasmussen from Library Journal declared, "The best thing about the book is its balance." A critic from Kirkus Reviews acknowledged that Cash Crop is "an interpretive inside account of a contraband trade that realpolitik might one day make legit, if not respectable."

Raphael puts his own experience to use in The Teacher's Voice: A Sense of Who We Are, in which stories of the occupational hazards of being a teacher are told by people still in the profession as well as by former teachers. In a review for the Journal of Education, Steven J. Coleman praised the teacher interviews, writing that they "represent a well-chosen cross-section of educators." Although Coleman did not agree with the author's "choice to include only articulate teachers," the reviewer commented, "The Teacher's Voice succeeds in absorbing the reader into the personal and professional lives of teachers." Claire Elaine Sylvan from Teachers College Record concluded that Raphael's book is "easily readable, entertaining, and insightful."

The Men from the Boys: Rites of Passage in Male America looks at the journey of more than one hundred American men from different walks of life who use varying methods to traverse the path toward manhood. Raphael concludes that rituals such as sports, fraternity hazing, and the military do not do the job. Unlike primitive rites of passage that made it possible for every boy to achieve a heightened sense of self-worth, modern rituals are too competitive to really work; only a few men can pass them, thus making the transition into manhood incredibly difficult for the majority of American males. Barbara Lovenheim, in the New York Times Book Review declared The Men from the Boys to be "provocative and well researched," adding that Raphael's "anecdotes are often compelling." Raksin also found Raphael's book to be "clear and thoughtful," calling it "an important addition to the study of growing up male in America."

Raphael's knowledge of history is shown in two extensive books about the late eighteenth century. A People's History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence shifts the focus of the struggle away from the usual tales of generals and politicians and instead looks closely at the impact the era had on the common populace. The soldiers, women, Native Americans, and African Americans are a few of the groups examined. Adam Sisman wrote in the London Guardian, "One of the merits of this excellent book is to show that the reality was a good deal more complicated … than the cliché." In the Texas Observer, reviewer James E. McWilliams noted that, "Throughout seven readable chapters, Raphael's ear remains sensitive to the pleas of the downtrodden, and the voices he presents accomplish what academic history so often fails to do: allow historical agents to tell their own stories." Rebecca Weston in the Socialist Worker applauded Raphael's efforts and recommended the book "for anyone wanting an entertaining read, anecdotal gems and—more importantly—an opportunity to reclaim the history of the American Revolution." English Historical Review critic Frank Cogliano found The American Revolution to be "well-researched and well-written," but thought "Raphael has defined the American Revolution in a curiously old-fashioned manner" by focusing exclusively on the war and not broadening his research to include the politics of the 1780s and the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. Gary J. Kornblith, in the William and Mary Quarterly, wrote that the work is not original, but still wrote that Raphael "succeeds admirably in bringing to life the excitement, upheaval, and complexity of plebeian Americans' participation in the War of Independence." C. M. McGovern in Choice found fault with the book as "not especially innovative," but Gregor Milne, in a review for the Richmond Review, noted that "Raphael has gathered some of the most interesting evidence in American historical research."

The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord has a similar theme in that it shows the struggle for independence was just as fierce in rural western Massachusetts as it was on the commonly known battlefields. Colin Nicolson wrote in the Journal of American History that "It would be disingenuous to claim that this is a neglected area of scholarship, but Raphael's fine book will correct the fallacy that western Massachusetts was barely disturbed by the imperial crisis of the late 1760s and early 1770s." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly believed that "His liberal use of primary sources (excerpts from town records, newspapers, letters, etc.), authoritative secondary sources, and his meticulous care in footnoting will prove extremely useful for further study."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Forest, January, 1982, review of Tree Talk: The People and Politics of Timber, p. 57.

American West, May, 1975, Martha Seffer O'Bryon, review of An Everyday History of Somewhere, Being the True Story of Indians, Deer, Homesteaders, Potatoes, Loggers, Trees, Fishermen, Salmon & Other Living Things in the Backwoods of Northern California, p. 56.

Bloomsbury Review, July, 1988, John Murray, review of Edges: Backcountry Lives in America Today on the Borderlands between the Old Ways and the New, p. 19.

Booklist, March 1, 2001, Gilbert Taylor, review of A People's History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence, p. 1223.

Choice, December, 1985, J. M. McCarthy, review of The Teacher's Voice: A Sense of Who We Are; November, 2001, C. M. McGovern, review of A People's History of the American Revolution, p. 580.

English Historical Review, April, 2003, Frank Cogliano, review of A People's History of the American Revolution, pp. 450-451.

Journal of American History, March, 2003, Colin Nicolson, review of The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord, pp. 1509-1510.

Journal of Education, 1987, Steven J. Coleman, review of The Teacher's Voice, pp. 99-103.

Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 1985, review of Cash Crop: An American Dream, p. 636; February 15, 1976, review of Edges, p. 240.

Kliatt Paperback Book Guide, April, 1981, William Thomas Generous, Jr., review of An Everyday History of Somewhere, p. 46.

Library Journal, September 15, 1981, Betsy Calvin, review of Tree Talk, p. 1628; September 1, 1985, Carol Rasmussen, review of Cash Crop, p. 209; January 1, 2001, Charles L. Lumpkins, review of A People's History of the American Revolution.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, January 4, 1987, Alex Raksin, review of Edges, p. 10; December 11, 1988, Alex Raksin, review of The Men from the Boys: Rites of Passage in Male America, p. 4.

Nation, July 10, 1989, Michael S. Kimmel, review of The Men from the Boys.

New Observer, August 5, 2001, J. Peder Zane, review of A People's History of the American Revolution.

New York Times Book Review, December 1, 1974, Ivan R. Dee, review of An Everyday History of Somewhere, p. 18; March 12, 1989, Barbara Lovenheim, review of The Men from the Boys, p. 23.

Publishers Weekly, April 1, 2002, review of The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord, p. 68.

Sierra, September, 1982, John Hooper, review of Tree Talk, p. 79.

Socialist Worker, July 6, 2001, Rebecca Weston, review of A People's History of the American Revolution, p. 11.

Teachers College Record, summer, 1987, Claire Elaine Sylvan, review of The Teacher's Voice, p. 622.

Texas Observer, March 16, 2001, James E. McWilliams, review of A People's History of the American Revolution.

Washington Post Book World, December 15, 1974, review of An Everyday History of Somewhere.

William and Mary Quarterly, January, 2002, Gary J. Kornblith, review of A People's History of the American Revolution.

Workbook, fall, 1995, Kristin Linkugel, review of More Tree Talk: The People, Politics, and Economics of Timber, p. 135.

ONLINE

College of the Redwoods Web site,http://www.redwoods.edu/ (September 10, 2003).

Connection.org,http://www.theconnection.org/ (April 24, 2001).

Guardian Unlimited Online,http://www.books.guardian.co.uk/ (July 8, 2001), Adam Sisman, review of A People's History of the American Revolution.

Humboldt State University Web site,http://www.humboldt.edu/ (September 28, 2003).

National Park Services Web site,http://www.cr.nps.gov/ (September 28, 2003), description of A People's History of the American Revolution.

New Press Web site,http://www.thenewpress.com/ (September 28, 2003).

Profile Books Web site,http://www.profilebooks.co.uk/ (July, 2001), Anthony Howard, review of A People's History of the American Revolution.

Richmond Review Online,http://www.richmondreview.co.uk/ (September 28, 2003), Gregor Milne, review of A People's History of the American Revolution.*