Waiting for the Morning Train: An American Boyhood (Great Lakes Books) | 
| Author: Bruce Catton
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $20.95
Buy Used: $4.90
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Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 526947
Media: Paperback
Edition: Great Lakes Books Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 260
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.4
ISBN: 0814318851
Dewey Decimal Number: 977.4040924
EAN: 9780814318850
ASIN: 0814318851
Publication Date: October 1987
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Binding is tight, text is clean. Light edge wear to cover. Bottom page edges has a light coffee splatter. We mail out order quickly w/delivery confirmation in bubble mailers.
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Amazon.com
One of America's great Civil War historians recounts his days growing up in Benzonia, a small town in Michigan's lower peninsula. During the first years of the 20th century (Catton was born in 1899), Catton listened to the tales of old Civil War veterans and gained an interest in the War Between the States that would never leave him. But this book, unlike Catton's other works, isn't primarily about the Civil War. It's about growing up in a particular time and a place. Written with grace, warmth, and wit, it describes an era of trains and timber. People who know and love the forests of northern Michigan will appreciate this book immensely, as will anybody who has enjoyed Catton's other books and wants to learn a little bit more about the historian who is one of America's great storytellers.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Waiting for the Morning Train July 8, 2008
I found this book on the coffee table of a friend in northern Michigan. I started to read a few pages of it, and within an hour I knew that I was going to buy it when I got home. The author tells the tale in a way that
you don't hear your own voice as you read, but the author himself. He tells
a story with some political commentary, but you understand the issues from his perspective as he proceeds. He begins at about 1900 and moves to about World War 1. Many anecdotes about the Civil War as well. I perceived some current event relevance that are note worthy, (he who does not remember the past is doomed to repeat it). All in all a very pleasant book to sit down and read to relax.
 A break from academia October 17, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Bruce Catton made a name for himself writing some of the most comprehensive books on the Civil War. As an educator and writer, his career will forever be viewed by formal academic standards. However, in Waiting for the Morning Train, the formalities and objectivity are swept away, and we are left with a wonderful story of a boy growing up in rural Northern Michigan. He captures a moment in time, not only in the historical sense, but also from the perspective of a young man coming of age. He substitutes facts and discipline with observations and thoughts, and along the way, creates what is my favorite piece of his work.
A lament fior the 20th century August 5, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is generally considered a memoir of growing up in rural northern Michigan in the early 1900's, and it is; but it is also a lament for the 20th century. Catton contrasts the optimism of the America of his youth--it's faith in progress and in the future, it's belief that Americans could solve any problem with hard work, right thinking, and the guidance of Divine Providence--with the reality of national and world events that transpired from World War I through the Viet Nam era.
The mood of the book is reflective and even melancholy at times. I felt Catton was a concerned and discouraged man as he wrote this. He saw unlimited technological power as a frightening development and he had little faith in the ability of America or humankind in general to exhibit self-discipline in the use of such power.
It's a very thought-provoking book, and extremely relevant to today's world even 35 years after publication.
Boyhood Memoirs of a Literary Giant May 14, 2003
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
I never met Bruce Catton, but I corresponded briefly with him in the mid-1970's. The same qualities that marked him as a correspondent--courtesy, graciousness, and gentle humor--illuminate this lovely memoir of a great historian. Catton grew up in Benzonia, Michigan, "a city upon a hill," as he correctly notes, very close to Lake Michigan, where the old certitudes held seemingly invincible sway over virtually every aspect of one's daily life. Catton's father was the superintendent of Benzonia Academy, whose main building is now Benzonia's library. The memoir, which recalls the years between the author's birth and his graduation from high school, is a series of reflections on what it was like to be a boy just as Michigan's logging era was drawing to a close, when sleepy Benzonia, along with the rest of the nation, was about to drift into the maw of the violent twentieth century. Catton writes of boyhood ambitions and boyish pranks, of the rich history that made Michigan's Lower Peninsula what it was, and especially of the Civil War veterans whose stories would later prompt Catton to devote years of his life to recording the history of that great conflict in rich anecdotal detail. Though unabashedly nostalgic, "Waiting for the Morning Train" is neither saccharine nor bitter. Catton was far too experienced a writer and historian to let his emotions get the better of him. This is, nonetheless, a rich and moving memoir of a time which, though it may seem virtually within reach, we will never see again. I recommend this book highly as a gift for yourself and, perhaps, for that reflective friend who can appreciate personal history told with universal appeal. Bruce Catton was, quite simply, one of the greatest writers and historians this country has produced, and in many ways this deceptively modest little volume represents the zenith of his literary achievement.
A plesant book to read April 14, 2003
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Bruce Catton was born in 1899 in Bezonia, Mich., a town of about 300 people then and now. Catton tells a lot about lumbering, tho he himself had little to do with lumbering. He graduated from Bezonia Academy in 1916, there being 11 in his class. The Academy closed in 1918. The book ends when Catton goes to college. It is a pleasant book to read, since Catton is a fine writer. But Jimmy Carter's book on his rural childhood I thought a more fetching read.
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