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A review by ederwin
Credo: The Rose Wilder Lane Story by Peter Bagge
4.0
The only thing I knew about R.W. Lane before reading this is that her mother wrote "Little House on the Prairie", which I've not read or watched. But I trust Bagge to pick interesting topics, and he didn't let me down. She had a fascinating life.
Early on, she wrote biographies of Charlie Chaplin, Jack London, Herbert Hoover and Henry Ford. They were all largely fiction, and she came close to being sued each time!
Later she traveled in Europe after WWI as a war correspondent and sometimes with the Red Cross.
Bagge likes her because she is an early proponent of Libertarianism in the USA. I don't subscribe to that worldview, but found her life interesting anyway. Anyway, she lived by her principles; even making sure to be paid little enough money that she wouldn't have to pay income tax! (This is after she had already made a good deal of money.)
This book will likely anger "bonnetheads" because it presents her mother as a very difficult person and by strongly suggesting that R.W. Lane actually wrote more than a little of what was published in her mother's name. (She definitely edited it.) I don't have horse in that race, so don't care. Whether true or not, the sources are discussed in detail in the endnotes.
Like the other two of Bagges biographies, he sticks mostly to a one-idea-per-page format, so you can get whiplash from the sharp jumps in time and place from page to page. And his drawing style is, as it always was, cartoony even when dealing with serious subjects. But the story is solid, and the endnotes fill in details that may have been unclear, as well as adding speculations on things that can't be known for sure (such as whether she had more than friendships with certain men and women).
Early on, she wrote biographies of Charlie Chaplin, Jack London, Herbert Hoover and Henry Ford. They were all largely fiction, and she came close to being sued each time!
Later she traveled in Europe after WWI as a war correspondent and sometimes with the Red Cross.
Bagge likes her because she is an early proponent of Libertarianism in the USA. I don't subscribe to that worldview, but found her life interesting anyway. Anyway, she lived by her principles; even making sure to be paid little enough money that she wouldn't have to pay income tax! (This is after she had already made a good deal of money.)
This book will likely anger "bonnetheads" because it presents her mother as a very difficult person and by strongly suggesting that R.W. Lane actually wrote more than a little of what was published in her mother's name. (She definitely edited it.) I don't have horse in that race, so don't care. Whether true or not, the sources are discussed in detail in the endnotes.
Like the other two of Bagges biographies, he sticks mostly to a one-idea-per-page format, so you can get whiplash from the sharp jumps in time and place from page to page. And his drawing style is, as it always was, cartoony even when dealing with serious subjects. But the story is solid, and the endnotes fill in details that may have been unclear, as well as adding speculations on things that can't be known for sure (such as whether she had more than friendships with certain men and women).