I don't know why people find history boring when there are great books like this one available. Spanning half the 19th century and filled with famous and forgotten figures, Other Powers chronicles parts of the Spiritualist movement, the fight for women's rights and one family's struggle to survive in a harsh social environment. Sex scandals, blackmail, prudery and hypocrisy make this a fascinating and oftentimes heart breaking record of America before and after the Civil War.
This book is often convoluted at times as the webs of intrigue become more and more tangled over time. Yet this is a true story which makes it all the more fascinating. The author shows us the life history of Virginia Woodhull and her impoverished family as they struggled, schemed and whored to survive. The author also notes the hypocracy of the upper and middle class as they imprisoned their females in corsets and distributed advertisements for houses of prostitution to their males.
This is also the beginnings of the modern women's movement as frustrated middle and upper class women struggled to win basic human rights - the right to own property, the right to keep their children and their own bodies from harm - and the right to vote. Here also is a rising religious movement based on communication from spirits long departed. As mediums, women spoke out, often for the first time in public on many of the issues of the day: slavery, prohibition, and human (women's) rights.
Now, throw in political intrigue, the Free Love movement, the richest man in America, and a sex scandal involving New York's most popular preacher to this mess and you've got history at its best!
This book is a triple winner - it studies the women's movement, it shows the interaction of religion in American life, and it examines a slice of 19th century American life.