Intro to Revolution

The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 

by Rick Atkinson

The Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Rick Atkinson's book is a masterwork of narrative military history. The American Revolution's mythology is stripped away, revealing a grim, chaotic, and profoundly human struggle. The book, which is the magnificent first volume of his Revolution Trilogy, covers the first 21 months of the war and shows how a small-scale colonial uprising turned into a worldwide struggle for independence. The author exhibits meticulously balanced viewpoints, in-depth archival research, and cinematic storytelling.

The story begins with a lengthy prologue set in June 1773, describing King George III inspecting the magnificent Royal Navy at Portsmouth, the pinnacle of British imperial confidence. After that, it moves quickly through the Boston political powder keg, the opening shots at Lexington and Concord, the horrific carnage at Bunker Hill, the catastrophic American invasion of Canada, and the exhausting battle for New York. In the winter of 1776–1777, the book reaches its dramatic climax, depicting the "Ten Crucial Days" when George Washington's desperate surprise actions at Trenton and Princeton alone saved the flagging American cause.

I was captivated by the details in this readable history. It moves quickly while maintaining an incredible level of detail.

View all my reviews

Evil Onset

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The Darkest Dawn: 

Lincoln, Booth, and the Great American Tragedy

 

by Thomas Goodrich

 

The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln is chronicled in Thomas Goodrich's book The Darkest Dawn: Lincoln, Booth, and the Great American Tragedy. The book's intricate and captivating story is praised by many; it stands out for fusing the "care of the historian and the flair of the fiction writer.

From the moments inside Ford's Theatre to the ensuing manhunt and national mourning, the book's narrative immediacy allows the reader to be immersed in the events leading up to the assassination. An account as detailed and up-to-date as today's news is given by the writing. It discusses the tragedy, the hunt for the culprits, and the response of the country.
I respect its historical significance, and this is a remarkable book among the Civil War novels I have read.

One of the most tragic incidents in American history, its effects on the country, and the eventual prosecution of the conspirators are all covered in the book. It is important to note that Thomas Goodrich is a writer who has authored other books about the Civil War and related subjects. I found this book to be one I would recommend due to its detailed and vivid account of the Lincoln assassination.

Leader and Wise Man

And There Was Light: 

Abraham Lincoln 

and the American Struggle 

by Jon Meacham

“Once, when a Republican congressman from Massachusetts accused Lincoln of having changed his mind, Lincoln replied, “Yes, I have; and I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday."  ― Jon Meacham, And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle





The focus of the book is Lincoln's political and personal development, from a practical politician who at first supported union over abolition to a leader who issued the Emancipation Proclamation and struggled with slavery, America's original sin. Meacham frames Lincoln as a flawed yet profoundly moral figure, shaped by his faith, reason, and the turbulent times. Meacham uses Lincoln's own words—from letters, speeches, and lesser-known works—to weave together a larger story about democracy and human dignity while highlighting significant events like the Gettysburg Address and the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858.

The book impressed me with its depth and readability. Meacham's elegant and approachable prose gives difficult historical and moral issues a sense of urgency and relatability. He connects Lincoln’s struggles to modern debates about race, justice, and leadership, a hallmark of his style that some find insightful and others occasionally heavy-handed. The book doesn’t shy away from Lincoln’s contradictions—his early ambivalence about immediate abolition and his support for colonizing freed Black Americans abroad—offering a nuanced view that avoids hagiography.

The Last Years of a President

When the cheering stopped: 

The last years of Woodrow Wilson 

by Gene Smith

"We are troubled on every side, yet not destressed,; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. . ."  - Woodrow Wilson in his last days as President, quoted by Gene Smith, p 143.



This is the captivating account of what transpired when President Woodrow Wilson fell ill at the height of his achievement, leading to the U.S. Senate blocking his intentions for the United States to join the League of Nations. Few Americans were aware of what took place during his final two years in office, but Gene Smith's investigations reveal the truth about what lied beneath the bland statements made by presidential surrogates. The ensuing biography of the Wilson Presidency's final days makes for engaging reading.

It is a skillfully written and thoroughly researched account of a remarkable, horrible, and perplexing period in history that centered on the agonies of Woodrow Wilson's ideal of world peace and the man who devoted his life to pursuing it. Wilson was devastated by the death of his wife Ellen, and he bitterly set about the mission of uniting the world. Wilson traveled to Europe with the conviction that the goal for which he had sent American lads there would inspire Americans to embrace the League of Nations, to which he had already committed this nation. Mrs. Galt was his wife at the time of his rededication. He began his exhausting program of cross-country talks with her at his side to reassure him.

The breakdown manifested as a thrombosis and partial paralysis at the end of the tour. In truth, the United States remained without a president from that point on until Harding's inauguration. His doctor, a political aide, and his fiercely protective wife surrounded Wilson. The author has provided a fairly comprehensive view of the President at this time—physically ravaged, prone to helpless outbursts of emotion but still burning with a fierce sense of mission, a ""eagle chained to a rock""—by drawing on contemporaneous notes and interviews. While not a complete biography this is an essential view of an important episode in American history.

Strange Fixations

Confederates in the Attic: 

Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War 

by Tony Horwitz

“There are people one knows and people one doesn't. One shouldn't cheapen the former by feigning intimacy with the latter.”   ― Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War

While I first read this book more than a decade ago I still remember it vividly, if for no other reason than the cover art, which I consider to be one of the most hideous of any book that I have read. Fortunately I did not let that stop me and inside I found a delicious mix of cultural history, personal reminiscence and odd, but true (I believe) miscellany about people who are fixated on the Civil War era.

The discussion of the Japanese people's fascination with Gone With the Wind was one of the oddest episodes. They visit Atlanta, Georgia as a result of their fixation, where they are known to look up Tara's location because they appear to believe that there must be a genuine Tara behind the novel. In that much of the book has a similar eccentricity, it reminds me of Louis Theroux's The Call of the Weird: Adventures in American Subcultures. Horwitz definitely looks for strange and perhaps undesirable elements to interview, such as the insane biker bar. There was an insightful conversation with Shelby Foote, and I ended up appreciating a particular pro-Southern viewpoint (even if I disagree with it).

Since the memories of the persons interviewed are fading and times are continuing to change, the book may have lost part of its value with time. It's much more entertaining because the book almost reads like a picaresque novel or anthology of short stories. It might be seen as a snapshot of the 1990s' zeitgeist in regard to the Civil War. The Civil War re-enactors are a genuinely odd breed, yet their fervor for the time period makes them endlessly fascinating. It was enjoyable to read.

America's Favorite Humorist

Will Rogers: His Life And Times 

by Richard M. Ketchum

I grew up in Wisconsin, but my mother was originally from Oklahoma and we would go there most summers to visit my grandmother. One of the highlights of our trips was more than once visiting the Will Rogers memorial in Claremore, Oklahoma. He was one of my mother's favorite celebrities from when she was a young girl. We shared a bit of Cherokee blood through my mother's great grandmother; thus spurring my interest in Will and the heritage of the Cherokee Nation. So, in addition to Claremore we also visited Talequah, the home of the Cherokee Nation, more than once. 

This book has a wealth of photos from Will's life which was quite eventful, both as a humorist and a movie star in the early days of the "talkies". Unfortunately, his life was cut short when his plane crashed in Alaska. This is a great book for anyone interested in the sayings and events of one of America's greatest humorists. 

Will Rogers' quotes:  

"I never met a man I didn't like".

 

"My ancestors didn't come on the Mayflower but they met the boat"

The Puzzle of the Lakota Empire

Lakota America: 

A New History of Indigenous Power 

by Pekka Hämäläinen

"The central challenge in writing about the Lakotas is to make them unfamiliar again. Their mythical place in popular consciousness as the vanquishers of Custer and as the masters of the western plains has made their rise seem pre-ordained."(p 4)

What is civilization? According to Felipe Fernandez-Armesto in his book, Civilizations, it is "a relationship between man and nature". (p 14) In his estimation it is contingent upon the environment in which a people exist. Ludwig von Mises, in his book Theory and History, claims that "Civilization is like a biological being; it is born, grows, matures, decays, and dies." (p 223) Just one of the questions raised as one reads Lakota America is whether the Lakota nation was a civilization. The author claims in the introduction to his book that it is the "solution to a puzzle". (p 3) Whether he succeeds in finding that solution or not, he has produced a voluminous record of the Lakota and other indigenous Indian tribes in America from the 17th century to the end of the 19th.

The author presents the relations between the Lakota (a group of several tribes) and other groups, including other tribes of native Americans, the French, the British, and finally the Americans who, following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the War of 1812, were their primary source of commerce, their benefactor, and as time went on often their opponent.

As the Seventeenth century ended the natives appeared to be in a fairly constant war with each other, with some groups gaining in prominence from time to time. "A new technological frontier centered on the horse had been launched." (p 51) The Lakotas were notable in using this technology to enhance their mobility in this era, as they would continue to throughout the next two centuries gradually migrating from the area known as the Northwest Territory toward the Northern plains and the Black Hills.  The indigenous groups first contact with Europeans were the French traders in this era. The author highlights the advance of technology introduced by the Europeans. This became important to the Lakotas as they were viewed as "pragmatic" and "adaptable". Along with technology the Europeans also brought diseases such as Smallpox, spread by the increase in commerce and this took a severe toll on the native Americans.

Along with the narrative of the Lakota's migratory activities the author highlighted the continued encroachment of not only the French and then the British, but the Americans. This was escalated following the Louisiana Purchase with the expedition of Lewis and Clark up the Missouri River and through the northwest to the Pacific. All the while the Lakotas continued to migrate and adapt. "The U.S. empire was built on institutional prowess and visibility, whereas the Lakota empire was an action-based regime, which gave it a fickle on-and-off-again character." (p 241) The history also includes the complexities of native culture including polygamy and the training of young warriors. The only constant was the continued encroachment of the Americans accelerated by the discovery of gold in California and the building of the railroads through routes in the south, center, and ultimately the north.

The story concludes with the era of armed engagements following the Civil War in the 1870's culminating with the famous battle of Little Big Horn. While Sitting Bull came out of that as the victor over General George Armstrong Custer, the reprisals over the subsequent decade would result in the effective demise of Lakota power with the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890.

I found the book to be most effective and informative through the early history of the indigenous peoples; a history with which I had no familiarity. The century following the American Revolution was one in which technology and commerce overwhelmed the Lakotas and other tribes, who for the most part were unable to adapt to changes in their environment. The nature that the indigenous peoples knew as the environment that formed their culture changed so tremendously that their civilization gradually decayed and became a mere shadow of what it once was. The author notes that "The Indians remained a subordinate people, subject to the whims of a foreign empire." (p 382) The complexity of the new environment left them dependent on the government of the United States for support. This is a situation, with few exceptions, that continues to this day.

 

God in the Clouds

Son of the Morning Star: 

General Custer and the 

Battle of the Little Bighorn 

by Evan S. Connell

“Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor’d mind Sees God in clouds … Custer,”   


― Evan S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn







Once in a while you find a book that is so well written that beyond the days of reading, long after you have finished it, the book continues to haunt you. Son of the Morning Star is one of those books. The beauty of Evan S. Connell's prose and the excellence of his history make this book a minor masterpiece. Perhaps the larger-than-life presence of the central character, who the Indians named "son of the morning star", General George Armstrong Custer, is partly the reason for the magnificence of the book.

“Even now,” Evan Connell writes in his book, “after a hundred years, his name alone will start an argument. More significant men of his time can be discussed without passion because they are inextricably woven into a tapestry of the past, but this hotspur refuses to die. He stands forever on that dusty Montana slope.”

His vigor and gallantry were never denied, even by his detractors, and during the Civil War he advanced rapidly; perhaps due to fortuitous notice, but nonetheless he was a brigadier at twenty-three, the youngest American ever to win a star. All of this was not due to merit, all though he did have that, but in spite of his mediocrity evidenced earlier by his poor record at West Point, having graduated last in his class. Overall, as Custer made his career in the Indian territories, it always seemed that he was overrated by others and, most of all, by himself.

Who knows the mind of Custer and the reasons that led to his demise at Little Big Horn. Maybe Evan S. Connell hits on the right one by thinking the most simply: Custer had never known defeat, perhaps couldn’t see it even when it was only one hilltop away. Few non-academic histories have been so well-written as this and have such compelling central themes that you can't put them down. Near-masterpiece is the best thing I can say when recommending this to anyone who enjoys reading a great book. It was simply a delight to read.

Drifting Across America

American Woman 

by Susan Choi

"And always the radio on, somehow underscoring her loneliness more than relieving it. She had plenty of distance from Dolly but still, late at night, she would turn down the radio low. In the vast nighttime hush she could play it quite softly and hear. The contrast of her life with the world outside sometimes felt too great on these nights. The radio was like a tiny porthole in her drifting balloon."(p 89) - American Woman, Susan Choi.



Susan Choi's novel is based on the real events surrounding the kidnapping of Patty Hearst in the 1970's.  She imbues her narrative with psychological depth and texture, while cleaving close to the true course of events. Instead of focusing on Patty (here named Pauline, the daughter of a wealthy newspaper publisher), Choi turns her attention on Jenny Shimada, a young Japanese-American woman, who, fleeing the Feds after she and her boyfriend orchestrate the bombing of draft offices to protest the Vietnam War, agrees to help Pauline and her kidnappers. This protagonist is based on a real-life person, Wendy Yoshimura, who spent what's now called "the lost year" (1974, when Patty and her captors disappeared) with Patty and two of her kidnappers. In Choi's book, the four spend the time in a rented farmhouse in New York State, with Jenny running errands while Pauline and her "comrades" undergo physical training for their fight against "the pigs" and halfheartedly write a book (purportedly to eventually raise money to pay for their lifestyle).

While the author deftly handles Pauline's transformation, the bank robbery, Pauline and Jenny's cross-country trip, this was only part of the story.  More important for this reader was the more successful aspect of the novel -- the author's ability to create the atmosphere of suspense for the radicals who have segregated themselves from everyday life as most of us know it. This helps one understand the boredom and slowness of the action as the group is "lying low" out of reluctance to risk being recognized. The slowness ends in dramatic fashion in the final section of the novel with the denouement of the story. Even though you may know the basic history of the underlying events the author is able to maintain your interest.

Another important aspect is Choi's skill at getting inside the heads of her protagonists adding to the particular, unsettling appeal of the novel. What makes Jenny a radical? And what then leads her to wonder whether "perhaps they had been wrong to fight Power on its terms, instead of rejecting its terms utterly"? She presents protagonists that are often conflicted and, in doing so, Choi takes an uncompromising look at issues of race, class, war and peace. That having been said, I found the style of the author limited the effectiveness of her storytelling. This novel reminded me of Lionel Trilling's The Middle of the Journey , a novel that succeeded both in creating an unsettling narrative (loosely based on real-life communist sympathizers in the 1940's) and demonstrating a felicitous prose style. The comparison may seem unfair but having experienced Trilling's prose I could only be disappointed by that of Susan Choi. Nevertheless this novel was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

American Woman by Susan Choi. Harper Perennial, 2004 (2003).

Lessons of History

Destined for War: 

Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? 

by Graham Allison

“Like other practicing historians, I am often asked what the “lessons of history” are. I answer that the only lesson I have learnt from studying the past is that there are no permanent winners and losers. —Ramachandra Guha” ― Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?




Graham Allison’s book, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides Trap?, discusses China's rise into the US political mainstream. After explaining the Thucydides Trap – the friction created when a rising power challenges an established power, the author presents twelve historical examples that resulted in war, and four in which war was avoided. Allison proceeds to focus on the examples he considers to be the most instructive, namely the Peloponnesian War, World War I, and the Cold War.

Allison also relays insights from the late Lee Kuan Yew in making his case that Beijing's goal is the restoration of China as a regional hegemon. He argues against the idea that China will become a 'responsible stakeholder' in the international system in which the US remains the arbiter. China seeks the expulsion of the US from Asia, and is rapidly accumulating capabilities to achieve this goal.

He translates an unfiltered Chinese view for his local audience, analogizing it to America's expansion in the Western Hemisphere under President Teddy Roosevelt. Going by Allison's ledger, the factors favouring war between the US and China are ominous: two powers with narratives of their own 'exceptionalism', China's sense of past humiliation and present restoration, incompatible cultures and political systems, and a series of entangling flash-points and alliances. On the positive side, Allison argues, is an interdependent trade relationship and stable nuclear deterrence. Allison also labels North Korea as a 'Cuban missile crisis in slow motion'.

Ironically, the weakness of Allison's book is not his warning that the US and China are at risk of falling into the Thucydides Trap – a case he makes conclusively – but rather his explanations for why war remains avoidable. First, Allison makes the common error that nuclear dynamics between the US and China work the same way as it did with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Nuclear deterrence rests not just on capability (ensuring a retaliatory strike), but also credibility. During the Cold War, the fall of Western Europe to the Soviet Union posed such an existential threat to the US that a nuclear war could credibly be initiated to prevent it. In Asia, however, the US will not commence a full nuclear exchange with China and there is no way to convince Beijing otherwise. As such, current nuclear dynamics in Asia makes major war more likely, as mapped out in my review of the RAND study of a US-China war, a study also cited by Allison.

Finally, while carefully articulating China’s perception of the rivalry, it is surprising just how US-centric Allison’s ideas are for how conflict might be avoided. Allison suggests curtailing America’s commitment to Taiwan in exchange for concessions in the South and East China seas, or abandoning Prompt Global Strike in exchange for Beijing limiting its conventional expansion. However it seems unlikely China will agree to any of this. Why should it? Time is on Beijing's side. These kinds of deals only worked during the Cold War because each side recognized the other’s core interests while the balance of power between the US and the Soviet Union remained relatively stable. In the case of China and the US, the power shift is rapid and profound, and while Allison clearly understands this he fails to see the implications of his own conclusions. Rather than horse-trading over Taiwan and the South China Sea, Beijing might suggest the US leave Asia entirely in exchange for permanent recognition of Washington’s annexation of Hawaii!

Despite these shortcomings, this reader found Allison’s book good reading for the overview that it provides. In Destined for War, Allison calls Obama’s Asia pivot 'using an extra strength aspirin to treat cancer'. This author suggests stronger methods.

Too Young to Count the Odds

Young Men and Fire: 

 A True Story of the Mann Gulch Fire 

by Norman Maclean

“They were still so young they hadn't learned to count the odds and to sense they might owe the universe a tragedy.” 



― Norman Maclean, Young Men and Fire





Catastrophes are only a part of the story of the crew of fifteen smoke jumpers who, in August 1949, stepped into the sky above the mountains of western Montana. Their story is the focal point of this fine narrative, but there is so much more that I have stopped in my read to share a brief quotation that both tells a tiny part of the story, but also provides a peek into the context that is as vast as the mountains themselves. The beauty of this book is not only in the story of those young men and the fire they leapt into, but also the way it is told by Norman Maclean.

"Yet we should also go on wondering if there is not some shape, form, design as of artistry in this universe we are entering that is composed of catastrophes and missing parts. Whether we are coming up or down the Gates of the Mountains, catastrophes everywhere enfold us as they do the river, and catastrophes may seem to be only the visible remains of defunct happenings of millions of years ago and the Rocky Mountains only the disintegrated explosions that darkened skies also millions of years ago and left behind the world dusted with gritty silicone. At least I should recognize this as much the same stuff as the little pieces of glass which in 1980 Mount St. Helens in Washington sprinkled over my cabin in Montana six hundred miles away, and anyone coming down the Gates of the Mountains can see that the laminations of ocean beds compressed in the cliffs on one side of the river match the laminations on the opposite cliffs, and, looking up, can see that an arch, now disappeared into sky, originally join both cliffs. There are also missing parts to the story of the lonely crosses ahead of us, almost invisible in deep grass near the top of a mountain. What if, by searching the earth and even the sky for these missing parts, we should find enough of them to see catastrophe change into the shape of remembered tragedy? Unless we are willing to escape into sentimentality or fantasy, often the best we can do with catastrophes, even our own, is to find out exactly what happened and restore some of the missing parts---hopefully, even the arch to the sky." (pp 46-47)

Looking Back at an Education

The Education of Henry Adams 

by Henry Brooks Adams

"Except in the abandoned sphere of the dead languages, no one has discussed what part of education has, in his personal experience, turned out to be useful, and what not. This volume attempts to discuss it." (from the Preface - The Education of Henry Adams)


I have read several great confessional autobiographies over the years, Augustine and Rousseau come to mind, but my favorite is Henry Adams' narrative, The Education of Henry Adams. The Preface and four opening chapters provide a solid foundation for the entire book. They focus on his youth in Massachusetts and time spent in Washington, D. C. and at Harvard College through his twentieth year.

His attention points to the nature of his own education growing up in a family whose very name was synonymous with the Presidency of the United States. Born in 1838, both his Great Grandfather and Grandfather had been presidents, while his father looked forward to an Ambassadorship to England during the Civil War. Henry's education would be continued during that period as secretary to his father. But first he narrates the experience of growing up torn by family connections between the small town of Quincy and the metropolis of Boston.

The two towns provide just one of the contrasts that concern young Henry; contrasts that include town (Boston) versus country (Quincy), Winter versus Summer, and his own family ties between the Brooks of Boston on his mother's side and the Adams on his father's side. It was the interstices between these and other contrasting experiences that provided young Henry with the "seeds of moral education". Even this early in his life, as he reflects from the view of the twentieth century, he questioned what and who he was and where he was going with his life.

The community and culture that formed Henry's mind and being included family friends that would become historical figures for those of us born in the latter half of the succeeding century; figures that included, in addition to his family, Ellery Channing, Waldo Emerson, Richard Henry Dana, and above all for Henry, his hero, Charles Sumner. Henry worshiped the Senator and Orator and looked up to New England statesmen like him that expressed "the old Ciceronian idea of government by the best". People like Daniel Webster and Edward Everett who governed Massachusetts. Henry, however, was destined to move on to Washington with his father as the Adams family had for decades been a part of the national stage.

Henry did not like school and rather preferred the free play with his peers. In spite of his opinion of school it is clear that he was continuing his education at home and was soon to move back north to enter Harvard College in his sixteenth hear. His thoughts on his education at that time rang true to this reader as he described his travel to Washington, not as what happened but as what he remembered. And this was "what struck him most, to remain fresh in his mind all his life-time, . . the sudden change that came over the world on entering a slave State. He took education politically."  His time in Washington ended with a remark that "he had no education", a continuing contradiction that stemmed from his own reaction to the "official" education he was undergoing in schools that contrasted (once more see above) with the true education in which his experience was creating memories.

Harvard does not suit his taste either - the curriculum had no particular quality that could impress the man that Henry was becoming; a man who was not only a reader but a writer. He was impressed by Russell Lowell who "had brought back from Germany the only new and valuable part of its Universities, the habit of allowing students to read with him privately in his study. Adams asked the privilege, and used it to read a little, and to talk a great deal."  His friendship with Lowell led him to connections with the transcendentalists although he never became one. He also became friends with one Robert E. Lee at Harvard and enjoyed a coterie of Virginian friends despite their Southern ways.  At the end of his formal education he was able to conclude that "As yet he knew nothing."  A bit of harsh judgment for the Senior Class Orator, but great minds are sometimes hardest on themselves.

The remainder of the autobiography takes him on a journey through Darwin and Chicago and "The Dynamo and the Virgin" into the beginning of the twentieth century.  His story is always interesting and his prose is some of the best I have encountered. I may comment further on it as I continue to read and reread about his thoughts on a very particular education.

America's First Naval Hero

John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography 

by Samuel Eliot Morison

"It was a misfortune for Paul Jones that, unlike Nelson, he never had a proper scope for his talents.  His zeal to improve himself as a naval officer, to prepare for a fleet command, makes him stand out from brother officers in the Revolutionary Navy, some of whom may never have been his peers in single-ship combat. . .
Thus, although Jones had it in him to be a great naval strategist, he found opportunity to prove himself only on the tactical level. There he was magnificent."(p 415)




John Paul Jones is a name that is part of American mythology. As an officer in the Continental Navy, he became the new country's greatest naval hero. Yet he often complained, was impatient with supervisors, and was haughty toward his peers and a tyrant among his crews. He prided himself on defending "the violated rights of mankind", yet after the American Revolution he went on a venture battling the Turks in the service of the Russian Tsar. He was in many ways a paradox and his idiosyncrasies made him one of the most fascinating figures in all American history.

Samuel Eliot Morison demonstrates his mastery of American history with this biography of the heroic sailor of the eighteenth century. Morison loved the sea, and this biography is a tribute to that love. The author goes beyond a narrow naval context to establish Jones as a key player in the American Revolution, something not done by previous biographers, and explains what drove him to his achievements. At the same time, Admiral Joseph Callo fully examines Jones's dramatic military achievements—including his improbable victory off Flamborough Head in the Continental ship Bonhomme Richard—but in the context of the times rather than as stand-alone events.

The book also looks at some interesting but lesser-known aspects of Jones's naval career, including his relationships with such civilian leaders as Benjamin Franklin. This is a great biography from one of America's finest historians.

Story of Two Presidents

The Bully Pulpit: 
Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, 
and the Golden Age of Journalism 

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

“Why bother with fictional characters and plots when the world was full of more marvelous stories that were true, with characters so fresh, so powerful, so new, that they stepped from into the narratives under their own power?”   ― Doris Kearns Goodwin

For any historian, bringing the past to life is a most difficult task, and it is to the credit of Doris Kearns Goodwin that she has succeeded to such a marked degree with her successive assessments of powerful leaders. I first encountered her work when I read No Ordinary Time, a history of the relationship of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. Subsequently I enjoyed her book, Team of Rivals, about Lincoln and his cabinet.

This work explores the lives and times of former presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, creating an image of the past that captures emotions as well as events, with an entertaining account of that bitter 1912 political convention that marked the crumbling of a great friendship as well as of a political party. In this work she draws a comparison between the currently widening gap between the rich and poor and the chasm that was one aspect of the path to reform in the early 20th century. Unfortunately, in spite of her immensely readable prose, she provides a slanted view of history that treats the progressivism of Roosevelt and the muckraking journalists of the era in an all too hagiographic fashion.

She makes a comparison with the challenges faced by today’s leaders when she discusses the use of the “bully pulpit,” that famous phrase coined by Theodore Roosevelt to summarize the power that a president can wield to mobilize and galvanize the public mind. The times were such that “muckraking” was applied to the more extreme journalists; noting the influence of the press on the presidency and its connections to Roosevelt. These connections included an alliance with Sam McClure, editor of McClure’s Magazine, where there were gathered what became a legendary group of journalists: William Allen White, crime reporter Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker and a woman, Ida Tarbell.

Goodwin's research is demonstrated by her use of such vital material as more than 400 letters written between Roosevelt and Taft in their 30s, which made it all the more poignant that their friendship was destroyed by the political rivalry launched by Roosevelt in 1912. Taft is seen as a failure as a public leader, seeing his political success impeded by the genuine skills of his judicial career, which left him too convinced of his own rectitude. His lack of passion for politics ultimately left him unable to emulate Roosevelt in using the press to carry the legislative message of the president. Taft even conceded after leaving office that he had failed to use the “bully pulpit” to achieve his goals. According to Ms. Kearns Goodwin, Taft was “temperamentally unsuited” to make use of that bully pulpit that contributed so substantially to Roosevelt’s success.

The author underlines her insight into the characters of the two men by framing their family background and their emotional attachments. She writes sensitively of Roosevelt’s devastation at the death of his first wife, Alice, to the point that he could not bring himself to address their daughter by the given name of Alice, calling her instead “Baby Lee.” When he does remarry, his second wife, Edith, who was his true first love, was devoted to her husband despite being more restrained in her links to the world beyond her home. Roosevelt’s character could be summed up by a visiting British viscount who commented that he encountered “two tremendous works of nature in America — Mr. Roosevelt and Niagara Falls.”
Ironically, the differences between Roosevelt and his friend Taft were pointed up by their similarities. Taft was an amiable, kindly man who excelled in all high office except one. He was, the author observes, “an excellent number two man,” yet he lacked the necessary political acumen required in a president. He was not a true progressive in the way that Roosevelt was. His wife, Nellie, gave essential encouragement to her husband as a judge and as president, relishing the role of first lady. It was she who brought cherry trees to the capital, created parks and lobbied for higher wages for workers.

Goodwin concludes the history of the Roosevelt-Taft era with her account of the 1912 election when Roosevelt broke his promise not to seek a third term and embarked on a brutal campaign against the man who was once his closest friend and who also lacked the ferocity for a bloody election battle. It was ironic that even in the White House, Taft apparently realized that he was best suited for the bench — and indeed he became chief justice of the Supreme Court after leaving the presidency.

An eloquent epilogue describes the brief reconciliation of Roosevelt and Taft. As a result of this when Taft attended Roosevelt’s funeral, he commented, “Had he died in a hostile state of mind toward me, I would have mourned the fact all my life. I loved him always and cherish his memory.” The statement said a great deal about both men.

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American Dynasty

America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918 
by Richard Brookhiser

“So Henry Adams, well aware that he could not succeed as a scholar, and finding his social position beyond improvement or need of effort, betook himself to the single ambition which otherwise would scarcely have seemed a true outcome of the college, though it was the last remnant of the old Unitarian supremacy. He took to the pen. He wrote.”   ― Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams

Richard Brookhiser has written biographies of Presidents Madison and Washington, revolutionary statesmen Hamilton and Gouvernor Morris, and most recently a book on Lincoln, but my favorite of his biographies that I have read is America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918. The dates alone, spanning three centuries, suggest the significance of this family on the history of the United States.

The first two of the dynasty, John and his son John Quincy both became President. The father was one of the leaders of the American Revolution while the son was both President and, later, member of the House of Representatives from Massachusetts. John's grandson Charles Francis also had a brilliant political career that included a term as Minister to England in the Lincoln Administration. The fourth Adams of this dynasty, John's great grandson Henry Adams, found his greatness in literature both as an academic historian and with the publication of his autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams, a classic that is read to this day.

Their story begins with John Adams, a self-taught lawyer who rode horseback to meet clients, and ends with Henry Adams in France as World War I begins and he returns to Washington, D. C. This is a well told overview of a family dynasty that more than any other helped make the United States the great nation it is today.

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Going for the Gold

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics 
by Daniel James Brown

“Harmony, balance, and rhythm. They’re the three things that stay with you your whole life. Without them civilization is out of whack. And that’s why an oarsman, when he goes out in life, he can fight it, he can handle life. That’s what he gets from rowing.”   ― Daniel James Brown

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, by Daniel James Brown, is a chronicle of the University of Washington's nine-man crew-with-coxswain's enormous success during the Great Depression. It is this portrait of the Depression era, with its economic and climatic horrors that the author sets against youthful dreams, focusing on the improbable and riveting life of Joe Rantz, and the many hardships he faced. When he entered the University of Washington as a freshman, he had already overcome enormous odds, among them extreme poverty, a dysvunctional family, the early death of his mother, and being virtually abandoned by his father, Harry, when he was a young teenager. His journey to adulthood by itself is a truly amazing story and it makes him an ideal hero. Brown learned the details of Rantz's brilliant rowing career from the athlete himself. But this story was not just about him; it was always about the boat: nine rangy boys – sons of farmers, fishermen, and loggers – who managed to coalesce into a rowing team that would march confidently into the 1936 Olympics under the hawkish eyes of Hitler, emerging victorious over rival crews from Germany and Italy.
The story includes the lore of rowing, which has a rich history in America, reaching back to the mid-19th century, when elite universities began to assemble teams. The Harvard-Yale race in 1852 was, Brown informs us, "the first American intercollegiate athletic event of any kind". He also provides vivid portraits of the coaches, such as Tom Bolles, who assisted his former teammate, Al Ulbrickson, at Washington. (In the background of this narrative lurks Ky Ebright, a former Washingtonian who took over the University of California at Berkeley team – Washington's major rival on the west coast.)

Standing behind the coaches is George Pocock, an English boat-builder who learned the art of building wooden shells for racing from his father. He is the "quiet master" throughout, on the sidelines, ever inventive, full of wise words. His comments, in fact, serve as epigraphs to each chapter. Pocock says, for instance: "Good thoughts have much to do with good rowing. It isn't enough for the muscles of a crew to work in unison; their hearts and minds must also work as one." "One of the fundamental challenges in rowing," he writes, "is that when any one member of a crew goes into a slump the entire crew goes with him." Such slumps occur, and Brown dramatizes them well, arranging the facts in ways that create a narrative suspense that never eases till the end. As the Washington crew races in Seattle and Poughkeepsie, New York for the American title or, finally, in Nazi Germany for the Gold Medal, one roots for the good guys.

At the penultimate point in the story the suspense is enhanced by further setbacks when two of the American rowers fell desperately ill before the race, though they persevered at the insistence of their coach. Also, as if to increase the tension, the American team was given the worst lane, putting them in the path of severe crosswinds. Throughout the race, the crowd cheered wildly for Germany, as they would. All omens seemed to be against the boys in the boat, but they prevailed, coming from behind, beating Italy by eight feet, leaving the German crew in third place.

I was impressed with Brown's research, what must have been countless interviews, the exhumation of journals and logs, and the patient review of long-defunct newspaper articles and photographs that was required. The Boys in the Boat is, then, a thrilling read, filled with suspense that brings you close to the events on that day in 1936 when those nine boys from Washington state reached their improbable victory. I believe this book would be of interest to anyone interested in the history of sports, collegiate competition, Seattle and the Northwest, America during the 1930s, and the rise of Fascism in Germany.

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Witches and Devils and a King

Just in time for Halloween I have chosen two Histories and a Screenplay to share - I hope you will agree that the themes are appropriate.

The Devil in Massachusetts: 

A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials

by Marion Lena Starkey

This is a riveting account of the Salem Witch Trials. Marion Starkey includes just the right amount of detail to portray all the elements of this horrifying story. From the hysteria spun out of fanaticism to the economic and social background that provided a fertile ground, the events unfold in a way that kept this reader spellbound. The author highlights the relationships of the people in the community and how their bonds were broken by the reactions of the accusations of the young girls. This was well before the era when hysteria was diagnosed as a psychiatric disorder, thus it seems that the townspeople had fewer coping mechanisms when the emotions went out of control. Neither Church nor Civil authorities were able to maintain control and their actions probably aggravated the crisis. There may be more recent accounts that cover more details, but this is the classic telling of this tale of witchcraft and evil. 


****

A Coffin for King Charles 

by C.V. Wedgwood

In January 1649 an English King was brought to trial on a charge of abusing the trust placed in him by his subjects, was convicted, and was publicly and ceremoniously beheaded, after which the Monarchy was abolished and a Republic proclaimed. Nothing like it had ever happened in European history before. For a thousand years Englishmen had been in the habit of murdering tiresome or inconvenient kings—the most recent examples being Richard II, Richard III, and Edward V—but never before had an anointed king been formally brought to book. Enter Dame Cicely Veronica Wedgwood -- a scholar of unimpeachable diligence and accuracy, she also possesses the double literary gift of lucid exposition and brilliant portrayal (In 1946 she translated Elias Canetti's Die Blendung, as Auto-da-Fé, under Canetti's supervision.). 
Her short book is a study of how and why this extraordinary event took place, by whom it was conceived and carried out, by what arguments it was justified at the time, what pressures were brought to bear, and what was the effect upon the future would be a work of the greatest interest and importance. 
Miss Wedgwood explains that “it is the purpose of this book to describe the events of those ten weeks” leading up to the execution. She tells the story supremely well.

****

The Doctor and the Devils

by Dylan Thomas

"Rock:  I need bodies.  They brought bodies.       
I pay for what I need.  I do not hire murderers. . . "
(The Doctor and the Devils, Sc. 73)



 The Doctor and the Devils is a screenplay that deals with death. And "statements on the way to the grave " is how Dylan Thomas described his poetry. It is a incursion into the depths of life, the business of grave-robbing, that is so low as to suggest the possibility of killing the living to provide a supply of corpses. What moved these people to do this? There was a medical need in the era that the play is set so that is a primary possibility. I am not sure what is so fascinating about this dark story, but Dylan Thomas based this drama on real life and it shows - I found the drama both engaging and poetic.

America's Great Migration

The Warmth of Other Suns: 
The Epic Story of America's Great Migration 
by Isabel Wilkerson

“Over the decades, perhaps the wrong questions have been asked about the Great Migration. Perhaps it is not a question of whether the migrants brought good or ill to the cities they fled to or were pushed or pulled to their destinations, but a question of how they summoned the courage to leave in the first place or how they found the will to press beyond the forces against them and the faith in a country that had rejected them for so long. By their actions, they did not dream the American Dream, they willed it into being by a definition of their own choosing. They did not ask to be accepted but declared themselves the Americans that perhaps few others recognized but that they had always been deep within their hearts.”   ― Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

Isabel Wilkerson's history of Black migration from the south in the twentieth century is a book from which I expanded my knowledge of this major historical event of twentieth century America. She interviewed more than 1,200 people for this grand history, focusing primarily on the personal stories of three Black Americans. While telling these stories the book intertwines a general history and statistical analysis of the entire period. The specific people were: a sharecropper's wife who left Mississippi in the 1930s for Chicago, named Ida Mae Brandon Gladney; an agricultural worker, George Swanson Starling, who left Florida for New York City in the 1940s; and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, a doctor who left Louisiana in the early 1950s, for Los Angeles.

The use of these personal stories served as a means of demonstrating the overall theme of the migration of large numbers of black Americans out of the old South and into the Northeast, Midwest, and West of the United States. Each story is narrated over the course of the books in chronological vignettes of each life. Together these vignettes provide a biography of the whole of the lives of the three protagonists, if you will, and demonstrate the impact of the migration through their individual and family experiences. The author deftly interspersed their stories with short vignettes about other individuals; she also inserted general overviews of the migration into the narrative from time to time. The process consistently provided the bigger picture without interrupting the flow of the narrative.

The story-telling approach gave this history a novelistic flavor. However, reading the stories I felt a repetition due to overlapping material;  while some of the inserted stories were only tangentially related to the main theme of Black migration. The stories of the three individuals who provided the main portion of the book were rendered believably through sympathetic portrayals of the unique vicissitudes of their lives.  I particularly enjoyed the story of Robert Foster, the doctor who migrated to Los Angeles and, like the others, overcame much adversity to attain his personal dream. Overall the history was epic in its scope and Wilkerson's imaginative approach to the story made this an interesting and informative book.

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Technological Transformation

GPS Declassified: 
From Smart Bombs to Smartphones 
by Richard D Easton

"From the vantage point of 2100 A.D., the year 1957 will most certainly stand in history as the year of man's progression from a two-dimensional to a three-dimensional geography.  It may well stand also, as the point in time at which intellectual achievement forged ahead of weapons and national wealth as instruments of national policy." - Lloyd V. Berkner, epigram to chapter one, p.7.

Where were you in 1958? I was in grade school in a small town in southern Wisconsin but elsewhere things were popping in the world of space science. Russia had sent Sputnik into orbit the previous October and scientists in the United States, in secret in the Armed Services, were working on a response. Part of that response led to the development of what was to become known simply as "GPS" in the vernacular of practically everyone on the planet. I know that this avid reader of science fiction, who thought his new transistor radio was really neat in 1958, did not imagine that cars and phones and everyday life of his adult future would be shaped in part by this ubiquitous invention.
In GPS Declassified Richard D. Easton and Eric F. Frazier tell the story of how this happened in an fascinating and readable way. The technological difficulties, bureaucratic roadblocks, and breathtaking breakthroughs are shared through several narratives that lead to the future we live in today. These narratives include background of both a brief history of navigation and the development of satellites; but also delve into the how and why of GPS leading the reader from the military beginnings to the civilian uses that have since proliferated. There is the exciting success story of GPS use in the Persian Gulf War and the birth of a new industry providing GPS for the millions of consumers that use it today. A concluding section looks forward to the future of GPS. History of Science is seldom told better than this story of the development of a technology that has in no small way transformed our world.

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Education in Culture

The Greater Journey: 
Americans in Paris 
by David McCullough

“Any nation that expects to be ignorant and free," Jefferson said, "expects what never was and never will be." And if the gap between the educated and the uneducated in America continues to grow as it is in our time, as fast as or faster than the gap between the rich and the poor, the gap between the educated and the uneducated is going to be of greater consequence and the more serious threat to our way of life. We must not, by any means, misunderstand that.”  ― David McCullough

The theme of this book as stated in the opening chapter states that of the first group of Americans to go overseas to Paris: “Great as their journey had been by sea, a greater journey had begun . . .and from it they were to learn more, and bring back more, of infinite value to themselves and to their country than they yet knew.”

McCullough focuses on the development of American culture, as artists and thinkers such as the painter Mary Cassatt, the future Senator and abolitionist Charles Sumner, who studied at the Sorbonne, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., then a young medical student, and so many others experienced Paris in the 19th century.
It was a time and pace of excitement apace in the world of ideas with the expansion of knowledge in medicine, the arts, philosophy, and Paris was a center of this activity. Americans were drawn to this center throughout the century from Samuel F. B. Morse and Nathaniel Willis, painters, to Augustus Saint Gaudens, the sculptor. Writers as diverse as James Fennimore Cooper and Henry James. In fact Henry and his brother William spent some of their youth in Paris while getting a European education. The breadth of those who participated in these journeys was incredible, especially given the dangers of ocean crossing which early in the century before the advent of steamship lines took about a month. "Paris was the medical capital of the world. Our medical training was woefully behind. And this was a chance to perfect their skills and their profession, but also to come back and teach what they had learned, which almost all of them did. And the others were pioneers in launching into careers for which there was no training available here. There were no schools of architecture. There were no schools of art. There were no museums where you could go and look at paintings. It's hard to believe that, but that's how it was. It was the cultural capital of the world." (from an interview with David McCullough on PBS)
Harriet Beecher Stowe wondered what was the mysterious allure of Paris. She thought it might be the river Seine, likening it to the Ohio which she knew well. She went beyond to compare art to literature, matching authors with painters. While she questioned the value of French art when she stated “French life has more pretty pictures and popular lithographs . . . but it produces very little of the deepest and highest style of art.”, the Americans who were beginning an new American tradition learned much from their experiences in Paris.
One Frenchman who inspired many of the Americans who journeyed to Paris was the inimitable Marquis de Lafayette. His efforts in the revolutionary war and his return visit to America in 1824 when he received tremendous acclaim led several of the travelers his way on their sojourns in Paris. Primarily this book is a history of lives and ideas. McCullough's book challenges the reader to expand his notion of what education meant and what Americans gained from the French beyond their diplomatic and financial support as the United States grew into a great nation in the nineteenth century.

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