Book Recommendations--Latest Update
Since I started my
Old Jarhead Blog in 2008, I have used it to recommend books I have read that I
thought were worth reading. I read a lot and recommend a lot. I don't recommend
everything I read, but I chose carefully, and if a book isn't doing it for me,
I have no trouble giving up on it--life is too short. These books range from Good
to Must Read, IMHO. Some fit in both
History and politics, so I made a call.
You are free to print
or post any of these reviews, with credit to: Robert A. Hall, The Old Jarhead
Blog (www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com) ~Bob
History
Triumph Forsaken:
The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 by
Mark Moyar.
http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Forsaken-The-Vietnam-1954-1965/dp/0521757630/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400263927&sr=8-1&keywords=Triumph+Forsaken%3A+The+Vietnam+War%2C+1954-1965+by
Excellent history from this
Oxford-trained historian.
A Question of Command. By Mark Moyar
A book review I wrote has been published
in Leatherneck Magazine. I have
been disappointed that Dr. Moyar has not rapidly followed up his excellent
history of the early years of Vietnam
Small Wars, Faraway Places: Global
Insurrection and the Making of the Modern World, 1945-1965 by Michael Burleigh
This
terrific book was given to me from my best friend from high school. By a
British author, it is well-written, well-researched and well-balanced. It will
be especially appreciated by military history buffs and political junkies, as
it deals with not only the many conflicts in this period, but the international
political decisions around them, how the "cold war" developed, and
exposes the seeds of our present troubles. Those who tend to view history
through a strict right- or leftwing prism will find details here to confirm
their beliefs and details they will need to dismiss to prevent cognitive
dissonance. Burleigh is even-handed in parceling out praise or sharp criticism
to the historical figures involved, and does not go easy on the British ones,
including icons such as Churchill. He is unsentimental about colonialism,
detailing both the savagery of the "civilized" colonial powers and
the brutality of the governments and leaders the colonials displaced. I rate
this a must-read. This is not to suggest I endorse every opinion he expresses.
In many areas, I do not have access to the facts he draws on. In areas I have
read a lot about, like Vietnam ,
there are other interpretations that should be considered
The First World War by John Keegan
2014 being the centennial of the start of "The Great
War," I wanted a good history. Naturally, I turned to the late Sir John
Keegan, perhaps, with Max Hastings, the pre-eminent modern British military
historian. He writes with great sympathy and affection for the troops and
common people who bore the suffering, never forgetting when he describes an
attack where 10,000 were killed that these were real people. He reports, for
example, that at the end of the war, there were 630,000 war widows in France ,
most in the prime of life, with no chance of remarrying--the men were dead. I
have been into the Scottish War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle Britain
lost twice as many men in WWI as in WWII. I knew a lot about the western front,
some about the eastern and Italian fronts, and of course, Gallipoli, much
studied by Marines. Keegan expanded my knowledge and understanding in all
areas, including little known theaters of war. He is a clear and readable
writer, which is important. \Of course, as a Marine, I loved this quote when he
is describing the allied counter attack to the last German "war
winning" offensive of 1918: "They included the 3rd and 2nd American
Divisions, the latter including a brigade of the US Marine Corps, the most
professional element of the doughboy army, and at Belleau Wood on June 4 and
the days following, the Marines added to their reputation for tenacity by
steadfastly denying the Germans access to the road towards Rheims, the capture
of which would have more than doubled the railway capacity on which they depended
to feed their offensive." (P407). He also quotes Capt. Lloyd Williams
answer to a French officer who urged retreat, "Retreat? Hell we just got
here!" A great book to educate you about this bitter conflict which led to
WWII and still creates much trouble in today's world.
The Last Lion:
Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965 by William
Manchester and Paul Reid
I read the first two volumes of Manchester 's wonderful Churchill trilogy back
when they came out. I was sadly disappointed when it was announced he was too
ill to finish the third and, in my view, most interesting volume, covering
WWII. When I found he had turned the project over to Paul Reid, I approached it
with some trepidation, sure it would not be up to the master. I was wrong. This
book, written mostly by Reid from Manchester 's
voluminous research, is every bit as good, perhaps better than the first two.
It is both a chronicle of Churchill's life from 1940 until his death in 1965
(which I remember), but a chronicle of the leadership decisions in WWII by
Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler, Truman, Ike, Monty and other flag
officers. History buffs will love it, but it is not a project to be undertaken
lightly--it runs over 1,000 pages. Still, it is not to be missed.
Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta , the Battle
I asked LtCol Tom Kratman, USA (Ret.), the author of excellent
military science fiction, for a recommendation for a high school graduation
gift for a nephew of my wife who is joining the Army. (My fault, I think; the
last time I saw the lad he was about 10 and I showed him the manual of arms
with a training rifle.) The book looked so good, I bought a copy for myself. It
is excellent history. I knew, of course, about the siege of Malta and Lepanto, but this filled
in all the details. The author writes, "The idea of conquest was central
to the Sultanate, intricately interwoven with it's holder's position as leader
of the Muslim world. ... Only spectacular conquests could legitimize a
sultan." The battle of Lepanto, the most decisive sea battle between Salamis and Trafalgar, ended the efforts of the Muslim
Ottomans to conquer Europe and capture Rome ,
though they rebuilt their lost fleet. I was interested to learn that the
commander of the Holy League, Catholic King Philip II of Spain 's illegitimate half brother
Don Juan, was only 22. Philip had ordered him not to fight to preserve the
fleet, but he was eager for battle and glory. Some interesting notes: One of
the fleet's Spanish arquebusiers was Maria la Bailadora, a flamenco dancer,
disguised as a man to stay with her lover. The writer Cervantes, then 24, was
there as a volunteer and was wounded in the battle. 25,000 Muslims died as did 15,000 Christians,
but 12,000 Christian galley slaves were freed. (Both sides depended on slaves,
often but not always of the opposite religion, to power their fleets. Raids by
Muslim pirates/slave catchers were one of the causes of the conflict.) The
author writes that, "Not until Loos in 1915 would this rate of slaughter
be surpassed." I highly recommend this well researched and balanced
history.
Ride the Thunder: A Vietnam War Story of Honor and Triumph. By Richard
Botkin
This is a terrific history of the latter part of the Vietnam
War, focusing mostly on the NVA's Easter Offensive of 1972, and the actions of
the elite Republic
of Vietnam Marine Corps Paris , but later we violated our
pledge to the Republic
of Vietnam
Apprentices of War: Memoir of a Marine Grunt. By Gary L. Tornes
This is an excellent memoir of a Marine infantryman in Vietnam .
It has the ring of pure truth to me. Unlike most memoirs, Tornes doesn't leave
out things that don't make him look good. I'm a marine Vietnam vet, but I was more fortunate than
Tornes in that I spent part of my tour on Okinawa ,
that I was a Radio relay Team chief, and that my time at Khe Sanh in 1967,
including a month in the Ville TAD to the CAC unit, was fairly quiet. You will
understand why the grunts are held in high regard by all Marines. I saw on the
flyleaf that Tornes lived in Wisconsin ,
so I Googled him. Alas.
I found his obit. He died in 2010 at 64. But he had 47 years after he cheated
death in Vietnam .
I'm sorry I can't get to buy him a drink. The book, published in 2004, appears
to be out of print, but used/library copies are available.
The Outpost: An Untold Story of American
Valor. By Jake Tapper
I received "The
Outpost" for Christmas and put it near the top of my reading pile.
While it was long, it was not disappointing. Tapper gives an excellent,
well-researched account of brave and good men put in a difficult, if not
impossible situation by bad decisions--some going as high at theater command
and the White House. Given the details and the outcomes, it is hard to disagree
with his conclusions. Tapper is a journalist, with all the negative
connotations of "agenda driven-propagandist" that today attach to
that word, so I was pleased that he presented the story in a very
straight-forward manner and had an obvious respect, perhaps affection, for the
troops he was writing about. That sat well with this old Jarhead. It's been 30
years since I last wore the uniform, so I'm out of date, but as far as I could
tell he got the military details and nomenclature right. (Though he reported
one man promoted to "Private Second Class." I had never heard that
term used for an Army E-2.) That the combat outpost that is the subject of the
book was poorly sited should have been obvious to anyone, as it was to an Army
E-4 involved in planning at the start of the book. The old infantry maxim is,
"Take the high ground, or they will bury you in the valley." And
"valley" hardly describes their situation. I spent August and a few
days in September of 1967 with a Marine Combined Action Company heading a Radio
Relay Team at Khe Sanh. But we were very close to and well supported by the
main Khe Sanh Combat Base. It was pretty quiet, and I had the good fortune to
rotate home about four months before Tet (They was scared to attack while I was there!) CAC-O got hit hard at the start
of the siege, but because the location was far better, the troops first class
and well-trained and the defenses good, they inflicted a lot of casualties on
the NVA for almost none in return, and evacuated to the main base by foot. Even
so, it was a hairy situation that I'm both sorry and glad to have missed. No
Marine infantry fire team leader would have located an outpost in the situation
described by Tapper. The terrain photos alone show it was a disaster scheduled
to happen. When the bad guys can shoot down
at you, you know you are in a bad place. That they steadily lost control of the
surrounding area should have alerted someone that trouble was guaranteed. And I
would trust the local Vietnam
troops with us at Khe Sanh far more than the ANA described in the book. After
reading it, I doubt that any hearts and minds can be won in that culture, only
rented temporarily. I highly recommend this fine account of combat action.
Apache: Inside the Cockpit of the World's Most Deadly Fighting Machine.
By Ed Macy
A
terrific combat memoir by a Brit chopper pilot in Afghanistan . The details on the
Apache and flying it are fascinating, but the combat scenes are riveting. I
literally couldn't put it down for the last few chapters, read late into the
night. Well written; military history buffs will love it.
Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics,
Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia
My wife and I read The
Year 1,000 by this (British I think) author, and loved it, so we looked for
more of his works. Lacey writes with a straightforward, clear and entertaining
style. This is a right-down-the-middle history of Saudi Arabia , with great details
about the rise of Sunni jihad terrorism, Wahhabism, Al Qaeda and Bin Laden. It
explores the struggle between Islamic fundamentalists and modernists in Saudi Arabia .
This is neither a conservative nor a liberal book; Lacey says both positive and
negative things about George Bush when he feels it is called for. He has lived
in the Kingdom for many years, and obviously has an affection for the
Saudis--but not all of them, and his views are not blinded by that. This is an
essential book for understanding both the Middle East
and the terrorist threat we are dealing with. I highly recommend it. Inshallah
you will read it.
When Chicago Tribune
writer Bob Greene’s father was dying, he met BGen Paul Tibbets, USAF (Ret.)
Tibbets, I hope you know, led the AAF group that dropped the atomic bombs on Japan and flew the Enola Gay, named for his mother, to Hiroshima . This is his story of both Tibbets
and his dad, a WWII Infantry officer, and their generation looking at a changed
America
in their twilight years. Greene does a fine job of capturing their thoughts,
emotions and the world view of what has been called “The Greatest Generation,”
which saved the world. (Alas, it needs saving again.) I found especially moving
the many tributes to Tibbets from people thanking him for saving their lives, because
they, or the fathers and grandfathers, were scheduled for the invasion of Japan ,
where we expected a million American casualties. With even Japanese women being
trained to fight with sharpened sticks, the casualties among the Japanese would
have been far higher than those caused by the bombs. When at U-Mass, I took a
course in the history of Vietnam
from a very sharp but far left professor of Asian history. (I was the only Vietnam
vet in the course, so I had to defend myself every day.) He insisted we should
not have dropped the bomb, that Japan
was about to surrender. But a few years ago, classified documents were released
in Japan that say that even after the first bomb, they were determined to fight
to the last Japanese. I highly recommend this moving and readable book.
Coolidge
by Amity Shlaes
This long, but well-written book has a wealth of historical
detail from the first thirty years of the last century, for the US in general and Massachusetts in particular. When I was in
the Massachusetts Senate, the painting of Coolidge, a former Senate President,
hung in the chamber. Until the leadership remodeled the place and, probably
uncomfortable under his stern gaze, moved him to the Senate reading room.
Imagine a President who cut the budget, reduced the size of the Federal
Government, cut the national debt from a major war by one-third, reduced the
size of the military, cleaned up scandals from his predecessor, was of
unquestioned integrity, who stood on principle even when it hurt him
politically, who decided not to seek reelection when he was a sure winner
because he believed in limited service, who foresaw the crash of 1929 and
thought that Hoover’s policies (expanded and made worse by Roosevelt) would
make it far more severe and long lasting, and who met with his budget director
frequently to see if they could cut a few thousand dollars more in waste. Then
imagine a president now both smart enough and open minded enough to read this
book and benefit from it. It will be argued those were simpler times, but the
challenges were as daunting, as this book makes clear. The men and women were
different, with a different view of the role of government versus individual
freedom and responsibility. It can be argued that Coolidge, not Reagan, was the
last conservative Republican president. (Grover Cleveland was the last conservative Democrat
president.) I highly recommend this fine historical biography.
Thanks to audio books, this was another chance to expand my
historical knowledge while on the road. Most Americans know little more about
this war than they do about the War of the Spanish Succession. (Okay, a large
number of Americans don’t know what decade the Civil War was in, or who we
fought in WWII.) But understanding the French and Indian war (Or The Seven
Years War as it was called in Europe ) is a key
to understanding the causes and outcome of the American Revolution. This book
is well-written and has a lot of fine detail, especially about the education of
George Washington as a military leader. Despite my familiarity with the
conflict, I learned a lot.
Dark Invasion: 1915: Germany 's
Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America
this interesting history was a birthday gift from my
brother, Tom. Except for the Zimmerman Telegram, I knew almost nothing about Germany 's sabotage campaign against a
"neutral" United
States in WWI. It included many ship and
ammo plant bombings and a couple of attempts at germ warfare--which killed some
people. Well written and well researched, this one is for the history buff.
The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara W. Tuchman
I’ve loved everything I’ve read by the late Barbara Tuchman,
so when I saw this audio book at my library, I grabbed it, though it was
written 24 years ago. Tuchman is not only a fine historian, but the kind of
writer who makes history read like a political thriller. And the period before
the US
entry into WWI was certainly a thriller. With Europe hanging in the balance,
the Germans offered Mexico
an alliance. If they’d attack the US
in the event of war, Germany
would help her with the reconquista
of Texas , New Mexico
and Arizona —the
dream that has never died. The Germans in their arrogance never suspected that
the British had broken their codes—and amazingly didn’t suspect it in WWII either!
The political, military and diplomatic maneuvering between Germany , Britain ,
the US , Mexico and, yes, Japan made for a fascinating.
The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed
Force, and Society since A.D. 1000. By William H. McNeill
This book, given to me by a friend while I was recovering
from my lung transplant, is an excellent, rather oblique look at how rulers and
societies have organized military power, both to protect what they had and, as
often to take what others had. It traces the intersection of military power
with economics and resources, and how both technological development and social
change have changed the projection of power, until war became completely
industrialized in the 20th century. History buffs, especially military history
buffs, will greatly appreciate it.
In the Company of Marines: A Surgeon Remembers Vietnam
When I read that Dr. Finnegan had died last year, I asked my
wife for his book for Christmas. I'm glad I did. My Christmas was delayed by my
lung transplant, but I received it on Saturday, 1/11 and finished it Sunday
evening. Jim Finnegan left in his third year of residency to volunteer for the
Navy if he could serve with Marines. This took him to Vietnam to the Third Marine
Division, and eventually to Khe Sanh with the 26th Marines (my outfit) to
command Charlie Med through the 1968 siege, where he earned the Purple Heart
and the Bronze Star with "V". He arrived after I was fortunate enough
to rotate home in September of 1967, but I went through Charlie Med myself (for
appendicitis!). His account of how he and three other doctors treated over
2,500 casualties during the siege, saving hundreds of Marine lives (probably
including friends of mine), doing triage and operating under almost constant
rocket, artillery and mortar fire is inspiring. The book has a few typos (the
bane of writers) and could have been edited tighter, but that does not detract
from the power of his story. His admiration and affection for Marines shines
from every page. He says he can never be a Marine, but I would have assured him
that Marines consider the Navy Doctors and Navy Corpsman (That's
"Core-Man," Mr. President, not "Corpse-Man") who care for
us in combat to be a part of us. Following the war, he became a noted Thoracic
Surgeon, making me feel even closer to him, as one just saved my life. I'm
sorry this good man is gone.
The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the
Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau
A fine account of WWII combat and
one of the Army’s best company and battalion commanders. This book will be of
great interest to those interested in WWII, military history or leadership.
Generation Kill by Evan Wright
Wright is a reporter (For Rolling Stone!) who was embedded with the 1st Marine
Recon Battalion on the drive from Kuwait
to Baghdad .
While some of his statements and views make me cringe as a Marine, his courage
in going with the Marines who were, in the words of one officer, at the pointy
point of the spear cannot be doubted. I think he does a fine job of capturing
the dialog of Marines at war, and describing the confusion, mistakes, and small
daily horrors that take place in the midst of the large horror and fog of war.
He describes heroism and boredom, competent and incompetent leadership. As a
Marine Vietnam vet, I’m not surprised to learn that not every Marine officer or
senior NCO meets our ideal of leadership, though I am surprised to find them in
an elite outfit like recon. They were usually transferred to units like support
or the communications outfits I served in. As a recovering politician, I’m also
well aware that reporters can color the impression they create in readers’
minds by both the incidents they chose to report and the words they select to
do so, often without realizing their biases are involved. (“The Senator
reported” and “The Senator claimed” mean pretty much the same thing, but the
latter creates the thought that you can’t really trust him.) Therefore, I’d
give more weight to the reader reviews on Amazon by Marines who served in First
Recon in the war than to mine. Wright also thinks that today’s troops are
entirely different from Marines of the past, but I don’t agree. There are
perhaps more profane than we were in Vietnam, certainly more than the WWII
Marines, and their cultural references to movies, music, TV and the Internet
are different, but you could pretty much drop any of them in a Marine unit at
Khe Sanh or on Okinawa, and he would function fine, fitting in except for BS
sessions on the culture. Still, I enjoyed the book, and, stupid as it is, as an
old Jarhead, it made me wish I’d been with them.
Preparing for Victory: Thomas Holcomb and the
Making of the Modern Marine Corps, 1936-1943.
By David J. Ulbrich
I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Ulbrich at the Marine
Corps Heritage Foundation dinner in April of 2012, where he received a writing
award for this fine history. I was thus looking forward to it, and it did not
disappoint. While General Holcomb had a fine combat record in WWI, which gave
him credibility for the great service he rendered the Republic in WWII, this is
not a combat history. But it is a great story of leadership, political acumen
and administrative ability, as the Commandant developed the doctrine and the
structure that allowed the Corps to expand so greatly and meet the challenges
of a global war. If I have one quibble, it is that Dr. Ulbrich, being I suppose
an academic, feels it is necessary to frequently point out that Holcomb’s
attitudes towards race were those of his time, when nearly everyone was a
racist by today’s standards. Today we are shocked and appalled by racist attitudes
except in left wing black leaders, where anti-white racism is considered a
virtue. Nevertheless, this fine history fills an important gap in the military
history of WWII, and deserves wide reading by Marines, historians and military
history buffs.
A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the
Peloponnesian War by Victor Davis Hanson
I’m a long time fan of Hanson’s political columns, which I
often link to from my Old Jarhead blog, so I’ve naturally started reading his
books. This history makes sense of this war in a way no other has to me, by
organizing it not chronologically, but by topic, such as sieges and navel
warfare. Given that the war raged for 27 years, was wide spread, killed a horrific
proportion of the Greek population and broke all the rules—hence the
title—Hanson’s excellent writing brings clarity to a murky subject. Those
interested in military or ancient history will love it. But this excellent
volume also has lessons for our own age about war and the hubris of leadership.
What It Is Like to Go to War. By Karl Marlantes.
Marlantes is the author of the
acclaimed Vietnam War novel, Matterhorn , which I have not read, but will add to my
list. He is a Marine combat infantry officer who holds the Navy Cross, among
other decorations. His outfit was, if you’ll pardon language from the time,
often “in the shit.” Thus he has earned the right to his opinions, regardless
of how you feel about them. He draws on his extensive combat experience to
develop this painfully honest—perhaps brutally honest—and insightful exploration
of the morality and psychology of war, violence and killing, and the effects on
the warriors and on society. Marlantes is unsparing of himself, of actions he
regrets or is ashamed of. He also makes specific recommendations for dealing
with these issues, with veterans and with future warriors.
A highly-recommended book for military history and Civil War
buffs. This is a well-written, balanced account of this pivotal campaign,
drawing on hundreds of primary sources, including numerous quotes from letters,
journals and memoirs of soldiers on both sides, as well as southern civilians
caught up in the whirlwind of war. With a masters in history and a long, though
not exclusive interest in “the late unpleasantness,” I knew the broad outlines
of Sherman ’s
march. But this book had extensive details I did not know, so I learned a great
deal. I will look for more works by Trudeau as time permits.
Emma's War by
Deborah Scroggins
A well written, fascinating and at times sickening account
of the 1980s-1990s portion of the genocide in Darfur and long civil war in the
Sudan, not only between the largely-Arab Muslim north and the black Christian
and Animist south, but among the various factions, including a violent
tribal-based struggle within the southern rebels. Though South
Sudan became independent, the multi-sided fighting rages today.
Americans only take note when the starvation gets bad enough to warrant TV
coverage--if American Idol isn't on--but there is no reason to suspect the
suffering and death has lessened. Scroggins, a journalist who reported on Africa first hand, builds her story around Emma McCune, a
wild-child British aid worker who married the Sudanese warlord of one of the
southern factions and became such a partisan in the internecine tribal feud
that it was called "Emma's War" by the locals. Who should read this
book? Anyone who thinks that slavery was an American phenomena that ended in
1965. (The Muslims contemptuously referred to all the southern blacks by the
local word for "slave.") Anyone who thinks there is real hunger and
poverty in America .
Anyone who thinks that in the Sudan--or any conflict like this in the Third
World, there are any good guys with clean hands--including the US, the UN and
the NGO aid organizations. Anyone who thinks that Shari'a law is a benign
cultural and religious expression. Anyone in a position to try to make policy
for Africa , by the government or by a
charitable organization. Anyone who wants a broader understanding of this and
similar conflicts.
At All Costs: How a Crippled Ship and Two American Merchant Mariners
Turned the Tide of World War II. By Sam Moses.
I enjoyed this wonderfully-told story on audio book during
my commutes. It's a must for the WWII or Navel History Buff. Operation Pedestal, the convoy that
saved Malta
for the allies despite losing nine of 14 merchant ships, was arguably a turning
point in the war. Yet it is a little known tale of great heroism. One hopes
that we can find such men for the challenges of the future.
War Shots. Norm Hatch and the U.S.
http://www.warshotsbook.com/
(For autographed copy)
Okay, I had a bias. I couldn’t wait to get my copy, and then
to read it. I came to this book expecting to love it and I did. In April, my
wife Bonnie and I were invited to the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s 2012
Awards Dinner, where I received an award for my book, Old Jarhead Poems. Sitting next to me was Chip Jones, the author,
who also received a writing award War
Shots. And sitting next to Bonnie was Norm Hatch! Maj. Hatch is in his 90s
now, has some mobility challenges, but I wish my mental acuity was equal to
his. Talking with him was a treat. This is a guy who rubbed shoulders with the
pantheon of WWII Marine greats, and, from the stream of Generals stopping by
our table to speak to him, is considered at least a minor deity himself by the
leadership of today’s Corps. Hatch got an Academy Award for short documentary
in 1944 for his Tarawa filming under fire.
Then, two weeks later, I was watching a story about Tarawa
on the Military History Channel, and there was Hatch being interviewed. I only
wish I had read this book before I met him. I learned a great deal about the
combat cameramen of WWI, as expected, but also new details about Tarawa and Iwo Jima , including the controversy over the flag raising
photo, which Hatch helped to resolve, as one of his men shot the movie of it
going up. He was also in Nagasaki
right after the war, a very interesting chapter, and made a documentary that
helped the effort to save the Marine Corps from extinction in that post-war
political fight. Hatch was not only incredibly brave, but very resourceful and
competent. This book will be appreciated by every Marine, by WWII buffs, and by
those interested in military history, the movie industry or human courage. The
term “Greatest Generation” has been over-used, and we have some pretty great
people defending America
today, but Norm Hatch is a great Marine, and this book made me very proud to
have met him and worn the same uniform.
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The
Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S.
I listened to this as an audio book in the car, and often
found myself wanting to drive around to keep it going. Hornfischer has a
wonderful ability to cover the big picture while having a fine eye for details
and individual stories. Though far less well-known than Midway, the Battle of
Samar was arguably the US Navy’s most gallant action in WWII. Perhaps it has
been glossed over because that otherwise excellent leader, Bull Halsey, got
sucked out of position, making the sacrifice necessary. If you are interested
in that conflict, in military/navel history, or in American heroism, you won’t
want to miss this well-written book. We still have such men defending the
Republic out on the far flung battle lines, but it’s an open question if we
have enough of them to face down a crisis of WWII magnitude. And I fear one is
coming.
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall
Ferguson
I got hooked on Ferguson
when a friend recommended Civilization:
The West and the Rest. I followed that up with the equally interesting The War of the World, and I recommend
both. Next up was The Ascent of Money.
It’s very different from the others, but illuminating and I learned a great
deal about how not only money, but stocks, bonds, credit, mortgages and other
financial developments came to be—and the crucial role they play in
civilization and our current standard of living. I also learned that a lot of
the things that got us into trouble in 2008, credit default swaps, securitized
mortgages and the like, are beyond me. And that our prosperity is not only
beyond my control, but, frighteningly, apparently beyond the control of the
supposed experts making the big decisions. I highly recommend this
entertaining, well-written, informative and, alas, unsettling book.
The War of the World by Niall Ferguson
I discovered Ferguson ,
a Scots historian now at Harvard, when a friend introduced me to his last book,
Civilization: The West and the Rest, which I previously recommended.
That led me to search out other works by him, and I expect to read more after
this one. Ferguson
is a fine writer with the ability to capture the essential quote or detail to
illuminate his point. He was going to write a WWII book, but decided that had
been done. Instead, he looked at the violence of the 20th century, not only
wars, but genocide, pogroms and man-made famines like Stalin's that killed
millions to bring ethnic areas like the Ukraine to heel, viewing it as one
long, world-wide war. It is hard to say I liked this book, because it is hard
to like such an extensive catalog of man's inhumanity, but I appreciated
the way he drew the themes together, discussing the causes of the violence in
the bloodiest century in history. It remains to be seen if our current century
will be better, but certainly a thorough understanding on what happened in the
last one is necessary if there is to be a change. This book is a great place to
start.
In the Garden
of Beasts
This is one of those books that just gets better and better,
until at the end I found myself gleaning the chapter notes for comments and
anecdotes not included in the text. This is the story of William E. Dodd, a
naive Chicago historian who became FDR's
ambassador to Germany
from 1933-1937, during Hitler's rise and consolidation of power. It's also the
story of his feckless and promiscuous daughter Martha, who had lovers ranging
from a Communist diplomat from the USSR to the head of the Gestapo.
Dodd didn't fit the mold for diplomats of the time, preferring to live simply
on his salary. He also was willing to speak out against the growing terror of
the Nazi regime, rather than keep silent to observe the diplomatic niceties.
This earned him the wrath of the foreign policy establishment, known as the
Pretty Good Club. Dodd may have been naive, but he was able to discern that,
no, indeed, we couldn't "do business" with Hitler, and spent the last
years of his life speaking out to warn America of the danger of Nazi
Germany, to the detriment of his health and scholarship. For those who are very
familiar with WWII, but not the years that led up to it, this book will be eye
opening. There are warnings here for our times, when too many people think that
great evil cannot come on us, as it did in the 1930s. In 1934, New York Jews
held a mock trial of Hitler, to the protests of Germany . Our government basically
said, sorry, First Amendment and all that. One wonders what the government's
reaction today would be to a mock trial of, say, Mohammad?
Must Read: Mohammad
& Charlemagne Revisited: The History of a Controversy by Emmet Scott.
Having read and recommended Bryan Ward-Perkins The Fall of Rome, I was most interested
to read this book, which takes aim on Ward-Perkins. While I recommend both,
this controversial update of Henri Pirenne’s theory that it was the rise of
Islam that destroyed classical civilization in Europe
is in my view the most important and on the mark. I confess that there were
tedious bits for the non-academic at the start, but stay with them, as they are
a necessary foundation to the riveting final four chapters, the conclusion and
the epilogue, which are must-reads for those who want to understand today’s
world and the millennium-old clash between western civilization and Islam.
Basically, Scott lays out a solid case that it was the closure of Mediterranean
trade route by Muslim raiders, and the destruction of the lowland, coastal
agricultural system that supported advanced economies, as the peoples in the
south of Europe had to retreat to defended hill top towns to escapes the
attentions of Islamic slave raiders that provided the death knell for classical
civilization. Some telling quotes from the book, which bring to mind our
present world: “Aside from the aristocrats themselves, there were armies of
bureaucrats and courtiers surrounding the (Roman) Emperor, huge numbers of
soldiers, and a vast number of unemployed plebeians, who had to be supported by
a social security system, which the Roman’s named the “dole.” … With the
decline of the city as a political power, the great majority of this population
would naturally have disappeared. (PP. 80-81). (Be carefully what you wish for,
OWS!) “Under the protective shield of Rome, the farmers, artisans, and
intellectuals…had grown to despise the calling of the soldier, and to see the
defense of the country as someone else’s business. … The civilian populations
of Anatolia, of Syria , of Egypt , and of North Africa
were vast, but they were completely unused to war. After the defeats of the
Imperial forces (by the Muslims), there existed no tradition of military
training or activity which could have facilitated independent local action
against the invaders.” (P. 172. “Islam is virtually unique among world
religions in that its primary scriptures advocate the use of military force and
its early expansion—indeed its expansion during the first six or seven
centuries of its existence—invariably involved military conquest and the use of
force.” (P.185) “…there was continual and almost uninterrupted war between
Muslims and (European) Christians since the first attack on Sicily
in 652 and Constantinople in 674. In the great
majority of these wars, the Muslims were the aggressors. … it is estimated that
between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries alone (Muslim pirates) captured
and enslaved in excess of a million Europeans.” (P. 187) This book will broaden
your understanding of the ancient world, the foundations of our civilization,
and the on-going clash with Islam. I rate it a “must read.”
Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson
A wonderful book you should add to your reading pile. Ferguson is a Scots
historian now at Harvard. This is a terrifically researched exploration of why
a few petty squabbling states in Europe ,
against all odds, came to dominate the world. The author has a great ability to
pull the illuminating fact or pertinent quote from the morass of history. He
also explores why South America, which was by far the richer set of colonies,
is now far poorer than North America . (Hint:
widespread property ownership and property rights.) Fergusson says Western
Civilization had six “killer apps” that led them to dominate the world:
competition, science, property rights, medicine, the consumer society and the
work ethic. He makes a solid case that these six factors not only led to
western dominance, but the high standard of living in western society, pursued
today by the rest of the world. Some of the bits were worth the price of the
book. Martin Luther’s defense of publishing the Koran in order that Christians
could see “how entirely cursed, abominable and desperate a book it is.” John
Locke’s attempt to ban lawyers in Carolina .
The author proclaiming the US Constitution “the most impressive piece of
political institution building in all of history.” His note that Tocqueville
identified the essential difference between the American and French
revolutions, a preference for liberty in ours and equality in theirs (a warning
to us today). His insight that the threat to the west comes not from radical
Islam, “but from our own lack of understanding of, and faith in, our own
cultural heritage.” He points out that Asians now work far more hours than
Americans, and we more than Europeans. That
the Chinese Communists party had a report “specifying three requirements for
sustainable economic growth: property rights as a foundation, the law as a
safeguard and morality as a support” is telling. And Ferguson’s comment that,
“mass immigration is not necessarily the solvent of a civilization, if the
migrants embrace, and are encouraged to embrace, the values of the civilization
to which they are moving” should inform our immigration debate. And this: “”It
is important to remember that most cases of civilizational collapse are
associated with fiscal crisis as well as wars. All of the examples discussed
above were preceded by sharp imbalances between revenues and expenditures, as
well as by difficulties with financing public debt.” Are you listening, Washington ? (No, alas.) Ferguson asks if we can
maintain western civilization and western dominance. That’s an open question. I
read the hard copy, but my wife listened to it on disk in the car. Ferguson reads the book
himself, but adds in wonderful accents on the quotes. Do yourself a favor and
read this book.
I read this fine account cover to cover on Christmas day,
and will look for more of Wert’s histories. It’s clear, informative and
well-written, using contemporary sources. Though I hold a Masters in history
and have read countless Civil War books, I learned a lot. I highly recommend
this to the Civil War buff.
My wife and I like to use our
drive time to listen to books on tape, but finding one we both like can be a
challenge. We both loved The Zookeeper’s
Wife. When the German’s invaded Poland in 1939, much of the Warsaw
Zoo was destroyed, the animals killed of looted. But the Zookeeper and his wife
joined the Polish underground, and turned the Zoo into a refuge for people,
mostly Jews, but also members of the resistance. This is an uplifting story of
courage and compassion in the midst of horror and inhumanity. About 300 people
passed through the Zoo during the war, and all but a few survived. There was a
great quote in the book from a Polish philosopher. If you have a secret and
keep it, it is your prisoner. If you let it slip from your tongue, you become
its prisoner. We highly recommend the book.
Carnage and Culture by Victor Davis Hanson
Having long been a fan of Hanson’s clear, focused political
columns, often linked in this blog, I was delighted to stumble across one of
his history books. In Carnage and
Culture, Hanson considers European and American battles against non-western
forces from Salamis
to Tet. He links western military success to our institutions and culture,
including the rights afforded citizens no where but the west, and the ability
of free markets to create, innovate and build weapon systems. Some of his
quotes alone are worth the price of the book. Referring to the flyers at
Midway, many of whom sacrificed their lives in that great victory, Hanson
writes, “One wonders if an America
of suburban, video-playing Nicoles, Ashleys, and Jasons shall ever see their
like again.” He also reports that, “In the first two years after the fall of
Saigon (1975-77) there were almost twice as many total civilian fatalities in Southeast Asia … as all those incurred during the ten
years of American involvement.” That and his comparison of the rules of
engagement in Vietnam
to WWII will especially resonate with Vietnam Vets. He also writes that
(Capitalism) is a peculiar Western practice that acknowledges the self-interest
of man and channels that greed to the production of vast amounts of goods and
services through free markets and institutionalized guarantees of personal
profit, free exchange, deposited capital, and private property.” The
economically-ignorant OWS crowd might well wonder what they would do without
credit cards, laptops, smart phones, not to mention food and clothing, if they
destroy the system that has created a surplus of goods and freedom from want. I
highly recommend this book.
My wife and I maximize our drive time by listening to books
on tape, and this was the latest. Washington's
Crossing is an entertaining, informative and well-written account of the
American Revolution in the pivotal years of 1776-77. Though I have an MEd in
history and have been a Revolutionary War buff since my teens (which I some
days think were just after the Revolution), I learned a great deal from this
book, especially about the "forage war" which took place after
Trenton and Princeton, and took as great a toll on the British and Hessians in
a serious of small actions as a major victory over them would have done. This
book will educate you about the war, stir your patriotism, and remind you what
a fine thing these men passed to us through their courage, sacrifice and dedication.
And it will burnish your admiration for the Father of our Country. It remains
to be seen if we can pass this Republic intact to future generations. But Washington's Crossing will inspire you
to keep fighting.
Manstein: Hitler's Greatest General by British Major General Mungo
Melvin
General Melvin obviously set out to write the definitive
biography of Manstein and in my view has succeeded. This will now be the
standard work on Manstein, against which all others will be judged. At over 500
pages, it is for the serious historian or the dedicated WWII/Military History
buff, not the casual reader looking to pass a few hours. Given the complexity
of the Eastern Front, the inclusion of clear, easy to understand maps is a
plus. Melvin has both the professional ability to understand and judge
Manstein’s decisions, and a fine ability to clearly convey them to the reader,
even to readers like myself who never commanded anything larger than a 3-man
radio relay team. Melvin clearly admires Manstein’s operational genius, but
pulls no punches on the Field Marshal’s willingness to turn a blind eye to Nazi
terror to protect his own career. Like so many German officers, Manstein was
not a Nazi, but made his peace with them, a peace that led to atrocities in his
area, for which he was convicted of war crimes in 1948. He fought Hitler on
operational decisions, but not on moral ones, and felt he could not join the
attempt on Hitler’s life without betraying his troops who were fighting the
Russians. It is interesting that many in Britain opposed the prosecution of
Manstein, and no less a figure than Churchill made a token contribution to his
defense. The reader is left to wonder if, raised in the Prussian military
tradition, you would have sacrificed career and perhaps family and life to
oppose Hitler’s murderous policies. Some did, Manstein did not. We can only
hope we would have acted differently in the same circumstances.
The Fall of Rome
The Fall of Rome was
recommended to me by a friend who had read my book, The Coming Collapse of the American
Republic Europe —presumably
laying the foundation for today’s early-retirement, high-vacation E-utopia. I
have a master’s in history, but am far more of a dilettante than a scholar in
the field, so I found the fact-base focus on the distribution of high-quality
Roman pot shards as opposed to infantry tactics in key battles a bit dry. But
Dr. Ward-Perkins draws many compelling factors together. His description (p136)
of how specialization contributed to the collapse of living standards and
population when the decline and fall forced people to a localized, subsistence
economy was frightening. Most Americans are ill-prepared to survive in such a
world, where our highly-compensated, specialized skills will be of little use,
and I fear that it may well be coming. But, as he points out in his chilling
closing, people in the late Roman
Republic America have been invaded, if you
will, by people from—in the PC phrase—less complex cultures. While they carry
no battle axes (unless sold to them by the ATF, I suppose), neither are they
met by the Legion’s shield-wall, short swords and pila. I suspect that Dr.
Ward-Perkins looked on the recent riots in Britain
and realized that the UK ,
Europe and America
have created homegrown Visigoths and Vandals in our cities. I fear this is not
so much an interesting book about the past as a picture of our future.
Never Without Heroes by Lawrence
A fine history of the Marine Third Recon Battalion in Vietnam
by an officer who served with recon and led patrols. This book is well-written,
with a lot of attention to personal details, from the heroic to the
humorous...to the tragic. The men of Third Recon earned four Medals of Honor,
13 Navy Crosses, 72 Silver Stars, and numerous Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts.
They took many casualties and inflicted many more on a tough, professional
enemy. The book had a personal note for me, an account of a rocket attack I was
on the receiving end of in July of 1967, with details I didn't know. As a Radio
Relay Team Chief, I was lucky enough to be in a much safer billet with Regt. HQ
than these guys, but this book made me proud to have worn the same uniform. It
will be appreciated by all Marines, everyone interested in military history or
small unit operations, and those who appreciate human courage.
Noble Warrior: The Life and Times of Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston,
USMC
Readers of my blog will know that I read a lot of books.
Because I choose carefully, I recommend about half of them to other folks. This
is the best book I have read in at least a year, probably longer. It’s an
autobiography, but because the General wisely selected two competent
co-authors/researchers to assist, it has a much wider perspective than usual,
and is free of the self-aggrandizement too common in memoirs. Marines, Vietnam
vets, and military history buffs will be enthralled by the account of Captain
Livingston leading his beloved Echo Company of 2/4 (the Magnificent Bastards)
in a bayonet charge at the battle of Dai Do, a fight that arguably saved the
Dong Ha Combat Base from being overrun, thus giving a great strategic and
political victory to the Communists. His was one of two Medals of Honor earned
in the battle. Anyone who thinks the fighting in Vietnam was less intense than in
other wars, or the troops less courageous, should read this book and be
educated out of their error. For anyone interested in the dynamics of
leadership, General Livingston could bottle and sell the stuff by the case. Then-Captain
Livingston was a self-admitted “hard ass,” insisting on physical training even
in the field, and grooming standards and combat training when “resting” in
“rear areas.” (Marines will understand why I put those things in quotes.) He is
the kind of officer the troops grumble about until they have been in and
survived combat. Then they respect and love him forever. The many interesting
sidebars with comments from his troops, peers and commanding officers, which
greatly add to the book, make it clear how respected and beloved General
Livingston was and is by his brother Marines. General Livingston gives full
credit to his troops and superiors, a trait of modesty that seems to come with America ’s
highest decoration for valor. They all say they wear it for their comrades, and
the General is no different. There is strikingly little of the “I-I-I-I” in
this book you hear so often in the speeches of politicians safely in Washington , sending
better men and women to war, and taking credit for their victories. The book
has several additional value-added bonuses. General Livingston played a major
role in the final evacuation of Saigon ,
interesting and bitter reading for any vet. He was involved in fighting the
Communist insurgency in the Philippines ,
and probably narrowly escaped assignation. He served as an officer and in a
civilian capacity in New Orleans ,
and has important insights into the tragedy that befell that city during
Katrina. Lastly, his comments on the current military and political situation,
and concerns for the future, should be read by all serving officers, but more
importantly by policy-makers in Washington .
Marines like me, who were fortunate enough not to be assigned to rifle
companies in Vietnam, will always wonder if we could have measured up to be one
of Jim Livingston’s Marines. Perhaps, if he “kicked us in the ass” (his phrase)
enough, but we will never know. The phony veterans who keep popping up, and the
many who never darkened a recruiting office door to try to serve, they do know,
and must, as Shakespeare said, “hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
that fought with” Livingston at Dai Do. Every Marine who reads this book will
be proud to have worn the same uniform as General Livingston.
Strength & Honor by Terry L. Garlock
This excellent book was recommended to me by my friend and
fellow Marine Vietnam vet "Del" Del Vecchio, whose story is first in
the book. I regret it took so long to work it's way to the top of my reading
pile. It's a wonderful collection of individual stories from vets, all with the
clear ring of truth, that should be read by every Vietnam vet and the people who care
about them, but everyone who wants to know what that war was truly like and by
anyone interested in the realities of combat. Vets should be warned this book
will arouse a great deal of emotion: laughter, grief, pride and, yes, anger.
There is a terrific piece by a B-52 pilot. Having watched an Arc Light strike
east of Khe Sanh, I appreciated learning how they were delivered. Garlock was a
chopper pilot, and the book is heavy towards chopper stories, but I have no
problem with that. Everyone who served in Vietnam has a special place in
their hearts for the helicopter crews we depended on. WWII may have been the
greatest generation, but America
needs to know how great the generation they sent to Vietnam was--and those who
mistreated vets on their return deserve to live in shame. There are many more
stories out there that deserved to be collected and known.
A World Lit Only by Fire by William Manchester
We listen to books on tape (or CD now) in the car, to
increase our reading time. My wife and I both just finished this on a trip.
It's a terrific, well-written overview of that age, with lots of detail about
the intramural warfare and murders of Christian by Christian over blasphemy and
apostasy and doctrine, much like some other religion we can't mention does
today. Great coverage on Magellan's voyage and how it changed the world. We
both recommend it. I've loved everything I've read by Manchester , including his WWII Marine memoir,
Goodbye Darkness.
Shade it Black by Jess Goodell
A friend sent me an autographed copy of “Shade it Black,”
which I read in a day. As a Marine Vietnam Veteran (of no particular
distinction), I have to say that Jess Goodell is a better Marine than I am,
because she bravely performed a duty I don’t believe I could have done, working
in Mortuary Affairs and dealing every day with the horrific dead of modern
combat. That duty wounded her as deeply as any veteran who lost a limb, but it
was a wound unseen and largely unacknowledged. I would not recommend this book to
someone of fragile sensibilities. PTSD is very real and very painful.
Unfortunately, because it is not a visible wound, it is also possible to fake
it, as detailed in the great book about phony Vietnam vets, “Stolen Valor,” which
I highly recommend. And agencies or providers in the money flow have no
incentive to expose the fakes, which means they suck up resources needed by
veterans like Goodell. Cash flow is probably why the CDC and the VA have such a
different estimate of real PTSD among Vietnam
veterans, and why so many groups raising money put out inflated phony claims of
the suicide rate among Vietnam
vets. Having in the past sent several hundred dollars to a woman Marine I knew
to escape from an abusive marriage (she paid back every penny), I was disappointed
to read that Goodell’s comrades offered her so little support after she left
the Corps. This book may also make you rethink the politically-correct idea
that women can be injected into the macho male environment of combat without
adverse conditions. Thank you, Jess, for your service to our Corps, to your
fellow Marines and to our Republic. Semper Fidelis
Semper Cool by Barry Fixler
A friend sent me a copy of Semper Cool, and I read it in 24 hours. It made me proud to be a
Marine, and to have served in the same regiment as Cpl. Fixler, the 26th
Marines--though I was lucky enough to be with HQ and to rotate home from Khe
Sanh in September of 67, before things got bad. All Marines will appreciate
Barry Fixler's no-BS account, but so will anyone who wants to know what it was
really like at the sharp end, warts and all. Too many memoirs make the writer
sound like Rambo. Fixler's has the ring of truth, of a fine combat Marine doing
a tough job, making mistakes, and coming through. Be warned there are gritty
accounts of both the horrors of battle, and the excesses of young warriors on
leave. And the language is what you would expect of men in combat, not suitable
for polite company. There's a lot of humor, too, the kind of stories only a
Marine could tell. You won't regret buying this book for many reasons. I was
especially pleased to see he was donating his royalties to a charity to help
vets as I am doing with my book, Collapse.
I hope he gets the sales he deserves.
Road of 10,000 Pains: The Destruction of the 2nd NVA Division by the U.S.
If you want to know what close infantry combat was like in Vietnam ,
this oral history of the bloodiest campaign of the war will tell you. Because
it jumps from points of view, it’s not great for reconstructing what happened
when. But it’s superb for sharing in what the grunts went through. This took
place when I was mostly in-country, but I was safely elsewhere, thankfully.
Brute--the Life of Victor Krulak ,
U.S.
This is a terrific biography of the man it calls, with
justification, "the most important officer in the history of the United
States Marine Corps." Brute Krulak was my commanding general when I was on
Okinawa and in Vietnam ,
though, thankfully, Cpl. Hall never did anything brave or disastrous enough to
come to his attention. We all knew he was a demanding perfectionist, a
brilliant thinker and very short--God help the Marine who looked down at him
during an inspection. Are you interested in WWII? It was Brute who pushed
development of the Higgins boat, which Ike said won the war. Brute was the
driving force behind the "Chowder Society" which saved not only the
Marine Corps, but prevented the imposition of a military strongman who reported
only to the president, a threat to American democracy. Korea ? Brute told the Army that a
Marine brigade could sail in five days, when the Army was being pushed
back--and delivered, saving the Pusan Perimeter. He was high in the councils
planning the Inchon landing for Macarthur, and pioneered
helicopters and vertical envelopment, a revolutionary tactic the Army would
adopt from him for Vietnam .
He developed the strategy of protecting villagers with CAP units and was the
only senior general to tell Lyndon Johnson his and Westmoreland's strategy was
failing--which cost him a fourth star and the position of Commandant of the
Corps--which his son would later hold. Nor does the book neglect Brute's
hero-size flaws. The only glaring error I noted was the author saying the
Marines lost more men on Iwo Jima than the
Japanese. We took more casualties--30,000 to 22,000. But most of the 22,000
were dead, while the Marines and Navy personnel had about 6,800 killed. That's
still a horrible butcher's bill, but not more than the enemy paid in
"lost." Still, Coram is a fine writer--I finished the book in two
days. And I highly recommend it.
A Patriot’s History of the United States by Larry Schweikart and
Michael Allen
I found this book when looking for a one-volume US
history to recommend as part of my “Reading List for the Educated Voter.”
(Linked below) At 830 pages, this book takes a time investment, but is well
worth it, if you haven’t reviewed US History since college. Or never. It’s a
good book to buy for you high school and college students—if you can get them
to read it! I have a Masters in History and read history for pleasure, so I
picked up many small details I consider to be errors in fact, which hopefully
will be corrected in future editions. But they didn’t impact the broad conclusions.
The authors are academic historians, and do not gloss over the bad patches,
such as slavery and the treatment of the indigenous population (what we used to
call “Indians” before PC took hold.) On the other hand, the book was free of
the Marxist cant and genuflections to leftist chimeras so prevalent on campus
today. They do an excellent job of achieving balance, for example, criticizing
FDR for depression-extending economic policies while praising his wartime
leadership and diplomacy. Certainly the last chapter on the Bush presidency and
the War on Terror will be disputed by the left, but it brings balance to the
narrative they push in a sycophantic media. The book is well written and clear,
not difficult to understand, which is a benefit. You can read the mixed reviews
on Amazon for more details—you’ll be able to discern the world views of the
writers!
Sowing the Wind: The Seeds of Conflict in the Middle
East By John Keay.
I’ve recommended this before, but given what is going on
there, if you and Obama and Clinton haven’t read it, now might be a good time.
A broad look at an area we will be engaged with for a long time. This is an
excellent one-volume history of the Middle East, from 1890 through the Suez crisis in 1956, with
an epilog to bring us up to date. The catalog of crime and invasion,
contention, execution and insurrection, siege and betrayal of Hashemite vs.
Wahhabi, Sunni vs. Shia vs. Kurd vs. Turk, Allies vs. Ottomans, Britain vs.
France, Zionists vs. Muslims, and other groups great and small would give a
tourist pause, never mind a diplomat or soldier.
The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925. By Herbert G. Gutman
This well researched and extensively documented history,
published in 1976, presents a far more positive and uplifting view of black
people living under the evil of slavery than the current standard, and in my
view condescending and racist view of blacks, then and now, and that today's
pathologies in the black community are a result of slavery, which destroyed the
black family. Unfortunately, despite extensive, data-driven research, it has
failed to change the national understanding of slavery and blacks. I think this
is because there is great political value to the race-baiters and big-government
politicians in keeping the majority of black people convinced they are
eternally the victims of the legacy of slavery, and can only depend on
government programs and special preferences to get ahead or even get by,
because slavery has left them unable to compete with whites. It must be said
that Professor Gutman's research is often presented at tedious length, and the
history buff, as opposed to the working historian, may want to skip the
extensive pages of genealogies created from plantation and Freedmen's Bureau
records he uses to hammer home his points. But Gutman conclusively demonstrates
that, despite the evils of families being broken up by sale of a partner or
child, the vast majority of slaves lived in dual headed-households, that a
large majority formed long lasting marriages, that they formed kin networks
across plantation lines (similar to west African kin networks), that a majority
of slave children were named by their parents, often for a relative, living or
dead, and that a great many adopted surnames before the end of slavery, often
unknown to the slave-owner and not based on his name. He also demonstrates that
slaves had their own culture, that was not imitative of planter culture as
often assumed. For example, in slave culture, marrying blood cousins was taboo,
while it was widely practiced among the elite white planter class. Most slaves
were not promiscuous, living in the moment, unable to form personal bonds
because of slavery, as too many think today. They were a resilient and
adaptable people in the face of great headship and evil. Blacks, Gutman's
research shows, had a stronger family structure in 1866 than Americans of any
color have today. Most telling, the vast majority of slave children grew up in
dual-headed households, despite the breakup of many families by sale. And when
death or sale broke up a household, the children were very often taken in and
raised by kin or friends, despite how little they had. Contrast that with today
where 70% of black babies, about 50% of Latino babies and about 30% of white
babies are now non-marital births (and growing every year--whites are catching
up), which is highly correlated with poverty, poor education and behavioral
problems. Despite the extensive tables, the book also contains countless personal
and inspiring stories from the records and letters that would make you weep.
The one that stuck in my mind was a petition of recently-freed slaves to the
Freedmen's Bureau, asking for help dealing with the white landowners (who
weren't inclined to be over-generous with workers they used to
"own"!). These former slaves wrote that, "We are a working class of people." Would they consider
contemporary Americans, black or white, a "Working class of people"?
One wonders if the blacks folks in slavery or immediately after abolition would
not feel contempt for our culture today for squandering what they longed and
labored to hard to obtain.
American Freedom, American Slavery: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia
Published in 1975, this well-written history of the Virginia colony from Jamestown to the
Revolution and the foundations of American slavery is
straightforward and very readable. It explores the historical contradiction
between slavery and the struggle for freedom. The revolution was led military
and politically by Virginia
slaveholders. At that time, 40% of slaves in the colonies were in Virginia . The Virginia colony was
hardly the bucolic paradise some might imagine. Mortality was high, corruption
rampant, life difficult and the large men oppressed the small men. Early labor
was provided by indentured servants, whose lot was little better than slaves.
They were beaten, sometimes fatally, though probably not as bad as slaves.
Their contracts could be sold, and investing in them, as later in slave, was
highly profitable. They were better off in that their contracts could expire if
they lived, and they became free, but the planters sought every excuse to have
the Council extend the contracts for some violation, often trivial. Morgan made
me glad that my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great
grandfather, John Hall, emigrated not to Virginia ,
but to Massachusetts in 1630, where he became
one of the "First Comers" in Yarmouth
on Cape Cod and lived into his 90s. Some
interesting takes from the book that sound current: In the 1600s, the Virginia
Assembly complained that an act of parliament affecting their trade was the
result of avaricious men "whose sickle has been over long in our
harvest." I laughed out loud--nothing changes. Government is still where
"avaricious men" go to put their sickle in your harvest. Other good
quotes: "Men with guns are not as easily exploited as men without them."
p. 240. "(People) wanted an end to fruitless government expenditures. Much
of their tax money, they suspected, was going to line the pockets of a pack of
public officials. ... they wanted a public accounting of public funds--they
wanted specifically to be told what their taxes were paying for."
P.276-277. " But (John) Locke made it clear to Englishmen that the
legislature must be supreme and that the executive must be limited by the laws
that the legislative branch enacted." P.347. "Firearms were great
levelers, and the use of them by ordinary men against established authority was
in itself enough to generate leveling thoughts." This book is well worth
reading.
Leatherneck Legends: Conversations with the Marine Corps Old Breed
by Col. Dick Camp USMC (Ret).
I just finished Leatherneck
Legends: Conversations with the Marine Corps Old Breed by Col. Dick Camp
USMC (Ret). (Col. Camp is a distinguished combat Marine himself, and a terrific
writer.) Part memoir, part history, the book follows five Marine icons from WWI
through Vietnam ,
in their own words, from interviews, histories and their writings. They are Lem
Shepherd, Roy Geiger, Eddie Craig, Ray Davis and Bob Barrow. While this is
well-plowed ground for those interested in Marine or military history, there
were a lot of new details and stories that made it a great read.
Abraham Lincoln: A Life by Thomas Keneally
This is a short (175 pages), very readable account of the
life of this American Icon. As a history buff, I didn't learn a lot knew, but
it was a great refresher. It will be especially valuable to the individual who
doesn't know a lot about Lincoln .
my only disagreement is that I thought Keneally was too harsh on Meade. Yes he
was too cautious after Gettysburg ,
and missed a chance to destroy Lee--but his army had suffered a lot as well.
And on that field, he stopped Lee, something no other general had done to that
point.
The Washing Of The Spears: The Rise And Fall
Of The Zulu Nation. By Donald R. Morris
This well-researched history, presented in a very readable
style, will delight and military history buff. It is the story of not only the
Zulus, but all of the peoples of Southern Africa ,
and the back ground for much of today's troubles in that area. Full of
fascinating details, it is a story of towering personalities, on all sides,
with all the flaws of such people. It details great bravery--and great
stupidity. Containing the best accounts I have read of the British defeat as Isandlwana
and the heroic defense of Rorke's Drift, it also covers other, less well known
engagements. With rifles against spears the British defeats appear to be the
results of poor tactical leadership and judgment on the spot. If the British
were the aggressors, the Zulus had a lot of unappealing characteristics. Zulu
kings would have people selected at random for trivial offenses and executed on
the spot to impress visitors with their power. It's a long history, but well
worth reading.
Texans Guns And History. By Col. Charles Askins
Written in a folksy, story-telling style, this is an
entertaining tale of Texas Rangers, Indians, lawmen, killers, rustlers, and
gunslingers that will be an enjoyable history for those who like westerns. It
starts with the rangers in the 1870s and ends with Bonnie and Clyde .
First published in 1970, the author lacked the benefit of political correctness
and multiculturalism. For example, instead of calling the Indians "Native
Americans," he calls them savages, because when they took prisoners,
white, Hispanic or Indian, they amused themselves torturing the men to death
over a period of days. The women were repeatedly raped. If they withstood that,
and were attractive enough, they might be kept as slaves, otherwise they met
the same fate. I mean who are we to judge their culture? When you don't have
cable, the best entertainment around is listening to another human scream his
lungs out as you slowly peel the skin from his body with a knife. The book has
lots of reports of shootouts.
The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn
of the First Millennium, An Englishman's World by Robert Lacey
and Danny Danziger
My bride and I are listening to this fascinating short
history on CD in the car. Very interesting facts. Folks in 1000 were more
advanced than we credit. A lot of the things developed then are still strong
influences on our world. The book does dwell a bit on the disastrous reign of
my ancestor, Ethelred II, the Unready. The epithet “unready” is derived
from unraed, meaning “bad counsel” or “no counsel,” a puns on his
name, which means “noble counsel.” Ah, well, we can't all have Robert the Bruce
in the linage. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/193946/Ethelred-II
The Passing of Armies: An Account Of The
Final Campaign Of The Army Of The Potomac . By Joshua Chamberlain
A book I recently read had a section on Chamberlain,
reminding me of this wonderful book I read a while back. History buffs will
know Chamberlain as the CO of the 20th Maine ,
who held Little round Top on the left of the union line the second day at Gettysburg . He finished
the war as a Major General, and was selected by Grant to receive the
Confederate surrender at Appomattox .
His order to his troops to render a salute to the surrendering rebels is
credited with starting the healing process. This book is a fine account of the
end of the war. But it is worth reading to savor Chamberlain's use of the
English language. reading it, I felt like an uneducated bumpkin (no comment,
please, unless you can write like this). I recommend this both for the
interesting history and the writing by a great American.
This is a terrific book. Not only will you learn things
about Roosevelt, but also many interesting things about the Amazon Rain Forest
Puller Chronicles Volume 1: Secrets and Mysteries of the Greatest
Marine's Heroic Ancestral Faith by Meriwether
Ball
I would recommend this book to Marines of strong Christian
faith. Meriwether bell has set out to document both LtGen. Puller's genealogy,
but the foundations of his faith. This is not a combat story, but explores
aspects of Puller not included in Jon Hoffman's definitive biography,
George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring
That Saved the American Revolution by Brian Kilmeade and, Don Yaeger
This is a short, well written and well researched history of
a fascinating but little known piece of the Revolution. I have been a
Revolutionary War buff since early teens and had never heard of the Culper
Ring. The book is easy to read and will hold your interest. It also has details
about Nathan hale and about Arnold 's
treachery.
Miscellaneous
Pride and Discipline: The Hallmarks of a United States
This terrific book will be of great interest to Marines and
to anyone interested in the military. But it should also be read by anyone who
leads (manages) people, as the lessons are valuable in any setting. Col. Myers commanded the Recruit Training
Regiment at Marine Corps Boot Camp, Parris
Island , SC San Diego .
The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos
and Don'ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good
Life by Charles Murray
This wonderful book was given to me by my friend Chuck to
read in the hospital, which I did in under two days, despite time out to be
poked by various healthcare professionals. Its major drawback is that it was
published in 2014, and I really needed it in 1969. This is the perfect gift for
your college students or recent graduates, provided they are literate and can
read and comprehend above the newspaper level, which has dropped from
8th grade reading in recent years to The Little Engine That
Could level. It assumes the reader is in his/her twenties, bright and
looking to get ahead. There are pretty much three sections, one on developing a
successful career, one on becoming a great writer, which I wish I had read 25
years ago, and a final one on having a good life. There was little I disagree
with, and I’m probably wrong where I do. I highly recommend this book.
Firearm Fundamentals: How to be a safe and confident shooter. By
Gary L. Behr, CPC
By a stroke of good fortune of the kind that comes to those
of us who have led a blameless life, I ran into the author at a local shooting
range. The talk tuned to books, and he mentioned this one, so I ordered a copy.
It was a terrific find and a great buy. not only is it packed to the gunwales
with information, but with links or addresses for more gun information that you
could absorb in a couple of years. I picked up several pieces of new
information, and refreshed on things I was taught 50 years ago at Parris Island . You can skip those areas that don't
currently interest you--hunting and the shotgun section for me--and keep the
whole thing as a reference. There was great information on gun myths,
protecting yourself in a confrontation, legal risks, and a very solid emphasis
on gun safety. I got the version with the WI gun laws in it--a handy reference.
I think it will be valuable to experienced shooters, even more so to new ones--or
someone thinking of buying their first gun. I highly recommend it.
This book was recommended to me by my excellent Physical
Therapist, Jim Carlson, at the Madison VA. Jim is one of the key people who has
kept me alive (so far) and something of a Renaissance Man--both an athlete (why
he's a PT I suppose) and a well-read intellectual. So when he talks, I listen.
The book would classify as self-help, I suppose, but it is written like a
novel, in an easy, flowing style. The protagonist made me want to slap him by
page four. But he is in a car accident and, presumably in a coma, travels back
in time to meet wise historical figures, each of whom gives him a tenet toward
having a successful life. I had to agree with the wisdom. I think I've done
well with six of them, which may account for my career success. (I do have a
problem with the one on forgiveness; as a Marine I want to destroy my enemy,
raze his cities and salt the land so nothing will grow there. Then talk about
forgiveness. But I don't say that's right.) I plan to give a copy of this book
as a Christmas present and a teen version, The Young Traveler's Gift to my
granddaughter. (She doesn't read my blog, so mum's the word. I think most
readers will benefit from it. A caveat--it has a religious base, so Christians
and Jews will like it more than proselytizing secular humanists.
Economics and politics
Must Read: The
Hundred-Year Marathon: China 's
Secret Strategy to Replace America
This is a terrific but frightening
book, well written and well documented. China
places a very high strategic value on deception and making us believe they are
weak and have no intentions of surpassing the US . He cites a Chinese proverb from
the Warring States period that China 's
military and civilian leaders often use: Wai
ru, nei fa--"On the outside, be benevolent. On the inside, be
ruthless." He believes that all recent presidents--Republican as well as
Democrat, have been fooled by the benevolent outside, as have most China
experts, himself included until he started reading things he wasn't supposed to
read. The book details how China
has stolen technology and IP, built up it's cyber-attack forces, developed
"Assassin's Mace" asymmetric weapons to counter our much more
expensive weapons, and is working on all fronts to replace us. The military
buildup, in their strategic thinking comes last, so as not to alert the
"old Hegemon" to their intentions. Very scary read by one of the US
government's leading China Experts for about 40 years. Pillsbury speaks and
reads Mandarin, and has had access to top Chinese leaders, hawks as well as
moderates, and Chinese defectors, as well as obscure books and documents that
most westerners never get to see. In my 80-page 2011 book, The Coming Collapse of the American Republic, I cite the rise of China as a military and industrial power as one
of four trends that if not reversed, will lead to the collapse of America .
Pillsbury convinces me that I didn't go far enough. You should read this
book--and send a copy, or at least a recommendation, to your favorite
presidential candidate.
I learned more from this book than any other book I have
ever read--and I had economics in high school and it was covered in my college
political science classes. Sowell is not only brilliant, but writes well for
the average reader.
Dr. Williams, like Dr. Thomas Sowell, grew up poor and black
(Williams in the Philadelphia
projects) to become a nationally-known economist. They both have put a lot of
focus on the intersection of economics, race and culture. This well researched
and documented book contains his data-driven conclusions on the subject, and
details how government interventions, sold as benign, have too often
disadvantaged blacks and other minorities, while protecting white racists in
unions and in the trades and professions. It also offers alternate
possibilities for what is seen as racism which are thought provoking. I highly
recommend it.
Up From The Projects by Walter Williams
The autobiography of economist Walter Williams, PhD. A short
book that I finished in two nights, despite three business conference calls.
Well worth reading. William grew up poor and black in a Philadelphia housing project, has become a
leading educator, economist, columnist and opponent of racism. That would be
the liberal racism that says we need lower admission standards and lower
grading standards for blacks, because they are mentally challenged and can’t
compete with whites. An inspiring story.
I can't believe this terrific book, published in 2001, and
written mostly as a series of essays between back to 1995, has just come to my
attention. But everything I read suggests that not only is this still the
situation throughout Britain ,
the US
and Western Civilization, but has grown worse, not better since he wrote. It
was written by Dr. Anthony Daniels under the penname Theodore Dalrymple,
probably to protect his hospital, patients and career. From 1990 to 2005, he
worked as a doctor and psychiatrist in a prison and a public hospital in a slum
in Birmingham , England Britain
and the west is doomed to collapse, chaos and barbarism. I believe we are
losing civilization. He makes the point that in the US, racists often attribute
the pathologies of the black underclass--non-marital births, drugs, violence,
domestic violence, serial relationships, crime and a cultural disdain for
education that destroys the hopes of those who might escape from the situation
through self improvement--to race. but in Britain, the underclass with the same
pathologies are overwhelmingly white, native-born British people, most of whom
cannot tell you when the Second World War took place, or multiply 7X8. (US
racists need not be smug anyway--both the Hispanic and white underclass here
are catching up, and have enough pathology to ruin the country if every black
person suddenly adopted middle class values and work ethics.) In fact.
immigrant kids from India
in Daniel's city usually do better in school and life. But there is a growing
underclass among immigrants, abetted by authorities who are afraid to intervene
for fear of being charged with racism, or, if they are minorities themselves,
of being Uncle Tom's aiding the white oppressor. He details the sickening story
of a little girl tortured to death whose case was pushed off by social workers
and doctors who viewed her situation as part of her equally-valid culture. In
another case, he recommended a suicidal young immigrant be put in a psychiatric
hospital. His family would have none of it, and accused Daniels of racism, threatening
to hold a disruptive demonstration in his hospital. Two weeks later the boy
hanged himself. This book is not to be missed.
Written under the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, whose great book Life at the Bottom I consider a must-read. In The New Vichy Syndrome, British Psychiatrist Anthony Daniels turns
his penetrating insights and eviscerating wit to Europe ,
including the Muslim problem, the European Union and the general
"miserabilist" world view of modern Europeans. He draws the
surprising conclusion that the growth of the Muslim population is not a threat
unless Europe allows it to be, by defending
the values of their societies against the minority of Islamists and not
protecting the majority of Muslims who want to live peacefully in a modern
society from the violent ones. Of course, he recognizes that the will to defend
values--or values themselves--may not be present in most Europeans today, but
he says the Muslim problem is a problem in us, due to a lack of courage. The
misearbilist (his fine word) world view adopted by too many of his fellow
Europeans he traces back to the devastating history of the conflicts in the
20th century and the los by Europe of world
leadership--or even importance. Europeans went from being proud of their
history and accomplishments to being contemptuous of it. Daniels finds both
unremitting positive or negative views of the past equally in error; balance is
needed. On the EU, he heaps contempt. Take this quote about EU bureaucrats:
"You can spot a feeder at the European trough... a mile off: having for a
long time viewed the world exclusively through the window of an official
limousine, having lunched and dined heavily for many years (never at his own
expense, of course), and having developed a special langue de bois in which streams of grammatically formed verbiage
are carefully studded with words of positive connotation that makes it
difficult to argue against him, he has developed the gray, immobile, slab-faced
countenance of members of the former Soviet Politburo. Alas, it seems there are
a large number of volunteers--mainly mediocrities, of course--for this kind of
life. It seems to them eminently preferable to earning a living." Could we
not write the same about many of the parasites living off us in Washington ? He has equally harsh words for many
politicians, Americans included. This book is well worth reading.
Another terrific collection of essays by Dr. Anthony
Daniels, the British psychiatrist who uses the pen name Dalrymple, published in
2008. He turns his biting wit and insights to the culture in Britain , and by default, western
civilization. In the first section, he reviews the impact on the culture of
famous writers from Johnson to Ibsen. I'ts quite interesting, but the second
section on politics and culture is not to be missed. I will link to some of the
essays, like the one below, when I can find them on line. A quote from the
Preface: "The United
States is not immune from the collapse of
confidence that underlies the deep British Malaise. It is as plentifully
supplied as Britain
with intellectuals who indulge in cultural self-doubt, more from a desire to
present themselves to their peers as broad-minded than from any love of truth
or wisdom."
Anything Goes by Theodore Dalrymple
Another incisive collection of essays on culture, politics
and the passing scene by British Psychiatrist Anthony Daniels, writing as
Theodore Dalrymple. Every one is worth reading, and some are "must
reads." I've linked to a few on line in the blog, (see below.) Daniel's
wit is endless entertaining, his use of language always sends me to the dictionary,
and he never fails to make you think (if that's within your capacity, of
course). Some quotes: (Political Correctness) is the attempt to reform thought
by making certain things unsayable; it is also the conspicuous, not to say
intimidating, display of virtue (conceived of as the public espousal of the
'correct,' which is to say 'progressive' views) by means of a purified
vocabulary and abstract human sentiment. To contradict such sentiment, or not
to use such vocabulary, is to put yourself outside the pale of civilized men
(or should I say 'persons?'). (P47) "The first thing to remember is that
freedom and democracy are not necessarily the same thing at all. A people may
easily vote into power a government that wishes to massacre part of the population."
(P67) "Illusion and disillusion spring eternal in the human heart."
(P157). I received three Dalrymple books for Christmas, a wonderful gift. (Available
in Kindle edition too.)
Wasting Police Time: The Crazy World of the
War on Crime. By PC David Copperfield
This well-written, entertaining and very funny book was
written by a British Bobby, PC Stuart Davidson, formerly of the Staffordshire Police,
about 'Newtown ' (actually Burton upon Trent). He had to do his blog, on
which this book and a sequel Wasting More
Police Time, are based, under a pen name to protect his job. Eventually the
brass figured out who he was, but by then he had had a job line up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada ,
where he is a much happier cop. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_David_Copperfield).
It was recommended by British psychiatrist Anthony Daniels (writing as Theodore
Dalrymple). Daniels was carrying a copy when he ran into two plainclothes
officers. They told him it was a great book. He asked how much was true.
"Every word," they replied. This is policing in progressive Britain ,
where the Bobbies spend 90% of their time doing paperwork to CYA senior
officers, filing administrative "detections," and enforcing political
correctness, diversity and multiculturalism. The rest they get to spend
catching bad guy who get slapped on the wrist or ever in preventing crime. It
is a cautionary tale for us. Well worth your time.
Must Read: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics
and Religion. By Jonathan Haidt
I suppose the best compliment is that throughout this
insightful and well-written book, I kept wishing the author was present so I
could discuss, and often argue points with him. (And I suppose he was glad to
be far away.) To be fair, many of the points I wanted to argue he addressed and
resolved further on. Haidt is a self-described left-wing academic and atheist,
though of Jewish heritage. He is a Kerry and Obama supporter, a bias he is very
open about and references throughout this work. But he is also an
intellectually honest man and—so rare on today’s campuses—open to diversity of thought,
the only kind of diversity that really matters. A “Moral Psychologist,” Haidt
makes a very solid academic research effort to understand the moral foundations
of both conservative and liberal political thought, as well as why religion is
important in human societies. The book held my interest throughout, and will be
of great value to thinkers on both the right and the left of our political
divide, who will gain understanding of why they hold the views they do, and why
others hold different views. Shouters and haters, not so much. Read through the
reviews on Amazon. This book is well worth your time.
Townsend does an excellent job of research using the
authoritative versions of the Qur'an, the strongest of the Hadiths and the
biography of Mohammad accepted as authoritative by most Muslim scholars. For
those who don't know, the Hadiths are the traditions of Mohammad and his
companions which Islamic scholars say are essential to understand and practice
Islam. Sunnis and Shi'a accept different ones as being the strongest, but for
example, the Muslim declaration of faith (There is no god but Allah and
Mohammad is his prophet, and the other four "Pillars of Islam" are in
the Hadiths, not the Qur'an. He also uses archeological evidence and other
writings from the time of Mohammad and of the Hadiths (like the Qur'an, written
down decades, often centuries, after Mohammad died) to question must of Islam
history and teaching. He tends to use both superlatives ("Jaw
Dropping" revelation) and slightly pejorative language (Muslim apologists)
which I think do not strengthen the book. Nevertheless, this is well worth
reading and will give you a strong background in both Islamic history and the
claims of the Muslim religion. ~Bob
Sharia Law for Non-Muslims (A Taste of
Islam). By Bill Warner
This short (45 page) book is an easy read and an excellent
introduction to Shari'a Law. Many people talk about Shari'a, but few have any
knowledge of what it calls for, as witness the cognitively-challenged folks who
say it is compatible with the US Constitution. Of course, Shari'a varies from
jurisdiction to jurisdiction, a leading cause of early death among Muslims who
can't agree. But it is drawn from the Qur'an and Hadiths. Everywhere there are
groups seeking, often by violent means, to implement more strict versions.
Fully implemented, it includes executing gays and Muslims who leave Islam,
stoning women accused of adultery, wife beating, polygamy, child marriage and
slavery following Mohammad's "perfect example," and women or infidels
as second class citizens without the rights of male Muslims. his is a quick way
to familiarize you with what the main schools of Islamic teaching call for in
society. Shari'a is a theocratic system of government--Islam recognizes and
tolerates no "separation of mosque and state." Worth reading.
Introduced to the concepts of Adam Smith's The Wealth of
Nations by my high school economics teacher, Ben Mark, I set out to read it.
"You won't finish it," Mr. Mark predicted. As in so much else, Ben
was right. I never have. So when I came across this book by the great political
humorist, P.J. O'Rourke, I grabbed it. It is terrific. Not only do you get an
explanation of Smith's basic concepts, but it is full of the pointed wit that
O'Rourke is famous for, so you get entertained as well as educated. Smith's key
concept is that the prosperity of nations depends on three things: division of
labor, pursuit of self interest and free trade, both external and internal--and
that government often limits prosperity by blocking these. It's as true today
as it was then. Some quotes from the book: ""The desire for power
pushes a man, Smith wrote, to 'the highest degree of arrogance,...to erect his
own judgment into the supreme standard of right and wrong...to fancy himself
the only wise and worthy man in the commonwealth.' Smith managed to describe
not only Barbara Streisand, but everyone in the world of politics."
"Smith: 'The man of system...is apt to be very wise in his own conceit,
and is often so enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of
government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of
it...he seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of great
society with as much ease as the hand arranges the pieces on a chessboard.' PJ:
Barbed wire always seems to be needed to keep the chessmen on their
squares." Smith called universities, "the sanctuaries in which
exploded systems and obsolete prejudices found shelter and protection, after
they had been hunted out of every other corner of the earth." Smith on
debt: "When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree,
there is scare, I believe, a single instance of them having been fairly and
completely paid." This is just a sample. I highly recommend this book.
Dr. Sowell looks at the history and integration in to
American life of several ethnic groups, such as Jews, Germans, Irish, Mexicans,
blacks, etc., as well as the intersection of the cultures they brought with
them and the cultures they developed in America . Published in 1981, much of
the data has been outdated by demographic and immigration changes, but his
insights into these issues are timeless. For example, his research indicate
that the eastern European Jews were the most destitute and illiterate of the
immigrant groups, and scored low on IQ tests, leading commentators to say that
the idea of the Jew as intelligent was a myth. Of course, now they are among
the most economically and academically successful of ethnic groups in America ,
with IQs, college degrees and percentage holding professional jobs far above
the national average. Based on contemporary thinking of progressives, this must
be because these poor, literate Jews discriminated against native white
Christians to get ahead of the rest of us!
Applied Economics by Dr. Thomas Sowell
Also excellent, though not as
comprehensive as Basic Economics. Sowell
is an internationally-known economist, with updates from recent events in
politics and the economy. It’s written for the general public, so is easy to
read and understand, but is very helpful on understanding why things have
happened as they have—or will happen. I think you’ll find the 50 pages on the
economics of healthcare worth the price. The sections on the housing crisis,
the economics of slavery and the economics of discrimination were also quite
interesting. Sowell preaches “Stag Two” thinking, pushing readers to think
beyond the immediate to the longer term effects of political and economic
decisions.
Excerpt: Despite the subtitle, this is a book about class,
not race. The author is looking at a lot of data that suggested the upper class
that runs the country, which he calls the Narrow Elite and the Broad Elite, is
increasingly wealthy, increasingly takes in both liberals and conservatives
with high IQs and is increasingly isolated from the experience of the rest of
America. He focuses on whites because that Narrow Elite is overwhelmingly
white. He also focuses on the white lower class, so the comparison will not be
between a white upper class and a minority lower class. He looks at a lot of
data suggesting the white lower class is being destroyed by several trends:
decreasing industriousness and ability to hold jobs among males, decreasing
participation in civic organizations or churches, decreasing marriage rates,
decreasing rates of trust and neighborliness, and sharply escalating
non-marital birth rates, all trends that suggest the destruction of both
happiness for these folks and what he calls the "American Project."
Interestingly, after detailing the rolling disaster that is over-taking the
white lower class, he presents data that suggest the minority lower class is
not much different, contrary to what many might expect. This reinforces my
long-held belief that race doesn't matter, culture matters a great deal. I do
not think this is a "liberal" or a "Conservative" book. He
says he is neither, but is a libertarian, rare among social scientists. He
carefully points out in what I think is a balanced way how liberals or
conservatives might draw differing interpretations from the data than he does.
Most frightening for me is that the short book I published a year ago, The Coming Collapse of the American Republic,
does not include America
coming apart along class lines--his title thesis--among the top four problems
facing our country. Add this log to the staggering camel's back.
I've ordered copies of this book to give as gifts; it has
over 2,000 5-star reviews on Amazon. Dr. Carson, a brilliant neurosurgeon, has
long been prominent in the medical world. Recently he burst into the political
world when he was invited to speak at the National Prayer Breakfast. He refused
to let Obama's handlers read (and presumably censor) his speech in advance. His
criticism of Obamacare made him an instant darling of conservatives, and calls
for "Carson
for President" began to be heard. But Carson is, or was as of the writing of this
book, a long-time independent, and he condemns the behavior of both parties. He
is clearly a fiscal conservative who believes in limited government and
self-reliance. But his views on many social issues such as immigration,
healthcare, racism and the safety net might take some of the shine off his
luster for social conservatives. Never having held public office, he also has
what I think is a charmingly-naive faith in the power of logic, common sense
and morality to move politicians to work to solve problems for the common good.
Speaking as a former five-term state senator, in politics, if it wins the next
election, it's moral and common sense to do it, for both sides. An example is
his statement that if more anti-Nazi Germans would have spoken out against
Hitler, the holocaust could have been avoided. but those who did, like Hans and
Sophia Scholl, were executed. Likewise, he says as do many that the moderate
Muslims need to speak out against the jihadists. But, again, every day
moderates who speak out are murdered. It's why a man with a six shot revolver
can often hold off an unarmed crowd of a hundred--he can't kill them all, but
no one wants to be the first to rush him. Never-the-less, I would vote for Dr.
Carson for public office given the chance, even though I would disagree on some
policy issues. He projects an ethical basis and a deep religious conviction,
which are attested to by his works, and there is no doubt that his intellect
and work ethic is in the 99th percentile. His story is moving. Like Thomas
Sowell and Walter Williams, Carson grew up in
abject poverty, in his case in the Detroit
and Boston Ghettos, where his mother, who was functionally illiterate worked
menial jobs to put food on the table, but insisted on a solid education for
Carson and his brother. She made the boys read and write reports on two books a
week, which they never realized she couldn't read. For a treat, she'd save
enough money to take them to the fair--enough to get in, that is. There was no
money to ride the rides or buy an ice cream cone. Carson , blessed with that intellect and work
ethic, overcame poverty and racism to become very wealthy from his surgery,
books, and public speaking. He and his wife Candy have funded the Carson
Scholars Program, which offers an opportunity to get better educations to kids
with the intellectual potential but not the funds. He has a new book out, One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save
America's Future, which I look forward to reading. Carson on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Carson
Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's
Iron Rules Are As Timely And Important Today As Five Centuries Ago
by Michael A. Ledeen
Michael Ledeen is a terrific commentator and policy analyst
whose work I link to in my Old Jarhead blog from time to time. Thus when I
recently stumbled across this book, I grabbed it. It was written at the end of
the Clinton
era, so the “current examples” are a few years old, but cover lots of
depredations worth remembering. If you haven’t read Machiavelli’s The Prince, you should do so for its own
sake, as well as to better understand this fine book on leadership in the real
world. I first read The Prince in
1970 or 71 when it was assigned in a government class on Modern Political
Thought at U-Mass by a brilliant political science professor from Pakistan .
He asked, “What qualities does Machiavelli recommend a prince have, that you
wouldn’t want in a US
President?” Then as each of the starry-eyed U-Mass students put forth
objections, he eviscerated them. Lovely stuff. This would have been of great
value for leaders to read in the run-up to the 2008 fiscal crisis. Ledeen
quotes Allan H. Meltzer’s “Moral Hazard Goes Global”: “Where [there are]
guarantees that some or all of an institution’s losses will be shifted to
taxpayers…while gains will be kept by the institution’s owners, the institution
will be led to take excessive risks.” Boy, did we pay for not understanding
that, from Fannie Mae where Jim Johnson and Frank Raines got rich off our
wallets to the too-big-to-fail Wall Street banks that we bailed out. This is
well worth reading.
I was picking up a copy of Walter William's excellent Race
and Economics in Half Price Books, and stumbled over this Sowell
book, a twofer! This is a collection of Sowell's pre-2006 columns, which he
felt had enduring relevance. they are organized by topic: cultural issues,
political issues, economic issues, racial issues, etc. Everyone is worth
reading for his insight and ability to communicate clearly. But, like Georg4
Orwell's barnyard communists, "some animals are more equal than
others." You won't regret the time spent reading these gems.
Lords of the Levee: The Story of Bathhouse John and Hinky Dink. By
Llyod Wendt, Herman Kogan and Bette Jore.
This book published in 1943 was reissued a few years ago.
It's a fascinating political history of two early Chicago "Community Organizers," Democrat
First Ward Aldermen John Coughlin and Mike Kenna, in the late 19th and early
20th century. If you want to understand how Chicago Way politics became as they are
today, this is a great place to start--and excellent entertainment as well.
Vote fraud (50 cents per vote was the going price to pay "floaters"
to come into the ward and vote multiple times), corruption and legislative vote
selling (called "boodling" by the press), protection payoffs from
gambling and bawdy houses to fund the Democrat machine--it's all here. In those
days, it was out in the open. Now they try to keep it hidden from feds and the
press, which still does weekly stories that would turn our stomachs, except
those of us who live in Cook
County Chicago ,
you'll want to read this book.
Kindle Edition:
Eric Holder, America ’s
first black attorney general, famously said the United States was “a nation of
cowards” on matters of race, because most people won’t talk openly about racial
matters. (Perhaps “Eric Withholder” would be a better name, as he continues to
stonewall Congress over releasing documents about his department’s “Fast and
Furious” program which killed hundreds of Mexicans and two US Agents.) To
refute Holder, comes now the brave Colin Flaherty, with this book about black
on white violence in America .
Do not expect his reward to be a medal for bravery from the DOJ for discussing
these matters. So far, his reward has been to be vilified as a racist, the
usual fate of anyone who candidly discusses race without agreeing 100% with the
progressive meme on race. I fear he is likely to suffer worse, from IRS audits
to violence.
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ali suffered genital mutilation as a child, was sent to an
arranged marriage, escaped to Holland ,
became a citizen and a member of parliament. She risked her life to make a
movie exposing Muslim mistreatment of women; the producer, Theo van Gogh was
murdered on the street by a Muslim for the movie. Of course, this made her
anathema to the left, who think that not paying for birth control for yuppie
college students is a "War on Women," but excuse murder, oppression,
stoning and other barbarous treatment of women by Muslims because "all
cultures are equally valid." Ali is a real feminist. This is inspiring.
Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of
the World's Most Precious Stones. By Greg Campbell
I have never bought a diamond. When I married late in life,
at age 46, I explained to my bride that the Scottish tradition was for a silver
antique Luchenbooth Brooch. This saved our now-joint finances many thousands of
dollars, and, since she had a nice diamond ring from her mother (for which
people doubtless give me credit), she was fine with that. Having read this
book, I’m very glad. It details the Diamond War in Sierra Leone . Frankly, there wasn’t
much to choose between the horrors of the rebels, the horrors of the government
troops, and the horrors of the UN “peacekeepers.” Would you buy that pretty
stone if you knew that people were murdered, people had their hands cut off in
the terror campaign, children were forced to become child soldiers or
prostitutes, and the country was destroyed, all to control the diamond mines,
and the criminal smuggling—many thousands of them? Diamonds not only funded
arms for these groups, they funded al Qaeda, providing them a ready source of
laundered, easily moved and converted wealth to carry out attacks on us. In
addition to helping fund terror, you probably paid too much if you bought a
diamond. The book goes into the history of the diamond industry, and how De
Beers controls the market, manipulates prices and created the myth that a man
should expect to pay two month’s salary for an engagement ring. (So propose
only when you are out of work.) De Beers also is famous for “A Diamond is
Forever.” So, alas, is amputation, as thousands of beggars in Freeport can attest. A political-thriller
movie of the same title was apparently based on the book—I have not seen it.
The author, a journalist, takes George Bush to task for intervening in Iraq ,
but not Sierra Leona. It is difficult for me to see what national interests we
had there, and the world would have accused us of wanting to trade Blood for
Diamonds instead of Blood for Oil, regardless of our motives. (We won in Iraq —at
least temporarily—but that oil thing hasn’t worked out so well.) Still, I
highly recommend this book.
Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America
With Liberty and
Tyranny, Mark Levin established himself as a major current political
thinker, able to convey complicated concepts in clear, concise language.
Therefore, I was looking forward to finding the time to read Ameritopia. It did not disappoint, and
should be required reading for anyone to serve in public office, not in place
of, but in addition to Liberty
and Tyranny. Levin reviews utopian political thought, from Plato to Marx, and
contrasts it with the political thought of Locke, Montesquieu and de
Tocqueville, which are so foundational to our limited government Republic University
of Massachusetts America
has become a society in which the people are wise enough to select their own
leaders, but too incompetent to choose the right lightbulb." Indeed.
Gross National Happiness: Why Happiness
Matters for America
Excerpt: I heard the author speak at a conference a few
years ago, was very impressed, and bought the book. But I proceeded to let it
get buried in the reading pile under history, economic and political books.
Thankfully, I finally read it—it’s a terrific book. Brooks is an economist and
academic, and this book is data driven by population surveys, both in the US and
around the world. He draws conclusions from the data, which you may not like.
People wedded to a viewpoint that cannot be moved by data, left or right, are
likely to hate it. There are many surprises here. Brooks looks at the data on
what makes people happy or unhappy: religion, political views, marriage, jobs,
incomes, charitable involvement, and so on, across demographic groups. This
should be read especially by policy makers who might do well to understand what
is likely to preserve and increase national happiness. My own take, which I put
on my Old Jarhead Blog, has always been, “With all due respect to Tom
Jefferson, ‘pursuing happiness’ doesn’t work. But if you commit yourself to
things you care about more than yourself, such as family, job, non-profit
cause, church or temple, community, or service to your country, happiness will
find you.” Nothing here changed my mind on that point, though the data
surprised me in some areas as they did Brooks. Arthur C. Brooks is Louis A. Bantle Professor of Business and
Government Policy at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and
Public Affairs.
The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts
and the Battle
This is a wonderfully-written book that will make you look
at a lot of issues in a new light. It is about the intersection of geography
with history, geopolitics, national interests and power. Though I have a
master’s degree in history and am well read in the field, I also learned a
great deal about non-European history. Particularly China ,
India and the Middle East , though of course in one book it could only
take a broad brush approach to these things. Unfortunately, Kaplan gave me
several new worries about the future, and I was already pretty pessimistic.
This is a high level review of geo-strategy, and should be read by policy
makers at all levels. It requires some focus; certainly not light
entertainment. The most interesting section was the last. Kaplan argues that Mexico , with a long border with the US , is far more important to us than Iraq , Afghanistan
and the Middle East . Given that Mexico and Central America have a rapidly
developing population—now at 50% of the United
States —and a native US
birthrate below the replacement level, he argues that we cannot afford to have Mexico
become a failed narco-state on our border. Everyone involved in the current
immigration debate would do well to read this and look at the big picture view
he presents.
Leadership Defined by Col. Don Myers, USMC (Ret)
Some people who never served in the military will doubtless
be put off by the fact that the author is a Marine. Col. Myers draws on his
experience in the Corps for examples, but also on a successful career as
general manager of a large company and of a school for troubled boys after he
retired from the Marines. Anyone in a position of leadership--or who aspires to
one--in any organization can benefit from the wisdom in this short,
well-written book. It would certainly be of value to executives in my field of
association management, as Myers has clearly laid out methods for getting the
most out of a team. And that's the real secret of success in any field. The
book made me regret that I never had the opportunity to serve under Col. Myers
during my time in the Corps. And that several of my bosses in both the Marines
and in the civilian world had clearly never read it.
The Terrorist Next Door by Erick Stakelbeck
A friend sent me this book on Friday. Bang, there went the
weekend, I' m writing this Sunday
night. Erick Stakelbeck is a courageous investigative journalist who has
researched the threat of radical Jihadism both in the United States and abroad. Armed
with only a notebook or a camera, he has met with some of the most dangerous
terror supporters in the world. And he has extensively detailed the danger in
this readable, but frightening book. In my book, The Coming Collapse of the American Republic, I include a short
review of the Jihadist threat as one of the four existential threats combining
to destroy our country. The Terrorist
Next Door is an in-depth examination of this particular danger. Stakelbeck
was able to do the in-person investigations worldwide that were beyond my
resources. I wish I' d had his book
as a resource when writing Collapse.
Radicalization and the Islamist threat are far more wide-spread in our country,
and the danger from terror-supporting states more grave, than the politicians
would have you believe. As I write, there is one negative review on Amazon,
which, because his conclusions and facts are so well documented, has to attack
Stakelbeck personally. Because of the other challenges we face, especially the
looming financial collapse I detail in my short book, we will be hard pressed
to find the resources to deal with the Jihadist threat, at home or abroad. Time
is short, and the threat grows unchecked every day. I urge you to read this
book, to recommend it to your friends, and to send a copy to your Congressman.
Children of Jihad by Jared Cohen.
Cohen was a gutsy Jewish grad student and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford . He traveled to Iran , Lebanon ,
Syria
and other Muslim countries. There he befriends young Muslims. He reports on
those meetings and their views. This is not a one-dimensional portrait or
anti-Muslim book. The hope many of them have for a freer society and economic
opportunity, and their at least passive resistance to the theocrats who rule
them comes through. But so too does the fanaticism many have imbibed since
children. Easy read, about $10 on Amazon, not hard to read.
Islamic Imperialism
http://www.amazon.com/Islamic-Imperialism-History-Efraim-Karsh/dp/0300122632/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1307163076&sr=1-1
Excerpt: I wish I could buy
a copy for every member of Congress, the President and the Secretary of
State--and get them to read it. Required reading for an understanding of this
aspect of the challenges facing us.
Islamic Imperialism is well written and well researched. It starts with the
advent of Islamic conquests of other peoples and brings it forward to the
struggles in our current day. It also reveals how many "Islamic"
leaders used Islam as a handy rallying point and cover for their personal ambitions.
We must find an answer to the Islamist threat if we are to survive. Israel and Europe may be lost, and America is in
the balance.
Don’t Tell Me Words Don’t Matter by Joel Pollak
I had this book on my shelf since I supported the author,
Joel Pollak, in his campaign for congress in 2010. In my professional view,
Joel ran a brilliant, but underfunded campaign in a hopelessly D+25 district.
He’s one of those folks you meet that you know after a few minutes are brighter
than you. As a Harvard law grad, not to mention a degree in Jewish studies from
South Africa, I was more worried about clarity and writing for a general
public, but this book is clear, easy to read (I finished in under a day), and well
written. Nor does it miss the literary touches—I especially liked “pixels
sliding across a teleprompter,” and will certainly plagiarize the phrase
sometime in the future. This is a conservative review of the 2008 election.
Pollak is a conservative and was a McCain volunteer, so conservatives will like
the book more than liberals. Pollak calls them like he sees them, and doesn’t
hesitate to call out McCain’s and Bush’s strategic, tactical and policy errors
as much as those of Obama and the left. I highly recommend this short but very
readably history of the 2008 election, and what it means for our future.
This short collection—I read it in under two days—has
several excellent essays each worth the price of the book.
Shakedown by Ezra Levant
I read this 200-page book in two evenings. While it’s about
the Human Rights Commissions in Canada
and their assault on free speech, it’s a great warning for us, since the
statists want to restrict free speech here in the name of controlling “hate
speech,” as they define it, (and have done so on university campuses). I firmly
believe if they get the power to do so, this will all happen here. As SCOTUS
nominee Kagan said, “Free Speech has to be balanced against the societal
costs.” The HRCs in Canada
had never lost a hate speech case. If you were charged, you were found guilty
and punished. Reading how they destroyed people and businesses, I’m surprised
there was not violence. They do not have to follow any rules of evidence or due
process like a real court and accept hearsay evidence. HRC employees go on
Nazi/White Supremacist websites and make racist statements, then charge the
responders with hate speech. For one HRC, all the hate speech complaints but
two have come from one person, who is an employee, and has been awarded money
for being serially offended. I knew Canada didn’t protect free speech
like we try to do, though it’s in their charter of rights, but found the
stories in the book unbelievable. Interestingly, while they have tried many
cases of hate speech against Muslims, no case of hate speech against a
Christian has ever gone to trial. Thanks to the Levant
case and the Mark Steyn/McCalls case, covered in the book, they are making
progress in restoring the right of free speech. Among the cases covered was the
woman who couldn’t wash her hands as required by McDonalds because she had a
skin disease. For firing her, McDonalds had to pay her $50,000 in addition to
the severance and disability she had received. Another restaurant had to pay
$5k to a woman who was fired because she had hepatitis. Never mind Arizona —boycott Canada .
Kicking the Sacred Cow by James P. Hogan
Is about controversies and suppression of evidence in
science, which I have just re-read and think is a “must read.” I doubt all the
heretics and suppressed claims are true, but find it very interesting that in
supposedly “fact based” science, too often scientists who don’t agree with the
current orthodoxy are vilified, attacked and suppressed. Climategate wasn’t the
only “gate” in science.
The Innovator’s Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Healthcare
by Clayton M. Christenson.
He uses Harvard
Business School Washington —both sides—would read it.
It’s short, clear and very readable. It has excellent, short
explanations of the causes of the Great Depression, the current economic
meltdown and much else, such as federalism, the Free Market, and the origins
and economic challenges of the Welfare State. Put it on the top of your “must
read” pile.
Political Humor
If you are a political junkie, I recommend two great
collections of political humor and stories by my Senate Floor Leader, the late
Sen. John Parker: The Fun and Laugher of
Politics and If Elected, I Promise.
Both are long out of print, but you can often find them used on Amazon.com for
not much money, especially the first one, which was published in the 1970s. No,
you cannot borrow my signed copies.
DVD Recommendation: The Third Jihad
Though this video is four years old, I watched it for the
first time with friends this weekend, and highly recommend it. It is by an
American Muslim, a doctor and veteran, who loves Islam. This is, as he says,
not an anti-Islam film, but a video exposing the threat to the lives and
freedoms of everyone--not the least the millions of Muslims who are so often
the victims of the extremists-- of the radical jihads and political Islam. He
is one of the few with the courage to speak out and deserves respect and a
hearing.
The links below have
recommended books as well, including an extensive reading list on racism at the
end of my essay on the subject.
Reading list for the
war on Terror
Reading List for the
Educated Voter
Racism in America
Fiction
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
This novel was recommended in The Week news magazine by a "best books" list
contributor. I had not read anything else by the author, Edward Jones, a
Pulitzer Prize winner. It is a story of a little-known facet of American
history, Southern free black slave owners before the Civil War and
emancipation. (According to "Black Slave Owners" by Joseph Holloway
on http://slaverebellion.org/index.php?page=the-black-slave-owners,
there were 3,000 free black slave owners in New Orleans in 1860 and over 400 in
Charleston, SC in 1830.) Americans, thanks to our "education" system,
and a media and political class vested in creating a feeling of helpless
victimhood in black Americans, tend to believe that slavery was purely a
phenomenon of whites owning blacks for a few hundred years in the American
south. In fact, as Dr. Thomas Sowell points out in his excellent essay, "The
Real History of Slavery," every people were enslaved at some point, most
often by folks just like them, and every culture accepted slavery and practiced
it, until our much-maligned western culture turned against it. For example, the
Islamic Republic of Mauritania, which legally abolished slavery way back in
1981, has recently agreed with the UN to actually try to eradicate slavery.
Sowell points out that during the same period when 500,000 African slaves were
brought to what became the United
States , a million white Europeans were
kidnapped into slavery in Muslim North Africa. And there are no records of the
millions of blacks taken into slavery by Muslims. I have read that white slaves
were still being sold in Cairo
20 years after Lee surrendered to Grant. Getting a feel for this different
perspective is one reason to read this novel. But the author's ear for dialog,
eye for detail and command of the language will be the envy of other writers
and a joy to readers. He creates life stories and a sense of place that make it
had to accept that this is fiction. You can't help but believe that "this
is the way it was." So it works on many levels. The only off-kilter note
was his assertion that blacks didn't take surnames until after emancipation, a
very small quibble. This is amply refuted, along with much of the demeaning but
politically-valuable contemporary myth of blacks as helpless victims of
slavery, in The Black Family in Slavery
and Freedom. But, like that well-researched history, this novel presents
blacks in slavery as a resilient and adaptable people coping as best they could
with a great evil, and struggling to hold family together--doing a better job
than a large percentage of Americans today, despite far easier conditions. I
highly recommend it.
Blog readers may recognize Chet Nagle’s name, as I often
link to his essays, ever since a fellow Marine linked me to him. When I
discovered he had a novel out, it went on my Christmas list. I took it on a business trip last week, a
mistake as I got far less sleep than needed on a couple of nights. Nagle is a
former Navel aviator and intelligence agent in the Middle
East , and it shows in the details and his knowledge of the
subject. Plus he can grab you with his writing. This thriller is a great, but
scary read, as we will likely be facing some version of this plot in the next
decade. I sent him a critique, as he requested, but, boy I had to get picky,
down to four typos I noted, not to gush over the book. I recommend it. It would
make a great birthday gift for your Congress Critter.
The Woolsorter’s Plague by Chet Nagle
I was hooked up with Chet Nagle by a Marine buddy, via
e-mail. Though we’ve ever met in person. I’ve enjoyed our electronic
friendship. Nagle is the real deal, a former Naval Aviator and intel operative
for the CIA, who knows his stuff. I greatly enjoyed his first thriller, The Iran Covenant, so I was looking
forward to the release of his new book about a terrorist attack on Washington , DC
Lazarus Man (The Cyberhawk Series) (Volume 1) by Chet Nagle
Chet Nagle is a Naval Aviator, former CIA Agent, occasional
contributor to this blog and the author of two earlier thrillers about
terrorism, The Iran Covenant and The Woolsorter's Plague. Having loved
and recommended them, I ordered my copy of Lazarus
Man from Amazon as soon as it was available. I wasn't disappointed; this is
Nagle's best thriller so far, right out of tomorrow's headlines. I don't want
to say too much about the plot and give it away, but you can read a synopsis on
Amazon at the link. It starts with a cybercrime. The high-tech bank robber is the
good guy, the money speculator he robs is the bad guy, and the former East
German STASI Colonel sent to look for him is a worse guy. The book features
non-stop action and believable characters. I mainly read non-fiction about
politics, economics and history, but like the occasional adventure novel for
relaxation. This one doesn't disappoint. The best two words are in the title:
Volume 1.
Tom Kratman, a retired Army LtCol, has become my favorite
living science fiction author. (I have to say "living" because I have
sat at the feet of Robert Heinlein since 8th grade-, 55 years ago.) Kratman
writes military science fiction, some set in the far future (see A Desert Called Peace) and some, as with
this book, set in the very near future. Thus, having been published in 2005,
means it is now in the near past. Never-the-less, it is still as timely as
tomorrow's headlines. Briefly, the federal government has fallen into tyranny,
with de facto suspension of freedom of the press, freedom of speech and wide
spread police powers established in federal agencies. All for the "good of
the people," of course. But one state won't go along. A State of Disobedience explores the dichotomy between government
power and freedom. This is Kratman's first published novel, but it bears all
the touches of the master: believable characterization, intricate plot twists
and heart-pounding action. History buffs will delight in picking out the many
historical allusions in the book. For my health, I need about nine hours of
sleep a night--and with A State of
Disobedience finished, I can start getting it again. I highly recommend
this novel.
Caliphate by Tom Kratman
I took this scary little Science Fiction novel with me over
a weekend, visiting relatives, and stayed up very late Sunday morning finishing
it at about 4:00 am. If you like SF adventure and are worried about the future
of our world, check this one out. Kratman is a fine writer, and it was more
gripping as it went on. Set 100 years in the future, when America has become of necessity a
military empire facing the Muslim Caliphate of Europe, it lifts from today’s
headlines to create a scary buy plausible future.
A Desert Called Peace By Tom Kratman
The first of the Carrera series (se others below). Kratman
is a retired Army LtCol and a terrific author. His novels are escapism and entertainment,
but with a message for our times. I highly recommend him.
As readers of my Old Jarhead Blog know, my personal reading
is focused on history, politics and economics, professional reading on
management and healthcare. But sometimes I need a break, and nothing is better
for that than one of Tom Kratman's military science fiction novels. Of course,
Kratman is not entirely a "break" from reading about politics or the
military, but he is enthralling. Carnifex
is a sequel to A Desert Called Peace"
and like all good sequels, it can stand on its own. But if you haven't read Desert, you'll be doing yourself a favor
if you read it first. Kratman is a retired Army LtCol, and one would expect his
mastery of the feel of close infantry combat to be good. But in this book, he
shows equal understanding of war at sea and in the air. His detailed plotting
and fully believable characters will hold you through this long novel, full of
the twists and turns of a global conflict on several fronts. It is the Earth
and all our problems, including the "War on Terror," set on a distant
planet, centuries in the future. But the "War on Terror" (or perhaps
better the "War against Salafist Jihadism") on Nova Terra is
being fought by some men who are as ruthless
as hard as the terrorists in defense of family and freedom, despite the
hand-wringing of the usual collection of progressives. This is the third
Kratman novel I've read. The first was Caliphate,
which I also recommend, about the war here after a terror nuke strike on the US . I
have others waiting for when the non-fiction pile shows a little light--or the
brain needs a change of pace. One is surprised that he can turn out novels so
rapidly, at such a high quality of writing. After reading his books, rich with
his philosophy of leadership, this old Marine would have been proud to sever
under Kratman's command. Whether I would have measured up to his standards is
another question, beyond knowing at this stage of my life. Lastly, the Author's
Afterword in Carnifex is a bonus, and
worth alone what you will pay for the book. Send it to your Congresscritter.
The Lotus Eaters. By Tom Kratman
I think of Kratman's Military Science Fiction and
near-future military adventure novels as a chance to escape from a focus on
politics. I continue to be amazed at his attention to detail and knowledge of
the training and logistics that go into a successful military operation. But
they really aren't. Woven through the well-constructed plots and gripping
details are thoughts on the philosophy of war and governance that far exceed
what you can get at today's university for intellectually stimulation. But
readers so inclined can ignore them and concentrate on the story. In "The
Lotus Eaters," Kratman starts most chapters from a book that, alas, I
don't think exists, because I want to read it. It is "Historia Filosofia
Moral" published in 466 on Terra Nova, the world Kratman has created to
refight Earth's battles. Chapter 22 starts with this quote from this book:
"Neither reason nor emotion can be taken in excess. Reason, in itself and
standing alone, is a totally inadequate basis for maintaining a society. This
is, indeed, the great flaw of the intellectual--far more so than his obsession
with sex, his arrogance, and his selfishness--and why he is as much a danger to
society as an asset and an ornament. Reason cannot tell the typical voter why
he should not grant himself X largesse from the fisc when the penalty will not
be paid until generation Y, a century down the road. That necessary restraint
comes from an emotional commitment to future generations, and to the culture,
values and traditions of the society of which the voter is a part. Indeed, once
the practice of robbing the fisc is well established, reason must lead the
voter to "get mine, before it's all gone.".... These excerpts are
alone worth the price of the book, but do yourself a favor and start with the
first volume of this series, "A Desert Called Peace." ~Bob
The Amazon Legion by Tom Kratman
Lifted from today's headlines, Kratman brings the woman in
combat debate into context. People advocating for "fairness" may not
like the ugly reality, as LtCol Kratman depicts it. War is not pretty and not a
game.
The hardcover version will be released November 5th, but the
Kindle edition of this fifth installment in the "Desert of Peace" series is available now. Neither LtCol
Kratman nor Duque Carrera will think much of my self discipline. When I get a
new Kratman book, I usually save it until I need an adrenalin and mood boost
from my non-fiction reading schedule, but I started this one the day I got it.
I plead that I'm old and unwell and wanted to be sure I finished it--a Kratman
novel is not to be missed. He started his writing career at "great,"
and like a fine craftsman, gets better with each new effort. Rather than a
sequel, this book runs roughly parallel to "The Amazon Legion," no mean literary feat. Having tried my
hand at a little fiction, and had trouble keeping my main character's name
straight, I am awed by Kratman's ability to weave almost unlimited strands of
the plot together. No one writes better military fiction depicting the horror
of close combat. Even better, Kratman has as superb grasp of weapons
development, training and logistics, and manages to make them integral to the
story. For many military fiction writers, these things happen by magic, like
the six-gun in the B-western that fires 50 shots without reloading. Kratman's
novels work as adventure escapism, but are even better for people with the
interest and G-2 to think about the philosophy and morality of war, why people
fight, and the issues confronting our country today. If you have read "A Desert Called Peace" and the
other entries in the series, you will get this book. If not, do yourself a
favor and start with that.
The Rods and the Axe by Tom Kratman
Another terrific book in the Carrera series. Kratman is a
retired Army LtCol who writes military science fiction, with a very realistic
picture of war. In my view, he gets better with every book. But that may be
because this is the most recent I have read--I've loved everything by him so
far. If you haven't read any of the Carrera series, do yourself a favor and
start with A Desert Called Peace by Tom Kratman.
Countdown: The Liberators. By Tom Kratman
Well, this is a revolting development. I haven’t finished
Kratman’s excellent A Desert Called Peace
series, but got turned on to his Countdown
series, of which this is book one. Though I have both a very good military
history and an excellent political book started, this came when I needed a
little escapism. And make no mistake, this adventure fantasy is escapism. So I
started it—and finished it without taking up the others. I’ll now have to order
the next two. Sigh. If only books came with the extra time to enjoy them. I
know, and have recommended, Kratman as a writer of wonderful military science
fiction. This book is more of a thriller, set in the too-near future to really
be called SF. It is a future that is easily discernable from the converging
lines of our deteriorating civilization today. More and more, Kratman reminds
me of my favorite escapist novel writer, W.E.B. Griffin, in his terrific
characterization of people you’d like to know well, and people you’d stand in a
long line in the hot sun to get a shot at. But his plotting and presentation,
especially about planning and executing military operations are, if anything,
more detailed and authentic than Griffin ’s.
If Griffin can
be called a historical novelist, Kratman is a future=history novelist. He
understands how warriors talk, think and act. Kratman is a retired Army LtCol,
but has a terrific grasp of all aspects of war: air, land and sea. If you want
to see what an unpleasant future will look like, and what men and women of
courage will have to do to cope with the brave new world that’s, alas, coming,
you can hardly do better than to enjoy one of Kratman’s novels.
Countdown: M Day By Tom Kratman
I know, I usually give you recommendations on great
non-fiction in history, politics and economics. I’ll get back to it, have just
needed a little escapism lately. I was happily about a quarter into Victor
Davis Hanson’s excellent history of the Peloponnesian war, A War Like No Other, when this book, the second in the series, came
in the mail, along with the third one. No problem, I thought, I’ll put them in
the pile and think about what’s next after Hanson. But I was going away for the
weekend, and a paperback was easier to
Countdown: H Hour By Tom Kratman
Since I usually recommend non-fiction history, political and
economic books, I was going to skip reviewing this novel. First, I’m a little
annoyed with Kratman, in that he doesn’t seem to be able to write these things
as fast as I can read them. He was an officer, after all, and I expect a little
more attention to my edification. Second, I reviewed the first two books in
this series, so I’m running out of superlatives. If you read both of those,
chances are you will read this one without my recommendation. And while it can
stand alone, I recommend you read the series in order. But Kratman does such an
entertaining job of describing realistic military violence, and has such a
frightening, reality-based world view of how civilization is collapsing as we
watch, that I had to put in another plug. In his “Afterword” (which covers
ground he talked about in his science fiction novels, but should be read by
every American) he says he is asked if he expects things will really get as bad
as depicted in these action novels of the near future. His response is that he
expects things to get much worse—that the books only depict the early stages of
what is happening to our world. I wish I didn’t think he was right. As with his
other novels, there are some running gags, one-liners and historical and
literary quotes that make the book an especially great value.
Riding the Red
Horse [Kindle Edition]. Edited by Tom Kratman and Vox Day
This is a terrific collection of short military science
fiction and essays on war in the future that will be of interest to not only SF
fans, but those interested in how future conflicts might go. The collection is
edited by Vox Day and Tom Kratman, whose engrossing military science fiction
books I have recommended on my blog. It acknowledges its debt to Jerry
Pournelle's excellent There Will Be War anthologies,
and contains a story by that master. Short stories predominate, with setting a
few years to centuries in the future. Some of the pieces I rate as "must
reads," including "Sucker Punch" and "Battlefield
Lasers" by Eric S. Raymond," "Red Waves in the South
China Sea " by James F. Dunnigan, "War Crimes" by
Benjamin Cheah and Tom Kratman's very well thought out essay, " Learning
to Ride the Red Horse: The Principles of War." The essay that hit me
hardest was " Make the Tigers Fight: Soviet Strategy in Asia ,
1925-1975," by James D. Perry. I cannot tell how much of it is based on
fact and how much on informed speculation, but it was enraging and sickening in
turns. Unfortunately, the book is available in only a Kindle edition. Being an
antediluvian jarheadosaurus, I'm a paper and ink guy, so I had to download a
reader to my computer. However, if the upcoming cataract surgery doesn't
improve my reading, I will have to think about a Kindle, despite having five
shelves of yet-to-be-read history, economic and political books plus a dozen
novels, as I understand that like my computer the Kindle will enlarge the
print. Their plan is to put out annual anthologies. My plan is to survive to
read every one.
Fives and Twenty-Fives by Michael Pitre
This terrific novel about Marines in Iraq and later at home was
recommended to me by Col. Andy Weddington and a couple of other Marines. I
believe this is the author's first novel. A Marine Captain, he has a brilliant
future as a writer. Everything here has the ring of truth. I expect a Marine to
"get" Marines, but his great characterization extends to the Iraqis
in the story, especially their "terp." It is one of those novels
where you have trouble believing these are not real people and you want to know
more about their lives. His description of troops suffering from PTSD after the
war is deft and subtle, not heavy handed. This will take its place in war
novels with Battle Cry (WWII), Body Count and Fields of Fire (Vietnam ).
I can't recommend this tale highly
enough. Anything Pitre writes I will read. ~Bob
A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
Bonnie and I read this fine novel for a small book group we
belong to. It is set in NW Italy in WWII during 1943-45. It is the story of
Jews behind German lines, both Italian and refugees from other countries, of
the Italian people who aided them, often at the cost of their lives, and of the
brutal partisan war against the Nazis and the Italian fascists. It is also
meticulously researched--it took her seven years to finish it. The narrative is
harshly realistic, the characterization strong and the dialog sparkling.
Russell, a paleoanthropologist academic by training holds a PhD. This was her
third novel.
The Weed Agency is
a well written, well researched and insightful short novel by political pundit
Jim Geraghty, the author of the excellent (and free) e-newsletter, Morning Jolt from NRO. This is also an
enjoyable and fun read, though some parts that most readers will find hilarious
I found frustrating, because as a former five-term Massachusetts state senator, I know this is
exactly how most of the Federal and State Bureaucracies work--or don't work.
City government bureaucracies, loaded with political hacks, can be even worse.
As they say in Chicago ,
"We don't want nobody what nobody sent!" This also tells you why that
the government grows under Republican control, though just a little less than
under Democrats. (I joke that I vote Republican because the Republicans are
ruining the country, but at a slower rate.) Eventually, and likely not that far
in the future, we will hit the tipping point and collapse like the Soviet Union . Geraghty often footnotes the true life
stories that he drew upon for inspiration. I learned, for example, that here in
Wisconsin in 2004, there were 7,000 more
ballots counted in Milwaukee
than the number of actual voters. This was hidden until well after Kerry had
been certified the winner here by 11,000 votes. I was a volunteer on the Bush
campaign, but missed this report by the Milwaukee
paper--hardly conservative--that came out when it no longer mattered, along
with other reports of vote fraud. This book will open some eyes, if those who
need it take the time to read it, because it entertains while it enlightens.
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