This book is rather hard to characterize, and is perhaps best thought of as a rambling road trip monologue with no purpose or continuity. The mountains are 720 miles from France to Slovenia and 120 miles at their widest. They separate religions, languages and culture. The author starts as he drives east from Geneva. Only in the 17th and 18th century did the beauty of the mountains overcome their fearfulness as dangerous places inhabited by 'les cretins du Alps'. Less than a day east from Geneva , we encounter the highest Alpine mountain, Mont Blanc at 16,372 feet. Climbed for the first time in the late 18th century, the mountain today is big business. The Savoyards guide 25,000 people per year to the summit. To the east lie the passes that were transversed by Hannibal, Constantine, Napoleon and many others on the way to Italy. Along the way, la Suisse becomes Scweiz as the Valais/Wallis cantonal boundary is also the site of an abrupt change of language. We drive on the road where James Bond and Auric Goldfinger raced an Aston-Martin and a gold Rolls-Royce. At last the Gotthard Pass which delineates German and Italian, lard and olive oil and is called the rosti ditch. Nonetheless, we remain in Switzerland. In a locale that the author calls Heidiland, we learn that 'Heidi' is the third most translated book after the Bible and the Koran. Southwest to Meiringen where Holmes and Moriarity had their fatal fall. West through two winter Olympics at Innsbruck and one at Garmisch-Partinkirchen, we reach Berchtesgaden and learn that today, Hitler's Eagles Nest is a tacky restaurant reached via a tourist shuttle. Back on an eastern track in Austria is Sandling, home to the dry caves where the Nazis stored their stolen works of art. On to St. Moritz and Confederation Helvetia once again, where two winter Olympics were held. What makes it truly special is that like most of the Rockies, St. Moritz receives 300 days of sun per year. Finally to Italy and the city of Trent, home of the eponymous council which denied Protestantism and become the foundation of the Counter-Reformation. The Italian Alps, specifically Caporetto, were the scene of horrific losses for Italy in its struggle with the Austro-Hungarians in the first World War. We finish in Trieste, which the author concedes is not an Alpine city, but is the resting place of the Archduke Franz-Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie. And thankfully, this pointless exercise is complete.
11.26.2017
The International Express: New Yorkers On The 7 Train, Tonnelat and Kornblum - C
I believe there have been four means of public transport that I have experienced over a thousand times. They are the Q3A bus, the IND line E, F and GG trains, the IRT elevated 7 line and the various carriers that fly in and out of O'Hare Airport. In this sociological study, the 7 line is featured because of its role in acculturating immigrants to NYC. The subways are NY's most shared public space and this is a study of how the riders affect the system and the system, the riders.
The line begins at Flushing-Main St./Roosevelt Avenue, and in the 21st century, Flushing has become the center of the largest Asian community in the city. Its streets could be assumed to be in Hong Kong, although the authors point out that parts of Flushing make Hong Kong look like Switzerland. It has been designated a National Millennium Trail deemed "emblematic of American history and culture". By itself, the 7 line would be the fourth largest transit system in the US, and it's only 19 miles long. As the train moves, it accumulates Hispanic and south Asian riders until it reaches 74th St./Roosevelt Avenue, the IND transfer point. This is where the few blacks who ride the train enter. Next come Filipinos and Koreans, followed by whites at 61st St. where there is a LIRR transfer point. The train then goes under the East River and enters Manhattan, where it becomes part of the full NYC mix.
The rider competencies required to participate must be learned by newcomers. The key competency is social order and trust among subway riders. Trust is established through "maintaining anonymity and civil inattention." No staring is the essence of subway conduct, as is avoiding touching whenever possible or practicable. Other components of appropriate behavior are cooperative mobility, minding your own business, observing not participating, not impeding mobility, and civility toward diversity. By taking in the diversity around you, you become a New Yorker and ultimately, an American.
I found this a rambling discourse about subway history, demographics and urban life. I understand that renovating the station at 74th Street and affording vendors the opportunity to sell different ethnic foods from carts that alternate during the day is fascinating, but all it tells me is that people hustle in our society. The authors rely on diaries and interviews with high school students, many of whom are new to the city. Seeing acculturation through teenage eyes is a bit of a stretch. Indeed, as I often ride underground trams in the Denver and Pittsburgh airports, the learned skills appear to me to be inherently human, as opposed to uniquely urban. I love NY, relish that I spent my formative years there, believe in its role in making Americans out of newcomers, treasure its diversity - but didn't really like this book.
The line begins at Flushing-Main St./Roosevelt Avenue, and in the 21st century, Flushing has become the center of the largest Asian community in the city. Its streets could be assumed to be in Hong Kong, although the authors point out that parts of Flushing make Hong Kong look like Switzerland. It has been designated a National Millennium Trail deemed "emblematic of American history and culture". By itself, the 7 line would be the fourth largest transit system in the US, and it's only 19 miles long. As the train moves, it accumulates Hispanic and south Asian riders until it reaches 74th St./Roosevelt Avenue, the IND transfer point. This is where the few blacks who ride the train enter. Next come Filipinos and Koreans, followed by whites at 61st St. where there is a LIRR transfer point. The train then goes under the East River and enters Manhattan, where it becomes part of the full NYC mix.
The rider competencies required to participate must be learned by newcomers. The key competency is social order and trust among subway riders. Trust is established through "maintaining anonymity and civil inattention." No staring is the essence of subway conduct, as is avoiding touching whenever possible or practicable. Other components of appropriate behavior are cooperative mobility, minding your own business, observing not participating, not impeding mobility, and civility toward diversity. By taking in the diversity around you, you become a New Yorker and ultimately, an American.
I found this a rambling discourse about subway history, demographics and urban life. I understand that renovating the station at 74th Street and affording vendors the opportunity to sell different ethnic foods from carts that alternate during the day is fascinating, but all it tells me is that people hustle in our society. The authors rely on diaries and interviews with high school students, many of whom are new to the city. Seeing acculturation through teenage eyes is a bit of a stretch. Indeed, as I often ride underground trams in the Denver and Pittsburgh airports, the learned skills appear to me to be inherently human, as opposed to uniquely urban. I love NY, relish that I spent my formative years there, believe in its role in making Americans out of newcomers, treasure its diversity - but didn't really like this book.
A Darker Sea: Master Commandant Putnam and the War of 1812, Haley - B
I commented on the first book in this series over the summer. I believe it once again proves my point about well-done historical novels. This one opens up with an impressment, a word I've seen a thousand times, but never really gave serious thought to. When set forth in a novel at length and, in this instance, done on the high seas to a US captain when his merchantman is taken for no particular reason other than the capriciousness and greed of a British officer, it truly resonates. You can understand why Great Britain's piracy led to this war. Our protagonist, Bliven Putnam, now Master Commandant, sails twice in the novel. His first is as an officer on the 'Constitution' and he narrates the legendary engagement with, and conquest of the 'Guerriere'. His second is on his own ship, the 'Tempest', which unfortunately is taken by the 'Java'. As it turns out, the 'Java' in turn is sunk by the 'Constitution' in January, 1813 and Putnam is returned home with ample time to appear again in this war.
Fierce Kingdom, Phillips - B +
You can't turn the pages fast enough and you wind up scanning in order to keep up with as fast-paced and taut a thriller as you'll find. Joan and her 4-year-old son Lincoln are finishing up at the zoo when two, maybe three, active shooters start up. Her first hiding place is the empty porcupine cage. They run, hide, are shot at and on they go running and running and hiding. All of the reviewers refer to it correctly as a one-sitting, can't-put-down read.
11.22.2017
The American Pope: The Life And Times Of Francis Cardinal Spellman, Cooney - B +
He was born in 1889 in a small town southeast of Boston to an upper-middle class family that, although Irish Catholic, had more in common with the local protestant Yankees. He attended the local public school before he went to Fordham. He was ordained in May, 1916 after completing five years at the North American College in Rome. Back in Boston, he was quickly in Cardinal O'Connell's doghouse for his lack of tact and piety. It took eleven years to escape the man who called him "a fat little liar" by ingratiating himself with old friends in Rome. Nonetheless, Spellman learned from the Cardinal how to totally immerse oneself into local politics and to become a power broker throughout your realm. He obtained a transfer to Rome, where he was appointed as liaison with the Knights of Columbus and became a fixer between rich Americans and the Vatican, currying favors on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a close friend to Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, a staunch anti-communist and the future Pius XII. Spellman returned to Boston as auxiliary bishop in 1932.
Although he continued as Cardinal O'Connell's sworn enemy, he managed to be Cardinal Pacelli's tour guide throughout a months-long trip to the US in 1936. He became close to Joe Kennedy and arranged Cardinal Pacelli's visit to see FDR at Hyde Park. In 1939, Cardinal Hayes died in NY, Pius XII was elevated and Spellman went to St. Patrick's. New York had an archbishop who charged full-speed ahead. He demanded loyalty to himself and his conservative political and social causes. He restructured the archdiocese's finances, centralized purchasing and control, refinanced all of its debt and let NY's business community know that the archdiocese would no longer be their patsy. He exerted his typical Catholic Irish suppression of human sexuality by opining about and condemning movies, books, professors at local colleges, and shows on Broadway. He exercised his deft political touch so well that it was quickly concluded that he had more power in the city than the mayor himself.
His role on the national stage was confirmed when he facilitated the exchanges between the Vatican and FDR that led to the US opening up diplomatic contact with Rome. FDR propelled him into international affairs. "For the next quarter-century, he was destined to be the celebrated prelate who blessed the crusades of the American empire..." He was appointed Vicar to the US armed forces by Pius XII and an unofficial ambassador by Roosevelt, empowered to deliver the president's messages outside of normal channels. On his first trip, he met with Franco, Pius XII, Eisenhower, Churchill, de Gaulle, de Valera, the Shah, King Farouk, and Haile Selassie. As the war wound down, both the Pope and the Archbishop knew who the real adversary was, and Roman Catholicism began the crusade against the true enemy - godless communism. Now as a Cardinal, he led the charge throughout the US, often in collaboration with Hoover, against the Reds. He had a role overseas and led American support for the Christian Democrats against the Communists in Italy's first post-war election in 1948. He began the Alfred Smith Memorial Dinner, which to this day remains a major political event and more importantly, a fundraiser for the archdiocese. He pursued an extremely conservative agenda by personally leading seminarians to Calvary Cemetery to dig graves and break a strike. He felt organized labor was susceptible to communism. He backed MacArthur when Truman relieved the general. He supported fellow Catholic McCarthy until the bitter end. He endorsed the aggressive anti-communist actions of the Dulles brothers and helped them in Latin America where he had befriended Batista, Trujillo and Somoza. He tried to get the US to provide additional help to the faltering French efforts in Vietnam. Vietnam would eventually prove his undoing, both within the church and at home. He was a supporter of the young Vietnamese Ngo Dinh Diem whom he met when Diem was a Maryknoll seminarian in Ossining in 1950. He and Joe Kennedy formed a pro-Diem lobby in Washington. He was the Catholic kingmaker throughout the hemisphere and controlled the appointment of monsignors and bishops in North and South America. He wielded vast power through the Catholic Relief Services and the the Propagation of the Faith. He appointed Fulton Sheen as director of the Propagation just as Sheen's television work took off and brought millions into the organization. In the sixteen years Sheen ran the entity, he raised $200M and refused to follow Spellman's directions on how to spend the money. On one particular matter, Sheen appealed to the Pope and prevailed, having trapped Spellman in a bald-faced lie. The Cardinal's response was, " I will get you. I will get even. It may take six months or ten years...." The cognoscenti said, "They hated each other for the love of God". He pulled the plug on Sheen's tv show. The financial position of the Propagation dropped and Sheen was asked why. He told reporters to ask Spellman about the money"since he took it." The death of Pius XII in 1958 was the beginning of the end of Spellman's run atop American Catholicism.
Angelo Roncalli, a 77-year-old progressive became JohnXXIII. The Cardinal's observation was , "He's no Pope. He should be selling bananas". The new Pope promoted Richard Cushing of Boston, Spellman's despised adversary, to Cardinal. Cushing became the Kennedy insider, while Spellman supported Nixon and fell completely out of favor. He reluctantly attended Vatican II and announced, "that no change will get past the Statue of Liberty". He was 75 in 1964 and beyond making any course adjustments. He opposed the civil rights movement and supported the war in Vietnam. He was now out of sync with not just the country but his own flock. Even the new Pope, Paul VI, was opposed to the war and spoke out against it at the UN. His local political power waned, while on a national level, LBJ befriended him. His warmongering brought on protests, even inside St. Patrick's. By the time he died on Dec. 2, 1967 he was an old man with only memories of past greatness. Few mourned the end of his era.
My earliest recollection of discomfort with the church's political role was as a young man wondering why Spellman was supporting the Vietnam War. Over the years, I have developed a deep and abiding distaste for all religions' involvement in politics. I know my beliefs are naive and fly in the face of history. My reading of the Establishment Clause leads to a conclusion that for these entities to take millions of tax-deductible dollars, along with their vast real estate tax exemptions and be so deeply political is the height of hypocrisy. This book has only furthered my feelings. Spellman was a Machiavellian extremist who wielded political power with vindictiveness and personal spite. The only slightly redeeming fact learned here is that in the 19th and early twentieth century, in the era long before the welfare state, the church provided a valuable role in delivering social services to the poor. This is a well-done interesting read, but I suspect only for those with a long history with New York and the church. I wish the author had tried to explain more about why he was such a mean-spirited little man (he was 5'5"), above and beyond ambition and deep seated anti-communism.
Although he continued as Cardinal O'Connell's sworn enemy, he managed to be Cardinal Pacelli's tour guide throughout a months-long trip to the US in 1936. He became close to Joe Kennedy and arranged Cardinal Pacelli's visit to see FDR at Hyde Park. In 1939, Cardinal Hayes died in NY, Pius XII was elevated and Spellman went to St. Patrick's. New York had an archbishop who charged full-speed ahead. He demanded loyalty to himself and his conservative political and social causes. He restructured the archdiocese's finances, centralized purchasing and control, refinanced all of its debt and let NY's business community know that the archdiocese would no longer be their patsy. He exerted his typical Catholic Irish suppression of human sexuality by opining about and condemning movies, books, professors at local colleges, and shows on Broadway. He exercised his deft political touch so well that it was quickly concluded that he had more power in the city than the mayor himself.
His role on the national stage was confirmed when he facilitated the exchanges between the Vatican and FDR that led to the US opening up diplomatic contact with Rome. FDR propelled him into international affairs. "For the next quarter-century, he was destined to be the celebrated prelate who blessed the crusades of the American empire..." He was appointed Vicar to the US armed forces by Pius XII and an unofficial ambassador by Roosevelt, empowered to deliver the president's messages outside of normal channels. On his first trip, he met with Franco, Pius XII, Eisenhower, Churchill, de Gaulle, de Valera, the Shah, King Farouk, and Haile Selassie. As the war wound down, both the Pope and the Archbishop knew who the real adversary was, and Roman Catholicism began the crusade against the true enemy - godless communism. Now as a Cardinal, he led the charge throughout the US, often in collaboration with Hoover, against the Reds. He had a role overseas and led American support for the Christian Democrats against the Communists in Italy's first post-war election in 1948. He began the Alfred Smith Memorial Dinner, which to this day remains a major political event and more importantly, a fundraiser for the archdiocese. He pursued an extremely conservative agenda by personally leading seminarians to Calvary Cemetery to dig graves and break a strike. He felt organized labor was susceptible to communism. He backed MacArthur when Truman relieved the general. He supported fellow Catholic McCarthy until the bitter end. He endorsed the aggressive anti-communist actions of the Dulles brothers and helped them in Latin America where he had befriended Batista, Trujillo and Somoza. He tried to get the US to provide additional help to the faltering French efforts in Vietnam. Vietnam would eventually prove his undoing, both within the church and at home. He was a supporter of the young Vietnamese Ngo Dinh Diem whom he met when Diem was a Maryknoll seminarian in Ossining in 1950. He and Joe Kennedy formed a pro-Diem lobby in Washington. He was the Catholic kingmaker throughout the hemisphere and controlled the appointment of monsignors and bishops in North and South America. He wielded vast power through the Catholic Relief Services and the the Propagation of the Faith. He appointed Fulton Sheen as director of the Propagation just as Sheen's television work took off and brought millions into the organization. In the sixteen years Sheen ran the entity, he raised $200M and refused to follow Spellman's directions on how to spend the money. On one particular matter, Sheen appealed to the Pope and prevailed, having trapped Spellman in a bald-faced lie. The Cardinal's response was, " I will get you. I will get even. It may take six months or ten years...." The cognoscenti said, "They hated each other for the love of God". He pulled the plug on Sheen's tv show. The financial position of the Propagation dropped and Sheen was asked why. He told reporters to ask Spellman about the money"since he took it." The death of Pius XII in 1958 was the beginning of the end of Spellman's run atop American Catholicism.
Angelo Roncalli, a 77-year-old progressive became JohnXXIII. The Cardinal's observation was , "He's no Pope. He should be selling bananas". The new Pope promoted Richard Cushing of Boston, Spellman's despised adversary, to Cardinal. Cushing became the Kennedy insider, while Spellman supported Nixon and fell completely out of favor. He reluctantly attended Vatican II and announced, "that no change will get past the Statue of Liberty". He was 75 in 1964 and beyond making any course adjustments. He opposed the civil rights movement and supported the war in Vietnam. He was now out of sync with not just the country but his own flock. Even the new Pope, Paul VI, was opposed to the war and spoke out against it at the UN. His local political power waned, while on a national level, LBJ befriended him. His warmongering brought on protests, even inside St. Patrick's. By the time he died on Dec. 2, 1967 he was an old man with only memories of past greatness. Few mourned the end of his era.
My earliest recollection of discomfort with the church's political role was as a young man wondering why Spellman was supporting the Vietnam War. Over the years, I have developed a deep and abiding distaste for all religions' involvement in politics. I know my beliefs are naive and fly in the face of history. My reading of the Establishment Clause leads to a conclusion that for these entities to take millions of tax-deductible dollars, along with their vast real estate tax exemptions and be so deeply political is the height of hypocrisy. This book has only furthered my feelings. Spellman was a Machiavellian extremist who wielded political power with vindictiveness and personal spite. The only slightly redeeming fact learned here is that in the 19th and early twentieth century, in the era long before the welfare state, the church provided a valuable role in delivering social services to the poor. This is a well-done interesting read, but I suspect only for those with a long history with New York and the church. I wish the author had tried to explain more about why he was such a mean-spirited little man (he was 5'5"), above and beyond ambition and deep seated anti-communism.
The Color of Lightning, Jiles - B
This is a solid historical novel set in Texas in the aftermath of the Civil War. The book is based on oral histories that were recorded early in the twentieth century. Britt Johnson was a free black man whose wife and two children were kidnapped by the Kiowa. The story switches back and forth between the harsh lives of the captives and Britt's pursuit to recover them. The frontier was no easy place. The author does a great job exposing the brutality of life for the nomadic Indians and their unfortunate captives. Captives who were taken young and retrieved were unable to re-adapt upon their return to civilization. Britt was famous for having recovered his family a few months after their capture. The second half of the book is about Britt's teamster business and the plight of Samuel Hammond, a Quaker in charge of the Ft. Sill Indian Bureau. As well as any history book, it tells the plight of the Indians and the incompetency of the US. The Indians needed freedom and it just was not available anymore. The conflict was, in my opinion, unavoidable, but is nonetheless always painful to read about. Britt was killed in 1871, just as the US gave up on a temporary peace policy and sent William Tecumseh Sherman to Texas.
11.15.2017
The Republic For Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction And The Gilded Age, 1865-1896, White - B+
This lengthy tome is the latest book in the Oxford History of the United States. The series was planned in the 1950's by C. Vann Woodward and Richard Hofstadter. The first book was published in 1982. This is the ninth of twelve planned. They have not been in any particular order and two of the remaining three are about the colonial and revolutionary eras. Of those published to date, one has been about foreign policy, one about the Civil War and the rest cover epochs spanning 16 to 33 years. Three volumes received Pulitzers, one a Parkman and one a Bancroft.
"How the United States at the end of the nineteenth century turned out to be so different from the country that Lincoln conjured and Republicans confidently set out to create is the subject of this book." The martyred Lincoln was returned to the Midwest and it is the Midwest that dominates this era. Its people and mores are central to the story of the balance of the century. The guiding premise of the midwesterners was that free men working on their own behalf could build a home and raise a family steeped in the values of Lincoln and Springfield, Illinois.
Reconstruction stumbled out of the block because there was no plan per se, there was great uncertainty about what powers the federal government had after the war ended, and the new president was a border state Democrat. The South had been defeated, but the vast majority of southerners did not accept that outcome. The Black Codes passed in 1865 practically re-enslaved the freedmen. For many in the north, the passage of the 13th Amendment freeing the slaves was in and of itself the achievement of their goals. The markets would resolve all else. When Congress returned to Washington in December 1865, the Radical Republicans had different plans. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment followed, but to no avail. On the ground in the south, violence against the former slaves continued unabated. The impeachment of Andrew Johnson was the climactic battle between the Republicans and the southerners. By the time Grant was elected, most of the seceding states were back in the union. Reconstruction had achieved its legal goals, but not its practical ones. The blacks were now in a coercive labor system where they were tied to the land by contract. The 15th Amendment soon followed, but voting in the south was hope and not a reality for the freedman.
The author calls the conquest of the west the Greater Reconstruction. To facilitate the remaking of the west, the government authorized the transcontinental railroads, funded them by giving the various railroads 125 million acres of land, offered land and education to any settler who moved west and ordered the army to move the Indians out of the way. To a great extent, the west was conquered with the values of the midwest as a guide. But the path was torturous, as the Indians did not cooperate and the arid land west of the 100th parallel could not sustain the population density of the eastern half of the country. Massive ranches and farms took the place of smallholders and huge mining companies produced an overabundance of minerals for an economy that did not need all that was produced. Once again, ideals did not come to fruition.
In the first Grant administration, "free labor seemed to be working as intended, producing widespread prosperity and republican homes." Small factories as well as larger ones propelled the economy forward. However, there were chinks in the armor. The Republican desire to project their values of Protestantism, home and free labor ran afoul of the masses of immigrants pouring into the urban east. Many were Catholic and sold their labor by the hour. Wage labor was anathema to the Republican ideal, as was the eight-hour day and laborers "cooperating for mutual protection." Then came the Panic of 1873, which had as many international moving parts and unintended consequences as did our recent Great Recession. It featured countless closed businesses and banks, massive unemployment, foreclosures, the bankruptcy of most of the railroads, the first ever closure of the NYSE, and a depression that lasted five-and-a-half years. The Panic introduced a deflation that would haunt farmers for the balance of the century. "This was not the anticipated outcome of the triumph of free labor and contract freedom." The nation approached the centennial both divided and financially weaker that it had been before the war.
Rutherford B. Hayes succeeded Grant by promising the southerners on a special Electoral Commission that he would not enforce Reconstruction, thus breaking an apparent tie in the Electoral College. The Great Strike of 1877 started that summer on the Pennsylvania R.R. A feeder line's president declared a 10% dividend the same day he cut workers' wages 10%. The strike spread throughout Maryland and Pennsylvania, led to violence and destruction of company property and was met by all of the powers the railroads and the states could muster. Private militias were called out and the strikers fired upon. When this led to a general strike in Chicago, Hayes ordered in federal troops. Capital triumphed. The following decade elected Garfield and then Cleveland, the first Democrat in thirty years. The south remained walled-off economically, virtually free of immigrants, as the north and west grew. The political waters were muddied by issues of religious reforms, extreme anti-Chinese policies in California, public education, paper v metallic-based currency, negro emigration, tariff policy, endemic public corruption and civil service reform. The overcrowding of cities led to a decline in the health of the population. Life expectancy and adult height declined between the war and the end of the century. Air pollution joined dysentery, tuberculosis and malaria as the curses of urban America. Concurrently, the same cities were building skyscrapers, piping in clean water and electrifying transportation.
On May Day in 1886, a nationwide general strike far exceeded that of a decade earlier. "More than 600,000 American workers walked out of shops, factories and work sites." It was led by the Knights of Labor, a combination labor union and benevolent association that included anarchist laborers on the left and the Society of Locomotive Engineers on the right. At issue were both wages and work rules. Safety improvements were paramount in an industrial society that killed thousands per year. Chicago became the center of what is known as the Great Upheaval. Anarchists helped organize the rally that led to The Haymarket Riot, which frightened so many that the labor movement began to split. Reformers took to trying to sway the major political parties, but did so inconclusively. Whether it be tariff reform, public v Catholic education, temperance, women's suffrage, the status of immigrants, the power of the railroads or the many issues in the test between capital and labor, there were simply too many conflicts within America society to find common ground. Both parties floundered.
In the west, the government intervened aggressively and continually to correct mistakes previously made. "Nowhere was this truer than in the cattle industry." It was a heavily subsidized corporate industry that failed disastrously. It was financed from the UK, provided free land to graze upon by the US and shipped east in federal and state subsidized railroads. After a brutal winter that killed much of the herds in the northern plains, the federal government pulled the plug and tried to focus on smaller ranchers. For the American Indian, the closing of the frontier meant the end of their life on the plains and any hope for the future. Reduced to a handful of reservations on which they could barely scratch out a subsistence living, their last attempt at fighting back ended at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, ironically, at the hands of the 7th Cavalry.
The 1890's were not a preamble to the 'American Century', but rather a seemingly endless morass of insoluble problems. It saw an America that "doubted both the country's ability to absorb immigrants and whether the new immigrants were absorbable." The country on the whole had not yet absorbed and accepted its Germans and Irish. Italians from the southern half of the peninsula and Jews from Russia horrified the natives. Throughout the south, lynchings were up and the Jim Crow laws were enacted. Women were seeking rights, particularly the right to vote. Although the Columbian Exposition showed off Chicago and America in a bright light, the Panic of 1893 followed. Once again, the US imported a credit crisis from Europe, leading to railroad and bank failures and another depression. Labor troubles, strikes and boycotts followed. The US government which had failed for decades to protect the blacks in the south, never hesitated to protect the interests of the railroads, steel mills and manufacturers of the north and midwest. "The century was closing with a mad and seemingly destructive rush." The last election contested by a Civil War veteran was won by McKinley in 1896. It was a triumph of Republican activist government over Democratic minimalism and cast the die for the next thirty-six years.
Lincoln could not have envisioned his country three decades after his death. He and his memory were iconic. However, the land of small town Protestantism featuring free labor and the primacy of the individual home was no long center stage. Jane Addams wondered what he would think about the immigrants crowding around her Hull House in downtown Chicago as she looked at his statue in Lincoln Park. She wrote that he had secured "democratic government, associated as it is with all the mistakes and shortcomings of the common people, still remains the most valued contribution America has made to the moral if of the world."
I've taken away a clearer understanding of the issues that dominated the especially , how and why that Springfield ideal clashed with the reality of those immigrants who stayed in the northern cities. The author's focus on this theme has helped me understand how the battle between those with economic power and the unskilled laborers they needed to implement the industrial revolution would continue for generations.
"How the United States at the end of the nineteenth century turned out to be so different from the country that Lincoln conjured and Republicans confidently set out to create is the subject of this book." The martyred Lincoln was returned to the Midwest and it is the Midwest that dominates this era. Its people and mores are central to the story of the balance of the century. The guiding premise of the midwesterners was that free men working on their own behalf could build a home and raise a family steeped in the values of Lincoln and Springfield, Illinois.
Reconstruction stumbled out of the block because there was no plan per se, there was great uncertainty about what powers the federal government had after the war ended, and the new president was a border state Democrat. The South had been defeated, but the vast majority of southerners did not accept that outcome. The Black Codes passed in 1865 practically re-enslaved the freedmen. For many in the north, the passage of the 13th Amendment freeing the slaves was in and of itself the achievement of their goals. The markets would resolve all else. When Congress returned to Washington in December 1865, the Radical Republicans had different plans. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment followed, but to no avail. On the ground in the south, violence against the former slaves continued unabated. The impeachment of Andrew Johnson was the climactic battle between the Republicans and the southerners. By the time Grant was elected, most of the seceding states were back in the union. Reconstruction had achieved its legal goals, but not its practical ones. The blacks were now in a coercive labor system where they were tied to the land by contract. The 15th Amendment soon followed, but voting in the south was hope and not a reality for the freedman.
The author calls the conquest of the west the Greater Reconstruction. To facilitate the remaking of the west, the government authorized the transcontinental railroads, funded them by giving the various railroads 125 million acres of land, offered land and education to any settler who moved west and ordered the army to move the Indians out of the way. To a great extent, the west was conquered with the values of the midwest as a guide. But the path was torturous, as the Indians did not cooperate and the arid land west of the 100th parallel could not sustain the population density of the eastern half of the country. Massive ranches and farms took the place of smallholders and huge mining companies produced an overabundance of minerals for an economy that did not need all that was produced. Once again, ideals did not come to fruition.
In the first Grant administration, "free labor seemed to be working as intended, producing widespread prosperity and republican homes." Small factories as well as larger ones propelled the economy forward. However, there were chinks in the armor. The Republican desire to project their values of Protestantism, home and free labor ran afoul of the masses of immigrants pouring into the urban east. Many were Catholic and sold their labor by the hour. Wage labor was anathema to the Republican ideal, as was the eight-hour day and laborers "cooperating for mutual protection." Then came the Panic of 1873, which had as many international moving parts and unintended consequences as did our recent Great Recession. It featured countless closed businesses and banks, massive unemployment, foreclosures, the bankruptcy of most of the railroads, the first ever closure of the NYSE, and a depression that lasted five-and-a-half years. The Panic introduced a deflation that would haunt farmers for the balance of the century. "This was not the anticipated outcome of the triumph of free labor and contract freedom." The nation approached the centennial both divided and financially weaker that it had been before the war.
Rutherford B. Hayes succeeded Grant by promising the southerners on a special Electoral Commission that he would not enforce Reconstruction, thus breaking an apparent tie in the Electoral College. The Great Strike of 1877 started that summer on the Pennsylvania R.R. A feeder line's president declared a 10% dividend the same day he cut workers' wages 10%. The strike spread throughout Maryland and Pennsylvania, led to violence and destruction of company property and was met by all of the powers the railroads and the states could muster. Private militias were called out and the strikers fired upon. When this led to a general strike in Chicago, Hayes ordered in federal troops. Capital triumphed. The following decade elected Garfield and then Cleveland, the first Democrat in thirty years. The south remained walled-off economically, virtually free of immigrants, as the north and west grew. The political waters were muddied by issues of religious reforms, extreme anti-Chinese policies in California, public education, paper v metallic-based currency, negro emigration, tariff policy, endemic public corruption and civil service reform. The overcrowding of cities led to a decline in the health of the population. Life expectancy and adult height declined between the war and the end of the century. Air pollution joined dysentery, tuberculosis and malaria as the curses of urban America. Concurrently, the same cities were building skyscrapers, piping in clean water and electrifying transportation.
On May Day in 1886, a nationwide general strike far exceeded that of a decade earlier. "More than 600,000 American workers walked out of shops, factories and work sites." It was led by the Knights of Labor, a combination labor union and benevolent association that included anarchist laborers on the left and the Society of Locomotive Engineers on the right. At issue were both wages and work rules. Safety improvements were paramount in an industrial society that killed thousands per year. Chicago became the center of what is known as the Great Upheaval. Anarchists helped organize the rally that led to The Haymarket Riot, which frightened so many that the labor movement began to split. Reformers took to trying to sway the major political parties, but did so inconclusively. Whether it be tariff reform, public v Catholic education, temperance, women's suffrage, the status of immigrants, the power of the railroads or the many issues in the test between capital and labor, there were simply too many conflicts within America society to find common ground. Both parties floundered.
In the west, the government intervened aggressively and continually to correct mistakes previously made. "Nowhere was this truer than in the cattle industry." It was a heavily subsidized corporate industry that failed disastrously. It was financed from the UK, provided free land to graze upon by the US and shipped east in federal and state subsidized railroads. After a brutal winter that killed much of the herds in the northern plains, the federal government pulled the plug and tried to focus on smaller ranchers. For the American Indian, the closing of the frontier meant the end of their life on the plains and any hope for the future. Reduced to a handful of reservations on which they could barely scratch out a subsistence living, their last attempt at fighting back ended at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, ironically, at the hands of the 7th Cavalry.
The 1890's were not a preamble to the 'American Century', but rather a seemingly endless morass of insoluble problems. It saw an America that "doubted both the country's ability to absorb immigrants and whether the new immigrants were absorbable." The country on the whole had not yet absorbed and accepted its Germans and Irish. Italians from the southern half of the peninsula and Jews from Russia horrified the natives. Throughout the south, lynchings were up and the Jim Crow laws were enacted. Women were seeking rights, particularly the right to vote. Although the Columbian Exposition showed off Chicago and America in a bright light, the Panic of 1893 followed. Once again, the US imported a credit crisis from Europe, leading to railroad and bank failures and another depression. Labor troubles, strikes and boycotts followed. The US government which had failed for decades to protect the blacks in the south, never hesitated to protect the interests of the railroads, steel mills and manufacturers of the north and midwest. "The century was closing with a mad and seemingly destructive rush." The last election contested by a Civil War veteran was won by McKinley in 1896. It was a triumph of Republican activist government over Democratic minimalism and cast the die for the next thirty-six years.
Lincoln could not have envisioned his country three decades after his death. He and his memory were iconic. However, the land of small town Protestantism featuring free labor and the primacy of the individual home was no long center stage. Jane Addams wondered what he would think about the immigrants crowding around her Hull House in downtown Chicago as she looked at his statue in Lincoln Park. She wrote that he had secured "democratic government, associated as it is with all the mistakes and shortcomings of the common people, still remains the most valued contribution America has made to the moral if of the world."
I've taken away a clearer understanding of the issues that dominated the especially , how and why that Springfield ideal clashed with the reality of those immigrants who stayed in the northern cities. The author's focus on this theme has helped me understand how the battle between those with economic power and the unskilled laborers they needed to implement the industrial revolution would continue for generations.
The Killing:Uncommon Denominator, Dionne - B
The author is an accomplished crime writer who has apparently acquired the characters from the AMC series 'The Killing' and has written a prequel. Holder and Linden are not yet partners when Holden catches a case that involves two dead brothers, both of whom are brilliant and just discovered they have a rare almost always fatal kidney disorder. Tie in a half-brother stalking them, a whole lot of meth heads, cookers and tweakers, and you have a fun quick read.
Shadow Man, Drew - B
This is a thoughtful police procedural focused on child molestation. A young man, abused and kept in a cellar for six years, grows up to be a serial killer. A high school coach abuses and messes up the lives of his young athletes, one of whom grows up to be the local detective. The most interesting aspect though is that it is set in Orange County, California in the mid-eighties, just as the final touches of civilization are being built. The detective is a third-generation local with memories of his father and he riding horses down to the beach until the PCH was built twenty years earlier.
11.09.2017
The Sum Of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class, Currid-Hacklett - B-
The starting point of this economic/sociological assessment is Thorstein Veblen's 1899 book 'The Theory of the Leisure Class', which introduced the concept of conspicuous consumption and which the author states is one of the most important economic books ever written. The most famous example of said conspicuousness is the use of a silver spoon, when a mass-produced steel one looked just as good and performed the same function for a fraction of the price. That conspicuous consumers were of the upper class almost goes without saying. Fast forward through a century of mass production and the expansion of the consumer goods society to the creation of a new dynamic - where a meritocracy is focused on knowledge and culture, and is "less clearly defined by economic position."
"A shared set of cultural practices and social norms" defines the aspirational class. They buy electric cars, organic food and breastfeed their young. On the road to proving the case re the aspirer's, the author turns to 'inconspicuous consumption' and defines it as 'the source of the new class divide." The inconspicuous consumers focus on investing in their children through extensive pre-natal care, breastfeeding, nannies, private education and lessons of all kinds. They eat kale and quinoa salads, while quoting Paul Krugman's op-ed pieces in the Times. They stream on Netflix and Hulu most likely in a culturally rich urban neighborhood.
I understand that one does not need to be wealthy to care for your young, read the New Yorker or prefer kale slaw, but almost everything the author characterizes as inconspicuous requires money. It may not be flashy consumption, but I do not see the differences between today's indulgence and the aforementioned silver spoon. A $75,000 per person National Geographic tour of the Galapagos and Antarctica is hardly a vacation for 99.9% of this country. The author's case is not made in my book. I believe the preferred argument is that the now highly-educated have joined the wealthy of the past to do things differently than the masses. It also seems as if she is discussing the divide between blue and red sate America, without ever mentioning politics.
"A shared set of cultural practices and social norms" defines the aspirational class. They buy electric cars, organic food and breastfeed their young. On the road to proving the case re the aspirer's, the author turns to 'inconspicuous consumption' and defines it as 'the source of the new class divide." The inconspicuous consumers focus on investing in their children through extensive pre-natal care, breastfeeding, nannies, private education and lessons of all kinds. They eat kale and quinoa salads, while quoting Paul Krugman's op-ed pieces in the Times. They stream on Netflix and Hulu most likely in a culturally rich urban neighborhood.
I understand that one does not need to be wealthy to care for your young, read the New Yorker or prefer kale slaw, but almost everything the author characterizes as inconspicuous requires money. It may not be flashy consumption, but I do not see the differences between today's indulgence and the aforementioned silver spoon. A $75,000 per person National Geographic tour of the Galapagos and Antarctica is hardly a vacation for 99.9% of this country. The author's case is not made in my book. I believe the preferred argument is that the now highly-educated have joined the wealthy of the past to do things differently than the masses. It also seems as if she is discussing the divide between blue and red sate America, without ever mentioning politics.
The Midnight Line, Child - B +
The fall trifecta - Grisham, Connelly and Child. This is the latest Reacher and, like our protagonist, things are slowing down a bit. Jack no middle name has to be pushing 60. That didn't stop him early in this book from taking on seven bikers, but the truth is the pace, tension, frenetic motion, etc. has slackened. Somewhere in Wisconsin, Reacher comes across a West Point Class of 2005 ring in a pawn shop. It's very small and he concludes that any gal who got through the academy in the four years after 9/11 had to be as tough as nails and in trouble to let the ring go. He follows the trail to S.D., then to Wyoming, and he eventually pairs up with a former FBI agent working as a private investigator. Eventually the investigator's client, the drop-dead gorgeous twin of the missing army officer, joins the team. They find the sister, who on her fifth combat tour had an IED blow up in her face and, needless to say, is no longer gorgeous. She's also addicted to pain meds and living very far off the grid in Wyoming. The DEA is hot on the trail of the dealers and the network doing business in the area. Reacher leads the way in wrapping up the group dealing drugs and helps the officer get back to getting some help for her injuries.
Child seldom deals with sensitive topics and here he combines the trauma of a wounded combat vet with the opioid crisis. It feels like a new direction for Reacher. The book is dedicated to the almost two million Americans who have received Purple Hearts.
Child seldom deals with sensitive topics and here he combines the trauma of a wounded combat vet with the opioid crisis. It feels like a new direction for Reacher. The book is dedicated to the almost two million Americans who have received Purple Hearts.
11.05.2017
Rogue Heroes: The History Of The SAS, Macintyre - B+
Britain's Special Air Service was the first special ops force put into combat by a major conventional military. The concept, conceived in Cairo, was predicated on getting behind German lines on the desert side and from there, launching raids on airbases and supply depots. Desirable recruits would be self-reliant individualists, not biddable yes-men. Indeed, the organization specialized in eccentrics. In late 1941, they launched their first mission. They parachuted into the night in the middle of almost hurricane conditions. It was a total failure, as over half of the men were lost. On their next mission, driven to their objectives by the Long Range Desert Group, they met with spectacular success, as they destroyed planes and airfields hundreds of miles behind Rommel's front line. They continued in the new year and launched successful mission after mission. The western half of the Sahara where the war was fought stretched 1200 miles from Tunisia to the Nile and a thousand miles south of the Mediterranean. The Afrika Korps and the 8th Army seldom ranged far from the coast. There was ample room to travel, strike anywhere, and then slip away. Over the course of 1942, their tactics evolved from surreptitiously sticking explosives by hand on planes to blasting their way onto airbases driving Jeeps with three fighter plane guns bolted on. On one of their raids, a British Army reporter went along. After Randolph Churchill told his dad about the SAS, the PM asked to meet their commander . After a dinner in Cairo, Winston quoted Byron, "He was the mildest mannered man / That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat." Churchill later called Maj. David Sterling the Scarlet Pimpernel, and wholeheartedly supported the SAS. The SAS finished the desert war in fine form and with the respect of the once skeptical army establishment.
The SAS next saw action in Sicily and on the Italian mainland. Their assignments were more of a commando nature, such as attacking artillery batteries before an invasion, and were not to the liking of the men, who had grown accustomed to night raids. Also, they were now facing Hitler's order that commandos were to be shot upon capture and not treated as POW's. They fought in France behind enemy lines with the Resistance and with the SOE (Special Operations Executive), Churchill's spies and infiltrators. They crossed the Rhine in March of 1945 and fought on German soil. They helped take a submarine base, liberated Bergen-Belsen and were part of the occupation of Norway, where 300,000 Wehrmacht troops had to be processed. Their war was over. The SAS was officially disbanded in September.
This is superb book, but it lost some of its sparkle after Africa. The European story lacks the verve of their time in the desert. One delightful aspect of this book, though, is that the raiding stories were the basis of quite a few English movies.
The SAS next saw action in Sicily and on the Italian mainland. Their assignments were more of a commando nature, such as attacking artillery batteries before an invasion, and were not to the liking of the men, who had grown accustomed to night raids. Also, they were now facing Hitler's order that commandos were to be shot upon capture and not treated as POW's. They fought in France behind enemy lines with the Resistance and with the SOE (Special Operations Executive), Churchill's spies and infiltrators. They crossed the Rhine in March of 1945 and fought on German soil. They helped take a submarine base, liberated Bergen-Belsen and were part of the occupation of Norway, where 300,000 Wehrmacht troops had to be processed. Their war was over. The SAS was officially disbanded in September.
This is superb book, but it lost some of its sparkle after Africa. The European story lacks the verve of their time in the desert. One delightful aspect of this book, though, is that the raiding stories were the basis of quite a few English movies.
Another Life Another Time, Persson - B-
Leif Persson is considered the godfather of Nordic noir and an excellent writer. This is a book from about fifteen years ago that deals with a crime with a political backdrop. A murder in the early nineties is investigated and no suspect is found. The cold case is looked into in conjunction with Sweden's law that placed a twenty-five year statute of limitations on all crimes, even murder. It appears as if the victim was one of the four Swedes who helped the Badder-Meinhoff Gang's 1975 attack on the German Embassy in Stockholm. Three of the four suspected of assisting the terrorists are dead. Is it possible the fourth is an official about to be appointed to the highest level of government? Is there a tie-in to the Stasi files released and sold in the early-nineties? This is an ok read, but certainly not worth the efforts of anyone who sees these comments.
Two Kinds Of Truth, Connelly - B+
Michael Connelly is still writing superb Harry Bosch novels and his latest just came out. Bosch works a case in his new place of employment, the San Fernando PD, and is called back into one of his first cases on the LAPD twenty-nine years ago. The new case is rather timely, as it details the ins and outs of the opioid/oxycontin game as played for profit by a gang of Russians in the California desert. The LA case is an attempt by a sleazy lawyer to open up a death row case by faking evidence and calling Harrys integrity into question. Needless to say, the Russians and the lawyer are brought to justice.
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