This novel caused quite a stir in France when it was published a few years ago. The author was a well-known writer who had committed suicide in the early '90's. He had directed that it not be published until after his mother's death. Everyone assumes it was autobiographical.
A lawyer in St. Louis, a backwater town near the French-German-Swiss border drives off a road on a Tuesday night and is immediately killed. The only suspicious aspect is that the direction he was driving was the opposite of what it should have been. The police ascertain that he had lied to his wife about his Tuesday night club meetings for his entire marriage and that he had been withdrawing cash from his bank every Tuesday for as long. His high school age son finds an address in a nearby town and regretfully discovers the truth when he meets his father's lover and her charming daughter. The novel is well done and I gather that the circumstances of the life of the author are what made it a bestseller.
1.18.2019
American Kingpin: the Epic Hunt for The Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road, Bilton - B +
This book tells the absolutely fascinating story of the young man from Texas, Ross Ulbricht, who created the Silk Road, the dark-web site that sold drugs around the world. He was a brilliant physicist with a strong libertarian belief that drugs should be legalized. He created the Silk Road website on his own, and in 2011, he was off and running. Soon, the site was selling every conceivable kind of drug, weapons and was growing exponentially. It was gaining notoriety and attracting law enforcement's attention.. A young federal Homeland Security Investigations agent in Chicago and a seasoned DEA vet in Baltimore were soon trying to crack the site. Ulbricht adopted the nom de guerre of Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR) and his main security henchman and number two was Variety Jones. The expansion led to Ulbricht's commissions generating millions in Bitcoin, a currency that increased in value. The wealth was accumulating and the hackers and the government were after the site and him.
The government's first success was when a DEA team captured one of the site's administrators at his home in Utah. When DPR ascertained what had transpired, he authorized a hit on Curtis Greene, his recently captured employee. Unfortunately for DPR, the man he hired to arrange the hit was the undercover DEA agent who had made the arrest and had spent months electronically befriending DPR. At the same time, a NYC based Task Force headed by the FBI and assisted by the IRS took on the case. One of the members of the team was an IRS agent named Gary Alford. He remembered that in 1977, the year he was born, the NYPD found the Son of Sam killer through parking tickets incurred near the murder sites. Alford went looking for the equivalent of parking tickets. He dug back into the history of Silk Road and, intrigued by a post, he investigated the email address behind the ID of a blogger - RossUlbricht@gmail.com. He had found his parking ticket. In the summer of 2013, the FBI began to close in. Alford found a few more clues about Ulbricht and shared them with the FBI. The FBI confirmed that DPR had used an email name similar to one Alford had found on a server they had captured. They then learned that DHS had spoken to Ulbricht at his San Francisco apartment because he had ordered 9 fake ID's that DHS had confiscated. The apartment happened to be right around the corner from an internet cafe that the FBI believed DPR used.
The FBI tailed him for 2 weeks as the appropriate team assembled in San Francisco. It was necessary to catch him with the computer open and him logged onto the site as the 'Mastermind'. On the 1st of October, 2013, Ross settled into the local public library and logged in. As they had cracked the site, they knew when he was logged in and two FBI agents, posing a a couple, had a particularly loud argument right in front of him. As he looked away from his computer, one agent grabbed the device and a second agent grabbed Ulbright. He was tried in NYC in a federal court. His lawyer failed in an attempt to convince the jury that he was not DPR. He had been tried under a 'Kingpin' statue designed to capture and penalize mob bosses. Thus, the verdict was severe: two life sentences, plus 40 years and no chance for parole. His Samsung laptop is on public display in the Smithsonian. Thanks to Wendell for this recommendation.
The government's first success was when a DEA team captured one of the site's administrators at his home in Utah. When DPR ascertained what had transpired, he authorized a hit on Curtis Greene, his recently captured employee. Unfortunately for DPR, the man he hired to arrange the hit was the undercover DEA agent who had made the arrest and had spent months electronically befriending DPR. At the same time, a NYC based Task Force headed by the FBI and assisted by the IRS took on the case. One of the members of the team was an IRS agent named Gary Alford. He remembered that in 1977, the year he was born, the NYPD found the Son of Sam killer through parking tickets incurred near the murder sites. Alford went looking for the equivalent of parking tickets. He dug back into the history of Silk Road and, intrigued by a post, he investigated the email address behind the ID of a blogger - RossUlbricht@gmail.com. He had found his parking ticket. In the summer of 2013, the FBI began to close in. Alford found a few more clues about Ulbricht and shared them with the FBI. The FBI confirmed that DPR had used an email name similar to one Alford had found on a server they had captured. They then learned that DHS had spoken to Ulbricht at his San Francisco apartment because he had ordered 9 fake ID's that DHS had confiscated. The apartment happened to be right around the corner from an internet cafe that the FBI believed DPR used.
The FBI tailed him for 2 weeks as the appropriate team assembled in San Francisco. It was necessary to catch him with the computer open and him logged onto the site as the 'Mastermind'. On the 1st of October, 2013, Ross settled into the local public library and logged in. As they had cracked the site, they knew when he was logged in and two FBI agents, posing a a couple, had a particularly loud argument right in front of him. As he looked away from his computer, one agent grabbed the device and a second agent grabbed Ulbright. He was tried in NYC in a federal court. His lawyer failed in an attempt to convince the jury that he was not DPR. He had been tried under a 'Kingpin' statue designed to capture and penalize mob bosses. Thus, the verdict was severe: two life sentences, plus 40 years and no chance for parole. His Samsung laptop is on public display in the Smithsonian. Thanks to Wendell for this recommendation.
Energy: A Human History, Rhodes - C
As early as Elizabethan England, coal began to replace wood as the preferred fuel for heating and cooking. The demand for coal led to deeper mines, and those mines were susceptible to flooding. Relieving mines of water required power, and in the 17th century, various English and German scientists tried to harness steam. Thomas Newcomen invented a coal fired steam engine in 1712 that would pump the coal mines of the UK for two hundred years. In 1769, James Watt fabricated the first steam engine in Glasgow. The Industrial Revolution was at hand. In the early years of the next century, steam was powering railroads and a variety of mechanical devices.
Also at the end of the 18th century, the English and Scotch pursued solutions to replace the candle. Indoor gas lighting was first used in Manchester in the late 1790's. In 1807, Pall Mall was the first street in London to be lit by coal gas. Throughout the first half of the century, high quality whale sperm oil remained the standard of excellence for residential indoor lighting because of the consistency and quality of the light. As the whales' population diminished, kerosene next took preeminence. Rock oil, the early nomenclature of petroleum, was discovered in northeastern Pennsylvania in the late 1850's and would soon dominate the lighting market. In the second half of the century, decades of electrical research paid off as current now could light a room, a building and even a city.
By the beginning of the 20th century, steam, electricity and the internal combustion engine were all competing to drive the wheels of the new horseless carriages. The engine won and as auto usage surged, so did the supply of petroleum around the world. Across the industrialized world, excessive use of petroleum products in conjunction with coal fired electrical plants led to massive amounts of smog, sometimes leading to death and certainly, a deteriorating environment. In the 1960's, concern for the well-being of the planet led to a massive movement to curb the damaging effects of the energy industries of the world. We have turned to wind, the original propellant of the sail boat, along with solar and other sources of power to try to face a cleaner future. Hopefully, science will deliver it.
The author's book on the Manhattan project is one of the best I have ever read and it won a Pulitzer Prize. His excellent book on the H-Bomb was also critically honored. This brief treatise is not in that league.
Also at the end of the 18th century, the English and Scotch pursued solutions to replace the candle. Indoor gas lighting was first used in Manchester in the late 1790's. In 1807, Pall Mall was the first street in London to be lit by coal gas. Throughout the first half of the century, high quality whale sperm oil remained the standard of excellence for residential indoor lighting because of the consistency and quality of the light. As the whales' population diminished, kerosene next took preeminence. Rock oil, the early nomenclature of petroleum, was discovered in northeastern Pennsylvania in the late 1850's and would soon dominate the lighting market. In the second half of the century, decades of electrical research paid off as current now could light a room, a building and even a city.
By the beginning of the 20th century, steam, electricity and the internal combustion engine were all competing to drive the wheels of the new horseless carriages. The engine won and as auto usage surged, so did the supply of petroleum around the world. Across the industrialized world, excessive use of petroleum products in conjunction with coal fired electrical plants led to massive amounts of smog, sometimes leading to death and certainly, a deteriorating environment. In the 1960's, concern for the well-being of the planet led to a massive movement to curb the damaging effects of the energy industries of the world. We have turned to wind, the original propellant of the sail boat, along with solar and other sources of power to try to face a cleaner future. Hopefully, science will deliver it.
The author's book on the Manhattan project is one of the best I have ever read and it won a Pulitzer Prize. His excellent book on the H-Bomb was also critically honored. This brief treatise is not in that league.
1.13.2019
Transcription, Atkinson - C
This book is one that was on just about every best-of list for last year. The author is popular, esteemed and a superb writer. The rather poor grade given here is a function of a last minute turn of events that I cannot fit into the story. Perhaps, it is me who deserves the poor grade for my inability to handle modern British literature. Soon after her mother's death in 1940, eighteen-year-old Juliet goes to work for MI-5 in London. Her job is to transcribe the interviews that Mr. Toby conducts with unaware fifth columnists who believe they are meeting with a Gestapo agent. But this apparently simple task soon becomes more complicated. First, she is asked to act as a spy on some local Nazis, which she does enthusiastically out of a sense of duty, and boredom. She creates an alternative cover and spends time with British fascists. She is also asked to keep an eye on Mr. Toby by someone higher up. She never reports she saw him leave a few dead drops for a rather mysterious looking stranger. The author is famous for novels that move back and forth in time, and before we leave 1940, Juliet participates in the arrest of an American diplomat and a local fascist. We next find her in 1950 working at the BBC when she receives an anonymous threat and notices that she is being followed. It's never quite clear who is following, but it is at this point that she is unmasked as a traitor and escapes the country before the security services can bring her in. If anyone can tell me what I missed, I'd be grateful.
1.09.2019
Winter Soldier, Mason - B +
This excellent novel is set in the midst of the Great War in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Lucius Krzelewski is the sixth child of a wealthy Polish family living in Vienna. He is in his second year of medical training when the war breaks out. He is commissioned as Lieutenant Doctor and sent east. There he has the good fortune of learning all that he needs to know from Sister Nurse Margarete, a nun who has seen it all and knows how to take care of just about everything. They become an effective team managing their field hospital in a church. In their second winter, after she almost dies of fever, they became lovers. They become separated in the fog of war. He is assigned to a medical train that travels the country. He takes every opportunity to look for her, but fails. After two-and-a-half years at the front, he returns home in Feb. 1917 when one of the afflictions he observed in the east affects him. He can't sleep, screams when he does and begins to walk the streets of Vienna at night. His family's intervention affords him the opportunity to work in Vienna at a large rehabilitation hospital run by his old professor. Armistice brings new borders, conflicts and a discharge. That summer, he travels east to the Carpathians in an attempt to find Margarete. He returns to their old hospital, but it is empty.He finds her a few days later. She had done all she could to find him, but eventually gave up hope and married one of their old patients, the one they had called the winter soldier.
1.07.2019
American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, Woodard - A*
The people who settled America came from different parts of England, as well as France, the Netherlands and Spain and brought with them their own social, religious and governmental systems. They forever imprinted them on the parts of the New World they colonized. "There isn't and never has been one America." The regions of North America developed differently; they championed different goals, and honored different virtues. Some were WASP and others ethnic and pluralistic. "All of them continue to champion some idea of their founding ideals in the present day. The United States is a federation comprised of the whole or part of eleven regional nations, some of which truly do not see eye to eye with one another."
'Yankeedom' was founded by the Calvinists. Yankeedom believes in education, the possibilities of government, is accepting of immigrants, respectful of learning and strives to build a better society. It extends from New England to New York, to the northern parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and all of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and into the eastern Dakotas. 'New Netherland' is essentially NYC and the surrounding parts of NJ, LI, Westchester and Connecticut that focus on global trading, and is multi-ethnic, multi-religious, materialistic, and mercantile. It has a profound tolerance of diversity. The 'Midlands' was founded by Quakers, is pluralistic, indifferent to the role of government, speaks the standard American dialect, and is a swing vote in every national debate. It spread from southeastern Pennsylvania to southern Jersey, northern Delaware and Maryland, central Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, northern Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas. 'Tidewater' was cavalier Virginia, Maryland, southern Delaware and northeastern North Carolina. "Tidewater elites played a central role in the foundation of the US and were responsible for many of the aristocratic inflections in the Constitution, including the Electoral College and Senate." 'Greater Appalachia' was founded by the Scots-Irish who settled in southern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and the hill country of Texas. The culture is deeply committed to individual liberty and personal sovereignty. When asked their nationality or ethnicity, most people from Appalachia will say American. The 'Deep South' was founded by Caribbean slavers and extended from Charleston across the Confederacy into Texas. After losing the Civil War, it became the center of states rights, segregation, and labor and environmental deregulation. It is locked in an epic battle with Yankeedom, New Netherland and the Left Coast for the future of the country. 'New France' is Quebec province and portions of Louisiana, where the Acadians settled after the British expelled them from maritime Canada. 'El Norte' is the oldest Euro-American nation and encompasses a hundred miles north and south of the southern border. The 'Left Coast' is a Chilean shaped coastal region stretching from central California to Juneau, Alaska. It is Yankeedom's closest ally. The 'Far West' is high and dry, the region where the nation's reliance on farmer stakeholders failed because of its arid climate. It was developed by the government and large corporations. It is virtually all of the mountain time zone in America and Canada and is still semi-dependent on outside forces. 'First Nation' is the resurgent native population recovering territory mostly in northern Canada. Perhaps the most interesting observation the author makes in the introduction is that these foundational cultures have not been materially changed by immigration or migration. The newcomers tend to adapt.
The Spanish settled the southwestern US a century before the English arrived on the Atlantic coast. The wealth Spain accumulated in Latin America fueled its wars against the Protestant Reformation. A legacy of those aggressions was the hatred of the English and Dutch for the Spaniards and a weakening of Spain in Europe and America. That weakness was manifested in El Norte by the lack of centralized control of the far flung province in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.The French too preceded the English in Acadia and Quebec. New France strove to work with and assimilate the natives, leading to a society that was as much aboriginal as French by the mid-eighteenth century.
Two very distinct nations founded at the same time were Tidewater and Yankeedom. The colonization of Virginia succeeded because the ease of tobacco-growing attracted people and money. They were the Cavaliers who supported the King in the Civil War, believed in the supremacy of the established church, were aristocrats desirous of establishing a traditional feudal system and Norman, not Anglo-Saxon. Tobacco cultivation was labor intensive, and probably 80% of the colonists were indentured servants on three-year contracts. It was a society of haves and have nots who were without any political rights. Rights were earned or given and not naturally inherent. In the eighteenth century, slavery grew from 10% to 40% of the population and helped perpetuate the southern system. The Pilgrims of Plymouth and Puritans of Massachusetts, the settlers of Yankeedom, could not have been more different. Opposed to Anglicanism and hostile to privilege, they were educated, skilled, egalitarian and democratic. Everyone had rights and responsibilities in a self-governing society. This eventually led to the strongest belief in the power of government to do good. Universal public education was established in the seventeenth century. It was the seedbed of American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny.
New Amsterdam "was an unabashedly commercial settlement with little concern for social cohesion or the creation of a model society." The Netherlands itself was the commercial center of the world, home to toleration and religious freedom, known for its' great universities and diversity. The colony was founded on the same principles. It succeeded for six decades before being incorporated into the English crown by James, Duke of York. Later, as James II, he set out to impose a feudal regime on New York, New Jersey and New England and levied tobacco and sugar taxes against Tidewater and Charleston, respectively. The response was swift. In Boston, 2000 militiamen deposed the Royal Governor. Revolt claimed New York, but soon the news of the Glorious Revolution reached America, ending the revolutions of 1689.
Charleston, and the Deep South were settled by the sons and grandsons of the founders of Barbados. It "was the richest and most horrifying society in the English speaking world. Deep Southern culture was based on radical disparities in wealth and power, with a tiny elite commanding total obedience and enforcing it with state-sponsored terror." They were Anglicans, aristocrats, and brutal suppressors of an allegedly inferior race. The culture spread to the Mississippi and beyond. The Quakers settled the Midlands with a culture that was tolerant, multicultural, multilingual, religious and deeply skeptical of government. They established Philadelphia, granted the vote to all men, and encouraged the success of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Appalachia was founded by the Scots-Irish Borderlanders, a proud, independent and disturbingly violent people. They arrived in waves in the eighteenth century fleeing upheavals at home. Destitute and land hungry, they went straight to the backcountry. They spread from western Pennsylvania south in the mountains. It was said that the highlands resembled the lawless frontiers of Scotland.
The American Revolution was more of a temporary partnership against British oppression than a unified rally for freedom. The Midlands and New Netherland did not rebel at all. Yankeedom, Appalachia, Tidewater and the South had very little in common. They cooperated to overcome an existential threat. New England was unified and the first to rebel. In Virginia, it was the up-country Piedmont region with Jefferson, Washington, Madison and Mason that stood with the Yankees. Greater Appalachia knew that they wanted to go west and were more than willing to fight. The Deep South was interested in any status quo that would keep the slaves in check. The Yankees of New England chased the British out of Boston and had achieved virtual independence as the war began. NYC was the home of the British army and fleet and diametrically opposed to the war. Indeed, half the population left when independence was granted. The Deep South fought because they feared the British might attempt a slave uprising. The Tidewater gentry were in favor of revolt, but it was the Borderlanders in Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas who fought and eventually defeated the British southern strategy. A decade after hostilities ended, a series of compromises led to the US Constitution.
The America that moved west in the 18th century was led by the nations of Yankeedom, the Midlands, Greater Appalachia and the Deep South. The Yankees stayed to the north and effectively spread their culture as far west as Iowa. They emphasized their belief in education, the pursuit of the common good, a strong church, and would form the backbone of the nascent Republican party. The Midlanders spread their pluralistic society west and just south of the Yankees. "The Midland Midwest would develop as a center of moderation and tolerance, where people of many faiths and ethnicities lived side by side, minding their own business." The Midlanders were joined by hundreds of thousands of German immigrants with similar cultural orientations. Greater Appalachia spread farther and faster than the other nations and soon dominated the national government. They were rural, spurned education, didn't like taxes and deplored Yankee proselytizing. They were Jacksonian Democrats who liked their government light and individual freedom maximized. They had a bilateral relation with God in lieu of formal churches. The Deep South expanded west on the back of the burgeoning cotton trade. The southerners believed slavery was ordained by God and that their slavocracy was superior in every way to the teeming ignorant masses of the north. They believed they were Norman cavaliers and the northerners mere Anglo-Saxon serfs.
By 1830, there were twice as many illegal Americans in Texas as there were Tejanos. El Norte was about to succumb. Texas achieved independence six years later. The Mexican-American War brought the vast northern portion of Mexico into the American realm. The Left Coast was founded by Yankees who arrived from the sea. They dominated the coast north from Monterey, while the interior was settled by Appalachians arriving overland, both groups looking somewhat condescendingly on the El Norte culture to their south.
At the midpoint of the 19th century, the demographic struggle was between the Deep South and Yankeedom, neither of which could abide the other's terms, as they contended for domination of the national government. Immigration and the admission of the west coast states set the stage for the Yankees to win, leaving the south with secession as its only option. New Netherland supported the south because of their commercial ties. The Midlands were relatively ambivalent about slavery and secession. Fort Sumter turned the tide in both nations and they willing joined the Yankees. The North won, but Reconstruction essentially failed, and the Deep South was modified, but not changed.
None of the cultures that spread from the Atlantic to the middle of the continent succeeded in the Far West. Aridity and altitude prevented subsistence farming. Only the outside forces of railroads, mining companies and the federal construction of dams were able to develop and influence the region. "The region became a colonial dependency of an industrial empire." The West developed an antipathy for government, big business and Wall Street that led to decades of populist support for labor unions and the Democrats. Liberalism's turn to social issues and environmental concerns reversed that political trend in the second half of the 20th century. Today, the region is held together by its outright hostility to federal power.
The reason generations of immigrants effected, but did not change, underlying cultures, is that they primarily went to New Netherland and the Midlands, both nations multi-cultural, tolerant and respectful of diversity. Yankeedom accommodated immigration by relentlessly pursuing education, fostering the Pilgrim founding myth and emphasizing the importance of hard work.
The one thing that Reconstruction did accomplish was unifying the South against the North. Appalachia, Tidewater and the Deep South were unified in their desire to retain the antebellum society and succeeded in doing so. Their antipathy to Yankeedom's desire to improve society at their expense was absolute. The Evangelicals took over in the south and promulgated their anti-education, and anti-science philosophies. The North assumed that the fire-and-brimstone crowd would stumble over their irrational beliefs. They were wrong. Throughout the 20th century, their intolerant culture grew and prospered. Mid-century brought culture clashes to the north and the south. African-Americans rebelled and with northern assistance achieved civil rights. The youth of the north turned agains the establishment. Weakened at home, the Dixiecrat elites were unable to stop the youth movement's ideas from propagating, but they have been fighting back ever since. The latest cultural wars are an extension of this age-old split. Environmentalism is almost exclusively a northern issue. The Equal Rights Amendment, abortion and gay marriage all have distinct regional differences. The use of American military power breaks down again along the same lines. "US foreign policy is Civil War by other means."
This book was written in 2011 and states that the north and the west coast are primarily Democratic. Dixie block voters back conservatives. The two blocs have stood in near-constant monolithic opposition to each other leaving political power alternating based on the voting in the three swing nations of the Midlands, the Far West and El Norte. The Midlands straddle the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Missouri and backed FDR, Reagan and Obama. In the Far West, they voted with the northerners when they were controlled by outside interests and with the Dixiecrats for the last half a century. Recently and going forward, the Hispanics of Norteno have, and will, play a more outsized role in electoral politics. States with heavy Hispanic populations moved some purple states in the southwest into Obama's column. The author closes with the rather discouraging thought that the US likely will not hold together. And, his pessimism hasn't lived through the last eight years. He posits perhaps the various nations consolidating with their Canadian or Mexican counterparts and the disintegration of the Union. I certainly hope that not to be the case.
For me, this has been a profoundly important learning experience. A decade or so ago, I read David Hackett Fischer's 'Albion Seed' which dealt with what he called the folkways of the Puritans, Cavaliers, Quakers and the Scots-Irish. At 899 pages, he delves deeply into the culture of the four groups and discusses education, architecture, child rearing and just about anything you can think of. He is a Pulitzer winner and his book is esteemed. This book, written by a journalist, is only 314 pages and focuses on politics, covers other groups and goes further afield geographically. It was well-received, but not honored the way Fischer's book was. That said, I am not an academic and I believe this has provided me with a much better insight into our past and our present. This past fall while driving through Iowa, I asked myself how did such a far away place send soldiers to the Civil War. I learned here that they were part of the Yankee diaspora and were naturals to rally to the Union flag. We all see history through our own experiences. As a New Yorker from a blue-collar background, albeit expanded to include a mid-western upper class adulthood, I bring a worldview that is profoundly different from someone from a different culture. I fully understand that today and suggest to my friends, that this is a must read.
'Yankeedom' was founded by the Calvinists. Yankeedom believes in education, the possibilities of government, is accepting of immigrants, respectful of learning and strives to build a better society. It extends from New England to New York, to the northern parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and all of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and into the eastern Dakotas. 'New Netherland' is essentially NYC and the surrounding parts of NJ, LI, Westchester and Connecticut that focus on global trading, and is multi-ethnic, multi-religious, materialistic, and mercantile. It has a profound tolerance of diversity. The 'Midlands' was founded by Quakers, is pluralistic, indifferent to the role of government, speaks the standard American dialect, and is a swing vote in every national debate. It spread from southeastern Pennsylvania to southern Jersey, northern Delaware and Maryland, central Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, northern Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas. 'Tidewater' was cavalier Virginia, Maryland, southern Delaware and northeastern North Carolina. "Tidewater elites played a central role in the foundation of the US and were responsible for many of the aristocratic inflections in the Constitution, including the Electoral College and Senate." 'Greater Appalachia' was founded by the Scots-Irish who settled in southern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and the hill country of Texas. The culture is deeply committed to individual liberty and personal sovereignty. When asked their nationality or ethnicity, most people from Appalachia will say American. The 'Deep South' was founded by Caribbean slavers and extended from Charleston across the Confederacy into Texas. After losing the Civil War, it became the center of states rights, segregation, and labor and environmental deregulation. It is locked in an epic battle with Yankeedom, New Netherland and the Left Coast for the future of the country. 'New France' is Quebec province and portions of Louisiana, where the Acadians settled after the British expelled them from maritime Canada. 'El Norte' is the oldest Euro-American nation and encompasses a hundred miles north and south of the southern border. The 'Left Coast' is a Chilean shaped coastal region stretching from central California to Juneau, Alaska. It is Yankeedom's closest ally. The 'Far West' is high and dry, the region where the nation's reliance on farmer stakeholders failed because of its arid climate. It was developed by the government and large corporations. It is virtually all of the mountain time zone in America and Canada and is still semi-dependent on outside forces. 'First Nation' is the resurgent native population recovering territory mostly in northern Canada. Perhaps the most interesting observation the author makes in the introduction is that these foundational cultures have not been materially changed by immigration or migration. The newcomers tend to adapt.
The Spanish settled the southwestern US a century before the English arrived on the Atlantic coast. The wealth Spain accumulated in Latin America fueled its wars against the Protestant Reformation. A legacy of those aggressions was the hatred of the English and Dutch for the Spaniards and a weakening of Spain in Europe and America. That weakness was manifested in El Norte by the lack of centralized control of the far flung province in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.The French too preceded the English in Acadia and Quebec. New France strove to work with and assimilate the natives, leading to a society that was as much aboriginal as French by the mid-eighteenth century.
Two very distinct nations founded at the same time were Tidewater and Yankeedom. The colonization of Virginia succeeded because the ease of tobacco-growing attracted people and money. They were the Cavaliers who supported the King in the Civil War, believed in the supremacy of the established church, were aristocrats desirous of establishing a traditional feudal system and Norman, not Anglo-Saxon. Tobacco cultivation was labor intensive, and probably 80% of the colonists were indentured servants on three-year contracts. It was a society of haves and have nots who were without any political rights. Rights were earned or given and not naturally inherent. In the eighteenth century, slavery grew from 10% to 40% of the population and helped perpetuate the southern system. The Pilgrims of Plymouth and Puritans of Massachusetts, the settlers of Yankeedom, could not have been more different. Opposed to Anglicanism and hostile to privilege, they were educated, skilled, egalitarian and democratic. Everyone had rights and responsibilities in a self-governing society. This eventually led to the strongest belief in the power of government to do good. Universal public education was established in the seventeenth century. It was the seedbed of American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny.
New Amsterdam "was an unabashedly commercial settlement with little concern for social cohesion or the creation of a model society." The Netherlands itself was the commercial center of the world, home to toleration and religious freedom, known for its' great universities and diversity. The colony was founded on the same principles. It succeeded for six decades before being incorporated into the English crown by James, Duke of York. Later, as James II, he set out to impose a feudal regime on New York, New Jersey and New England and levied tobacco and sugar taxes against Tidewater and Charleston, respectively. The response was swift. In Boston, 2000 militiamen deposed the Royal Governor. Revolt claimed New York, but soon the news of the Glorious Revolution reached America, ending the revolutions of 1689.
Charleston, and the Deep South were settled by the sons and grandsons of the founders of Barbados. It "was the richest and most horrifying society in the English speaking world. Deep Southern culture was based on radical disparities in wealth and power, with a tiny elite commanding total obedience and enforcing it with state-sponsored terror." They were Anglicans, aristocrats, and brutal suppressors of an allegedly inferior race. The culture spread to the Mississippi and beyond. The Quakers settled the Midlands with a culture that was tolerant, multicultural, multilingual, religious and deeply skeptical of government. They established Philadelphia, granted the vote to all men, and encouraged the success of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Appalachia was founded by the Scots-Irish Borderlanders, a proud, independent and disturbingly violent people. They arrived in waves in the eighteenth century fleeing upheavals at home. Destitute and land hungry, they went straight to the backcountry. They spread from western Pennsylvania south in the mountains. It was said that the highlands resembled the lawless frontiers of Scotland.
The American Revolution was more of a temporary partnership against British oppression than a unified rally for freedom. The Midlands and New Netherland did not rebel at all. Yankeedom, Appalachia, Tidewater and the South had very little in common. They cooperated to overcome an existential threat. New England was unified and the first to rebel. In Virginia, it was the up-country Piedmont region with Jefferson, Washington, Madison and Mason that stood with the Yankees. Greater Appalachia knew that they wanted to go west and were more than willing to fight. The Deep South was interested in any status quo that would keep the slaves in check. The Yankees of New England chased the British out of Boston and had achieved virtual independence as the war began. NYC was the home of the British army and fleet and diametrically opposed to the war. Indeed, half the population left when independence was granted. The Deep South fought because they feared the British might attempt a slave uprising. The Tidewater gentry were in favor of revolt, but it was the Borderlanders in Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas who fought and eventually defeated the British southern strategy. A decade after hostilities ended, a series of compromises led to the US Constitution.
The America that moved west in the 18th century was led by the nations of Yankeedom, the Midlands, Greater Appalachia and the Deep South. The Yankees stayed to the north and effectively spread their culture as far west as Iowa. They emphasized their belief in education, the pursuit of the common good, a strong church, and would form the backbone of the nascent Republican party. The Midlanders spread their pluralistic society west and just south of the Yankees. "The Midland Midwest would develop as a center of moderation and tolerance, where people of many faiths and ethnicities lived side by side, minding their own business." The Midlanders were joined by hundreds of thousands of German immigrants with similar cultural orientations. Greater Appalachia spread farther and faster than the other nations and soon dominated the national government. They were rural, spurned education, didn't like taxes and deplored Yankee proselytizing. They were Jacksonian Democrats who liked their government light and individual freedom maximized. They had a bilateral relation with God in lieu of formal churches. The Deep South expanded west on the back of the burgeoning cotton trade. The southerners believed slavery was ordained by God and that their slavocracy was superior in every way to the teeming ignorant masses of the north. They believed they were Norman cavaliers and the northerners mere Anglo-Saxon serfs.
By 1830, there were twice as many illegal Americans in Texas as there were Tejanos. El Norte was about to succumb. Texas achieved independence six years later. The Mexican-American War brought the vast northern portion of Mexico into the American realm. The Left Coast was founded by Yankees who arrived from the sea. They dominated the coast north from Monterey, while the interior was settled by Appalachians arriving overland, both groups looking somewhat condescendingly on the El Norte culture to their south.
At the midpoint of the 19th century, the demographic struggle was between the Deep South and Yankeedom, neither of which could abide the other's terms, as they contended for domination of the national government. Immigration and the admission of the west coast states set the stage for the Yankees to win, leaving the south with secession as its only option. New Netherland supported the south because of their commercial ties. The Midlands were relatively ambivalent about slavery and secession. Fort Sumter turned the tide in both nations and they willing joined the Yankees. The North won, but Reconstruction essentially failed, and the Deep South was modified, but not changed.
None of the cultures that spread from the Atlantic to the middle of the continent succeeded in the Far West. Aridity and altitude prevented subsistence farming. Only the outside forces of railroads, mining companies and the federal construction of dams were able to develop and influence the region. "The region became a colonial dependency of an industrial empire." The West developed an antipathy for government, big business and Wall Street that led to decades of populist support for labor unions and the Democrats. Liberalism's turn to social issues and environmental concerns reversed that political trend in the second half of the 20th century. Today, the region is held together by its outright hostility to federal power.
The reason generations of immigrants effected, but did not change, underlying cultures, is that they primarily went to New Netherland and the Midlands, both nations multi-cultural, tolerant and respectful of diversity. Yankeedom accommodated immigration by relentlessly pursuing education, fostering the Pilgrim founding myth and emphasizing the importance of hard work.
The one thing that Reconstruction did accomplish was unifying the South against the North. Appalachia, Tidewater and the Deep South were unified in their desire to retain the antebellum society and succeeded in doing so. Their antipathy to Yankeedom's desire to improve society at their expense was absolute. The Evangelicals took over in the south and promulgated their anti-education, and anti-science philosophies. The North assumed that the fire-and-brimstone crowd would stumble over their irrational beliefs. They were wrong. Throughout the 20th century, their intolerant culture grew and prospered. Mid-century brought culture clashes to the north and the south. African-Americans rebelled and with northern assistance achieved civil rights. The youth of the north turned agains the establishment. Weakened at home, the Dixiecrat elites were unable to stop the youth movement's ideas from propagating, but they have been fighting back ever since. The latest cultural wars are an extension of this age-old split. Environmentalism is almost exclusively a northern issue. The Equal Rights Amendment, abortion and gay marriage all have distinct regional differences. The use of American military power breaks down again along the same lines. "US foreign policy is Civil War by other means."
This book was written in 2011 and states that the north and the west coast are primarily Democratic. Dixie block voters back conservatives. The two blocs have stood in near-constant monolithic opposition to each other leaving political power alternating based on the voting in the three swing nations of the Midlands, the Far West and El Norte. The Midlands straddle the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Missouri and backed FDR, Reagan and Obama. In the Far West, they voted with the northerners when they were controlled by outside interests and with the Dixiecrats for the last half a century. Recently and going forward, the Hispanics of Norteno have, and will, play a more outsized role in electoral politics. States with heavy Hispanic populations moved some purple states in the southwest into Obama's column. The author closes with the rather discouraging thought that the US likely will not hold together. And, his pessimism hasn't lived through the last eight years. He posits perhaps the various nations consolidating with their Canadian or Mexican counterparts and the disintegration of the Union. I certainly hope that not to be the case.
For me, this has been a profoundly important learning experience. A decade or so ago, I read David Hackett Fischer's 'Albion Seed' which dealt with what he called the folkways of the Puritans, Cavaliers, Quakers and the Scots-Irish. At 899 pages, he delves deeply into the culture of the four groups and discusses education, architecture, child rearing and just about anything you can think of. He is a Pulitzer winner and his book is esteemed. This book, written by a journalist, is only 314 pages and focuses on politics, covers other groups and goes further afield geographically. It was well-received, but not honored the way Fischer's book was. That said, I am not an academic and I believe this has provided me with a much better insight into our past and our present. This past fall while driving through Iowa, I asked myself how did such a far away place send soldiers to the Civil War. I learned here that they were part of the Yankee diaspora and were naturals to rally to the Union flag. We all see history through our own experiences. As a New Yorker from a blue-collar background, albeit expanded to include a mid-western upper class adulthood, I bring a worldview that is profoundly different from someone from a different culture. I fully understand that today and suggest to my friends, that this is a must read.
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