Winter War: Hoover, Roosevelt, And The First Clash Over The New Deal, Rauchway - B

                                         This book is about the four months between FDR's election and inauguration. Hoover believed the country had made a huge mistake and continued his campaign against Roosevelt's new ideas. "In their different ways, during the Depression winter that followed the 1932 election, both Roosevelt and Hoover thought the American experiment now faced its greatest threat since the secession winter that followed the 1860 election. The conflict between them, and the traditions of liberalism and conservatism they established, remain central to US politics today. The election did not decide the outcome of this contest, but only began it."  Late on election night, Nov. 8th, Hoover conceded the election, but neither he nor his aides were willing to stop trying to make their case.  He invited Roosevelt for a conference at the White House, hoping to entrap FDR into supporting Hoover's intent to extend the debt moratorium for the Europeans. The wily Roosevelt could not and would not be pinned down, although the President thought FDR had agreed with his proposal.  Hoover later told his aides, "I'm going to lay off for six or eight months and then I'm going to start raising hell." They clashed during the lame duck session of Congress when Hoover proposed a balanced budget and a regressive sales tax. The progressives in Congress, encouraged by FDR, rejected the proposals. Roosevelt asked for a briefing on international affairs from outgoing Secretary of State Henry Stimson and Hoover refused. Stimson and others in the State Dept. insisted and the president eventually allowed it, but only if FDR asked first. After a January meeting at the White House, Hoover said, "I never will be photographed with him. I have too much respect for myself." As banks began to fail in the new year, Hoover stuck to the Republican theory of letting weak banks fail and FDR encouraged intervention to save the system. "The difference between them, forged in this crisis, would define their political descendants' attitudes toward banking and monetary policy for decades to come."  As his term wound down, the president hoped that the bank crashes would come after he was out out of office.  In February, Hoover withdrew his own personal money from banks and told FDR that the bank runs were his fault because people didn't believe in the New Deal and that he should renounce it. On the actual day of FDR's inauguration, Congress unanimously approved all cabinet appointments and Benjamin Cardozo swore them all in at the White House later in the day. The 100 Days followed and thus began the longest, and one of the most successful, presidencies in American history. Hoover spent the next thirty years talking down the New Deal and paving the way for the rightward tilt of the GOP.                                                                                                                                           This is a far from great book. Over a third of it is spent on various domestic topics where the two men clearly disagreed, but the author does not point to any particular dispute during the four months in question. It does however take Hoover to task for his hate-mongering, further relegating him to the dustbin of history.

                                                   

The New Girl, Silva - B

                                         This is the second summer in a row where I believe the author has stumbled. This year's novel does not fit the pattern we're used to and is so tied into current affairs that it feels like a political lecture rather than an espionage novel. Gabriel spends most of the story working with, befriending and exchanging jibes with the heir to the Saudi throne. They team up in a master counter-espionage operation against Vladimir Putin. I guess it is time for summer reads.

The British Are Coming: The War For America, Lexington To Princeton, 1775 - 1777, Atkinson - B +

                                               In June of 1773, George III traveled to Portsmouth to review the most powerful navy in the world. The thirty-five-year old king reigned over the world's most prosperous nation, the nation that had created an empire to rival Rome's. Nonetheless, there was much to worry about; Britain was deeply indebted after the Seven Years War, and America was increasingly a problem. The colonists were better educated and freer than their compatriots in Britain, they were armed to the teeth and knew how to fight, and even though their tax burden was one-fiftieth of a Britons', they were fiercely opposed to "taxation without representation." The Boston Tea Party both angered and threatened the mother country. Britain had to assert authority over the unruly colonies or risk losing the burgeoning empire.  In early 1775, Parliament voted to suppress the rebellion in Massachusetts. The Royal Navy blockaded the port of Boston. "What became known as the American Revolution was an improvised struggle between two peoples of a common heritage, now sundered by diverging values and a conflicted vision of a world to come."
                                                The colonists were not pleased and began organizing committees of public safety, drilling militias, establishing colonial legislatures and setting up a Continental Congress in Philadelphia. In the Bay Colony in particular, arms were stockpiled as the people planned for hostilities. On April 14, 1775, orders from London reached Gen. Gage in Boston "to arrest and imprison the principal actors and abettors in the provincial  legislature." Gage ordered a strike on the depots rumored to be in Concord 16 miles west of Boston. On the morning of April 19th, the British regulars started marching west, preceded in the night by William Dawes and Paul Revere alerting the countryside. The first exchange of fire at Lexington Common was to the Britains advantage. They destroyed supplies in Concord, and sent men further west where they were met by the fire of colonial minutemen. The British fell back, and began to march to Boston.  Colonists were concealed everywhere, and soon "a running gun battle began in earnest." Thousands of men were firing on the British. A sixth of the regulars who had  marched in the morning were casualties. The British rule in Massachusetts now stopped at the Boston city line.  The war for American independence had begun. The makeshift army cut off Boston and Gage decided to fight his way out. He selected the Charleston peninsula as his means and began ferrying men there on June 17th. The Yanks had already constructed entrenchments across the width of the peninsula at Bunker Hill. About 2,600 Britons attacked almost 4,000 rebels late in the day. The British carried the day, but their casualties were fully one-eighth of the total for the ensuing multi-year war. The victory was Pyrrhic and the casualty list shocked the UK. In July, the newly-named Continental Army welcomed Gen. George Washington as its new commander and the British replaced Gage with William Howe. Without any access to food on the land and loyalist fishermen repeatedly harassed by colonists, the British situation declined over the summer and into the fall. Moving the army to New York by sea appeared to be the solution.
                                              That summer, Congress sanctioned an invasion of Canada. The province, historically French and Catholic, as well as formerly allied with the Indians, was looked upon with distaste. Colonial militias under Col. Benedict Arnold had captured Ft. Ticonderoga and Crown Point, paving the way for a rag-tag army to capture Montreal. One hundred and forty-four miles to the east though, Quebec remained unconquered. A small force under Arnold had marched north through Maine to reach the St. Lawrence. An exhausted and diminished group of rebels ascended to the Plains of Abraham on Nov. 12 by the same route Wolfe had a decade-and-a-half earlier. They were reinforced by the conquerors of Montreal, but were less than 1,000 men. They were beset by smallpox and the Canadian winter, while the British were securely and comfortably defending their fortifications. The attack on the 31st of December failed within minutes and the year ended with Quebec secure in the crown's hands.
                                               The winter saw Boston besieged, with the British virtually starving and the colonists living off the fat of the land. In March, Washington maneuvered artillery to Dorchester Heights forcing Howe to plan the abandonment of the city. Loyalist families, dependents and the British army sailed for Halifax. The siege had been 333 days. The empire did not have a single port under its control from Canada to Florida. Washington turned his army south to New York where it was universally assumed the British would head next.
                                               "Despite uncertainty over whether Quebec had fallen, London worked tirelessly to assemble a rescue expedition of nine regiments that would not only liberate Canada but provide the firepower to invade New York down the Lake Champlain-Hudson River corridor". In early May 1776, reinforcements arrived in Quebec. The desultory rebel siege of Quebec was  lifted and the forces at Montreal were soon retreating south. The only positive was that the British plan to invade New York from Canada had been delayed.   
                                                As expected, on June 29, 1776, over one hundred British ships appeared off Sandy Hook. Howe heavily outnumbered the defenders and had available superior water transport to whatever part of NY he wished to attack. Reinforcements kept arriving and by August, there were 387 British ships in the approaches to NY .  Before noon on Aug. 22nd, Howe landed over 15,000 men on the Brooklyn shore at Gravesend. The Battle of Long Island was the largest of the war and an outright rout of the Americans. Washington ordered Brooklyn evacuated, and under cover of darkness, ten thousand men were ferried to Manhattan. In mid-September, Howe brought thousands of men across the East River  and the Americans were soon in full retreat.
                                                The British went on the attack from Canada in early October when they descended the Richelieu River to Lake Champlain. The force of regulars, Hessians, loyalists and Indians totaled 8,000 men. The British had built a fleet to transport the men to Lake Champlain and the Americans had done the same, with the plan to engage them on the lake. Between Oct. 11 and 14, Arnold fought a retreating naval battle that managed to stop the British before they reached Ft. Ticonderoga.  The British had hoped to take Ticonderoga, and make it their winter headquarters and departure point for their spring campaign. Instead, they turned north and returned to Canada. They had won, but failed to achieve their objective. The same week, Howe moved against Washington who was sitting above Harlem Heights. A flanking movement up the East River forced 13,000 Continentals to head north to the next ridge at White Plains. Once again, Washington escaped from Howe, who had now missed two chances to end the war. Thirteen thousand British and Hessian troops attacked the Americans at White Plains.  After a day of hard fighting, the Americans moved away from their lines and Howe saw no reason to follow them north into the wilderness.  The British had left Ft. Washington in American hands and fell upon it from every side on Nov. 16. Late in the day, almost three-thousand men surrendered. The British treatment of American prisoners was horrid and within a year, two-thirds would be dead. "No American defeat in the first five years of the war would be more catastrophic, wrenching, or fatal".
                                                    "The New York campaign had ended, miserably, and New Jersey's miseries had begun. Washington and his generals had nearly lost the war several times in the last three months, through miscalculation, misfortune, imprudence, and deficient military skills."  The remnants of Washington's army fled south into New Jersey with Howe and Cornwallis in hot pursuit. In Philadelphia, members of Congress and many residents fled fearing a British attack, until it became apparent that they had stopped at New Brunswick and were deferring an offensive until the spring. Washington concluded that an offensive effort must be made and initiated his heroic crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night. The Americans completely surprised the Hessians at Trenton and carried the day. The resounding victory rejuvenated the American cause. Cornwallis counterattacked a week later and a violent second Battle of Trenton took place. Washington slipped from his grasp with a night march to Princeton in Cornwallis' rear. Again, the Americans triumphed  and marched north to Morristown, where they would winter. Cornwallis withdrew toward the coast. The British domination of New Jersey had been much briefer than anticipated. In a little over a week, the Americans had stopped the British, repulsed them and made the outcome of the war considerably less certain.
                                                        In the UK, there was anxiety and discontent about the war. For all of their success, his majesty's forces held NY and a small piece of Rhode Island. The invasion from Canada had been stopped. The rebels controlled all the territory between Albany and Savannah. The substantial  British naval forces in America could not stop the flow of material in and out of the states. Howe's management of the British effort was criticized by many, and some of his higher-ranking officers returned to England dismayed by his performance.  "The American army had not been proficient in any conventional sense. Yet an American way of war was emerging, one that stressed hit-and-run celerity, marksmanship, resilience, and sustainment from the broader population; as Washington intended, the army could claim deep emotional and moral ties to the nation it served".
                                                         I chose to read this book because I consider Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy a masterpiece. My knowledge of WWII, and my undying respect and affection for those who fought it likely has been part of my assessment. I have learned a great deal in this volume but still remain less than a fan of our War of Independence. The war was of immeasurable importance and provided the world with its first democracy steeped in the philosophy of the Enlightenment. But, the war consisted of hundreds of incredibly small-scale efforts fought between two sides with limited manpower, equipment, finances and resources. The Crown tried, but the distance and the weather impeded their supply lines. As for us, it sometimes is laughable how little the generals had to fight the war, and how often their men simply went home.  Nonetheless,  I will read the next two books in an attempt to better appreciate the era.



 











                                             

A Beautiful Blue Death, Finch - B -

                                                This delightful novel is set in 1865 in London and features Sir Charles Lenox. Charles is the proverbial second son, whose titled brother sits in Parliament while Charles is comfortably ensconced in Mayfair pursuing his intellectual curiosities. A maid of a friend is killed and Sir Charles runs an investigation parallel to that of the police. He is assisted in the investigation by his valet, Graham. Comparisons to Holmes are tempting, but Lenox is not nearly as fun and witty as the occupant of 221B Baker St. The attraction of this series is the depth and detail of the social and historical goings-on of the times. That said, it's not interesting enough for me to pursue the next book.

The Far Empty, Scott - B

                                               "The Big Bend of the Rio Grande was outlaw country. Always has been, always will be." This fabulous novel, by a former federal agent, has this wide open place as a central character. The Texas side of the Trans-Pecos is more than 31,000 square miles. Big Bend county "was 10,000 miles of pure emptiness."  It is the author's ability to evoke the vastness, danger and loneliness of this no-man's land in the drug wars that makes this a special story. In the emptiness was a fictional town dominated by a mean-spirited SOB of a sheriff who had his way with everyone, killed as he wished and was the center of a federal investigation. This is a great, fun read. Once again, thanks Wendell.