The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission To Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb, Bascomb - B

                                               As WWII approached, scientists around the world were developing theories about fission and fusion, leading all probable combatants to start thinking about atomic weapons. One of the possible facilitators of an atomic reaction was water with an extra hydrogen atom - heavy water. Heavy water was an offshoot of hydro-electric power generation and the only place in the world where it was created was in central Norway at Vermork. After Germany's April, 1940 occupation of Norway, the Germans demanded an increase in heavy water deliveries to Berlin. For many Norwegians, resistance meant escape to Britain and training for a return home. In the UK, the decision was made to pre-empt the Germans by depriving them of heavy water and sabotaging Vermork. An SOE-trained Norwegian team parachuted into their occupied homeland in Oct. 1942. Their role was to prepare the way for two teams of British sappers who came in on two gliders (towed from Scotland) a month later. Both gliders crashed, although on one, most of the men survived. The sappers were captured by the Germans and executed. The Germans ascertained that Vermork was a target and significantly increased security. The next attempt was a Norwegian team that parachuted into their home country in February. The nine man demolition team wore British uniforms, travelled through a massive winter storm and climbed an almost vertical 600 hundred foot cliff face to access Vermork. They entered the plant, blew up the heavy water section, and knocked the facility off line for a year. Miraculously, and again through another brutal winter storm, they escaped, and were able to travel over 200 miles to neutral Sweden. As well as Operation Gunnerside had done, the Germans had the plant up and running by August, 1943. The Allies decided to target the facility for a bombing run and lied to the Norwegians about their intentions. One-hundred and seventy-six bombers from the 8th Air Force headed for Vermork on Nov. 16,1943 and pounded the plant, but for all of the devastation, the heavy-water facilities were untouched. The Germans decided to dismantle the heavy-water facilities and move them to Germany. On February 20, 1944 a train left Vermork and headed to Mael, where the cars would be loaded onto a ferry. At the deepest part of Lake Tinn, a pre-placed bomb sank the ferry and all of its railcars. Germany would never obtain the materials necessary to build an atomic weapon.

Woodrow Wilson, Auchincloss - B

                                                This is a brief bio in the Penguin Lives series. Wilson came to office after an academic career, and only two years as Governor of New Jersey. He told one of the politicians who handed him the career in N.J: "Remember that God ordained that I should be the next President of the United States." His progressive policy views led to a Tariff Act, the establishment of the Federal Reserve and the creation of a progressive income tax. When war came to Europe in August, 1914, Wilson assiduously and sincerely pursued a policy of neutrality. Many of America's immigrant communities were opposed to the war. The Germans wanted no part of a fight against their homeland, the Irish had no desire to assist Great Britain and the Jews were adamantly opposed to allying with the Tsar. "But above all there was a widespread feeling that the war was not our war and we should stay out of it..." Wilson believed that he, and he alone, could suggest or impose peace upon the warring parties; that he had the insight to end the horror. America somehow was above the fray. In April 1915, he said "There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right."  In 1917, the reinstatement of unrestricted submarine warfare led to a US declaration of war. Although a proponent of peace, Wilson was an effective war President. His Fourteen Points and his plans for peace were so admired that Harold Nicholson, British diplomat and scholar, said "Had the Treaty of Paris been drafted solely by the American experts, it would have been one of the wisest as well as the most scientific document ever devised." Wilson went to Paris against just about everyone's advice and without a Republican of standing. As the Republicans won the mid-terms in 1918 and Henry Cabot Lodge was now Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, this is considered one of his biggest mistakes. In Paris, he was so focused on the League of Nations that he let Lloyd-George and Clemenceau run roughshod on all of his principles. He also suffered what medical historians believe was his third minor stroke. The battle lines were drawn over the League and Article 10 of the Treaty, which could require the US to take military action if the League mandated it.  Lodge saw it as an imposition on our sovereignty.  In September of 1919, Wilson fell ill on his nationwide trip to sell the Treaty, and in October suffered a major stroke. For the last year-and-a-half of his presidency, he was an invalid and his wife controlled all access to him. Lodge offered an adjustment to the Treaty,requiring Congressional approval for the US to take up arms. Britain and France agreed, but not Wilson.  The Treaty failed and Wilson died three years after leaving office. His wife asked Lodge not to attend the funeral.

The Pale House, McCallin - B-

                                               In the second novel in this series, we find Reinhard back  in Sarajevo, but two years later. It's April 1945 and the Third Reich is on the verge of collapse. The focus of his investigation is an atrocity involving the murder of ten men, believed to have been assigned to a penal battalion. No one seems to rally care as death, destruction and imminent defeat surround the  Germans. The Ustase know there is no retreat for them and they are even more volatile and violent than they had been previously. Gregor ascertains that the Ustase have been killing Germans and assuming German identities, in an attempt to escape from Yugoslavia.  Once again, the phenomenal detail of the background fascinates

Safe, Gattis - B -

                                               The author is an Angeleno with an ear for the street and the writer of some fascinating material about folks getting by on the bottom of the ladder. Here, we meet Ghost, a safecracker dying of cancer in his 30's, and Glasses, a double agent trying to survive between his gang and the DEA. Ghost does jobs for the DEA,  manages to skim from them, and is using the money to help others, sort of a Robin Hood of the ghetto. Glasses made a hit in the stock market with some settlement money from an LAPD beating and is hoping to get the hell out of town. Both are fundamentally good men and it is inevitable that their paths will cross. They do. One survives.

Bill Clinton, Tomasky - B

                                               This biography is one of those fabulous essay-length books of about 150 pages. I read it because there was so much I missed in the nineties, while working rather hard, and because I thought it might help me better understand our current political divisions, which seem to stem from that era*. Clearly, a new-age draft avoider with a propensity to chase skirts riled the hard right. The right's standard bearer was the loathsome hypocrite Speaker Newt Gingrich. They clashed throughout Clinton's term with the President winning round one: the conflict over the 1994 government shutdown. Although the 1996 Republican reform of welfare was anathema to Clinton's advisers, his signature propelled him to an easy victory over Bob Dole. Clinton's second term appeared to be on track for greatness as the economy was totally booming and the deficit, Republican topic number one for decades, was headed toward elimination.  Then, in early 1998 with Kenneth Starr breathing down his neck after four years of fishing, the President advised Monica Lewinsky to lie in an affidavit about their relationship and the result was the second impeachment trial of an American president. The effort failed in February, 1999. In his last two years in office, Clinton attempted to broker peace in the Middle East and ultimately, added his name to the long list of those who have failed in that effort. He successfully added vast amounts of land and ocean to federally protected status.
                                              The author, who is described as someone whose work leans left, states that historians have been generally favorable to Clinton's years in office. He cites the economy and the deficit elimination, and I suspect that over the long course, Bill Clinton will be highly regarded because of those numbers and his do-no-harm foreign policy. The author chides him for remaining in the public eye and for the sometimes questionable activities of his Foundation. As for me, I did not find any particular insight into the political clashes, and also note that there was only an incomplete mentioning of the eastward expansion of NATO, which some characterize as a very serious mistake and one which the Clinton administration undertook without much thought or assessment.


*In 2016's best-seller,'White Trash', the author suggests that one of the reasons Clinton was attacked so venomously by the right was that he was white trash and far from the traditional establishment. Somehow, Georgetown, Oxford and Yale sound pretty establishment to me. Gingrich's background as the only child of an apparent teenage shotgun marriage, and then, growing up on army bases, is equally trashy, and he led the charge.

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon , Grann - B

                                              This book tells the story of, and the much later search for, Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, considered the last of the great explorers of Victorian England. He was the 'David Livingstone of the Amazon' and a recipient in 1916 of a Royal Geographical Society Founder's Gold Medal. He vanished in the Amazon in 1925 at the age of 57. His objective was the lost City of Z, the famed El Dorado, the search for which had been claiming the lives of Europeans for centuries.  In the 1920's, the Amazon basin remained a vast, unknown wilderness capable of punishing and killing all who entered. Fawcett embarked with his 21-year-old son Jack and Jack's best friend, Raleigh Rimell. They sent five months of dispatches back and then were never heard from again.
Fawcett's Amazon career had begun in 1906 when the RGS sent him on a mapping expedition that involved descending from the Bolivian Andes to the floor of the jungle and transversing it for almost a year. He had an amazing genetic makeup that kept him healthy in one of the the planet's most inhospitable environments. It was as if he prospered in the jungle, where he went year after year. He was widely acclaimed and known throughout the world. He spent most of the Great War in the trenches as an artillery officer and was back in the Amazon in 1920. Financing a second post-war expedition required assistance from American journalists, financiers and philanthropists. On April 20, 1925, the three-man party departed Cuiaba, Brazil. It is now generally accepted that Indians killed the them soon thereafter.
                                             The author's 2005 pursuit of the Fawcett trail was the most recent but not the first. Fawcett's disappearance was front page news, and over the years, an estimated one hundred people have died trying to find his trail. Much of what had been the deepest jungle 80 years before has been cleared and is now part of civilization, very remote, but reachable by a four-wheel drive truck. Grann went to Xingu National Park, where he heard the local oral tradition of the death of the three men. He also met a University of Florida archaeologist who found and showed him the foundation of the lost City of Z.
                                             This book has been a best-seller, and a major motion picture based on this book was released to critical acclaim last year. I'd rate the book as very well-written and a fine summer, beach non-fiction read.

The Late Show, Connelly - B +

                                                Connelly's latest has been met with universal acclaim. The author is one of, if not the most successful writer of crime fiction in America. He's been selling books for the last quarter  century. His Harry Bosch series has become an institution and there have been three seasons of 'Bosch' on Amazon Prime. Bosch's half-brother, Mickey Haller, was featured in 'The Lincoln Lawyer', a best-seller made into a major motion picture starring Matthew McConaughey. Prior to that, Clint Eastwood starred in and directed Connelly's 'Blood Work'.
                                               To his credit, the author has taken a major leap here in his creation of a new character. Sgt. Renee Ballard has the misfortune of working the 11pm to 7am late show. She was banished after filing a sexual harassment complaint against her lieutenant. She latches onto two cases and, ala Harry Bosch, cuts corners left and right. One  case involves a badly beaten transvestite and the other the murder of a policeman.  She works both of them and pushes up against a particularly vicious man and the institutional indifference/hostility of the department and its supporters. Since I know a few folks will read this, I'll leave it at that. Ballard could be a fun new LAPD platform for Connelly. This is a must-read.

The Man From Berlin, McCallin - B

                                               This is the first novel in a series that has three so far. It's very similar to Phillip Kerr's books in that it is also focused on a Kripo detective in field gray, working his way through WW2.  This book does a much better job setting the scene and exploring the military issues and the cultural clashes in an occupied country. The setting is Sarajevo, where the Nazis share duties with the Croatian Ustase, an organization capable of making the SS look like boy scouts. The author is extraordinarily well-informed and this is a classic historical novel filled with edifying detail. The principal, Gregor Reinhardt, is a WWI combat veteran estranged from a Hitler Youth son who has apparently been lost at Stalingrad. This is an all around excellent effort. But, like so many others, it is simply too long. I do not think there's enough here to merit 433 pages.

The Weapons Wizards: How Israel Became A High-Tech Military Superpower, Katz and Bohbot - B

                                               The authors are journalists who cover the military and have served in the IDF. They believe it is the country's universal military service, non-hierarchical institutions, and education systems, along with its constant existential threats that have led to Israel becoming a world-wide leader in military technology and now, a leading exporter of the same.
                                                Israel's first major step into military know-how was a business that repaired airplanes in the first decade of the state's existence. In the late 60's, Israeli engineers used toy American hobby planes to provide observations of the enemy over the horizon, and  they have since created the finest drones in the world. They were the first to develop UAV's, and America's activities piggy-backed on the Israelis. Today, Israeli equipment constitutes 60% of worldwide drone sales. As they are often the first western state to face battlefield threats, the Israelis must be the first to adapt. In the late 1990's, they were attacked with the most recent Soviet/Russian anti-tank weapon and now have created cutting-edge  defensive and offensive systems for their tanks. Similarly, with satellites, rockets, A.I. and stuxnet, the highly motivated Israelis lead the way. The informality sounds almost pre-industrial, but it works.
                                              Today, Israel no longer faces a frontline state with a traditional military. Rather. its challenges are asymmetric and its opponents, Hamas and Hezbollah are non-state actors. Future wars will be a collage featuring traditional, terror and guerrilla tactics. The authors are certain they will be ready. I suspect they are correct.

House Of Spies, Silva - B +

                                            There are many reasons to love this series, but I've concluded that the cornerstone of it is Gabriel's commitment to his family, his people, their state and their history.  At long last, he is ensconced in the corner office at King Saul Blvd.  ISIS is the threat and the man in charge uses the nom de guerre of Saladin. Gabriel orchestrates a combined op using American, British, French and Israeli assets. Needless to say, all's well that ends well.  Gabriel spends most of the novel in the field and not at all acting like the Chief. Perhaps more than in any of his other books, Silva pulls off a tale with an incredibly current set of Middle East circumstances as background. It feels as if it was written yesterday. Also more so than usual, Gabriel's team feels like family. This is the seventeenth book in the  series. I hope there are many more as it is as vibrant, relevant, and as much fun as it has ever been.

The Shores of Tripoli: Lieutenant Putnam and the Barbary Pirates, Haley - B+

                                               I can't say enough about this fabulous historical novel. The author is an acclaimed historian who has turned to creating a naval series that is off to a fine start. Bliven Putnam, his intended, Clarity Marsh, and his bunkmate Sam Bandy are the only fictional characters. Everyone else in the infant navy are actual men who sailed and fought in America's first overseas adventure. The story is well-told and focuses on the history, as opposed to the Patrick O'Brian novels which emphasized the nautical aspects of the large and powerful sailing ships of the era. There is a second book about the War of 1812 coming soon and I am looking forward to it.

Testimony, Turow - Inc.

                                            Chicago's own, practicing lawyer and creator of many Chicago-like Kindle County stories travels very far afield here. Bill Ten Boom leaves his Kindle County law practice, moves to the I.C.C. in the Hague, and investigates a war crime committed against Roma in Bosnia in 2004.
                                           At about the half-way point, I gave up. I'm not certain if it's the book or my inability to move from domestic legal matters to Europe. The Times reviewer did say it "lacks the tautness of Turow's earlier thrillers, and one senses, a midlife author attempting, like his midlife character, to find meaning...." It did not work for me. And I might add that, unlike the latest from John Grisham, and Daniel Silva, it's nowhere on the best-seller lists.

HHhH, Binet - B

                                               The title of this very hard to characterize novel means 'Himmler's brain is called Heydrich'. In German, it was 'Himmlers Hirn heist Heydrich'. There are many books about the May 1942 assassination of the man called the 'Hangman' and the 'Blond Beast'. Operation Anthropoid was initiated in London by the Czech government-in-exile, led by President Benes. The Czechs felt that they had to do something and they pulled off arguably the most successful act of resistance of the war. Teams were parachuted into Czechoslovakia. They were assisted by the Prague Resistance and three men, Sergeants Josef Valcik, Jan Kubis and Josef Gabcik  achieved immortality, fame and an early death that spring. Unfortunately, thousands upon thousands died as retribution for their actions.                
                                                This book is a free-flowing story about the French author's interest in WW2, his fascination with the assassination of the Protektor,  a ramble through the life of Heydrich and the Third Reich, and the story of the action in Prague. There is a wealth of information provided here, but the format and approach are too unorthodox for me. Notwithstanding my observations, the book was highly acclaimed. This topic has garnered significant attention on film and this iteration of the tale is no exception. 'The Man With An Iron Heart' has already been released in Europe and will be in America shortly.

Anatomy Of A Song, Myers - B-

                                               This book is an oral history of 45 songs that shaped R and B and Rock 'n' Roll over the course of  40 years.  The songs selected are, in the opinion of the author, a subjective collection of milestones in music history. The first is 1952's  'Lawdy Miss Clawdy'  by Lloyd Price and the last is 1991's 'Losing My Religion' by R.E.M.  As most of the technical aspects of rock are beyond me, I'll just point out some of the more interesting tidbits unearthed here: the Isley Brothers singing 'Shout' has some amazing dance moves for 1959; 'Please Mr. Postman by the Marveletttes was Motown's first number one;  Grace Slick wrote 'White Rabbit' on an $80 fire red piano; the only Stones songs here are 'Street Fighting Man' and 'Moonlight Mile'; Elvis's 'Suspicious Minds' in 1969 was his first number one in seven years; 'Walk This Way' was inspired by Marty Feldman in 'Young Frankenstein'; Debbie Harry was absolutely stunning; and much to my surprise, I actually liked 'Losing My Religion."
                                            This has been an enjoyable romp through music history. I'm not sure the author was thorough enough about what made these songs milestones, and I still can't get comprehend no Beatles, Paul Simon, Beach Boys or Bob Dylan. I'm sorry, but 'Rock The Boat' by the Hues Corporation and 'London Calling' by the Clash just do not seem that important to me. One of the really enjoyable aspects of reading this has been watching the videos on You Tube. And no matter how old the song - there's a video on You Tube

The White Van, Hoffman - B

                                                This novel is a highly acclaimed debut from a few years ago by a man who had been an investigator for the San Francisco Public Defender's Office. Needless to say, it is filled with tangible, believable characters from the underworld. The plot involves a drug-addled young woman recruited by the Russian mob to assist in a bank robbery, a pair of less than honest cops, and mistakes made all around. It's a classic one-day beach read. Good fun.

War Against War: The American Fight For Peace 1914 - 1918, Kazin - B

                                                This book tells the story of those Americans, from all walks of life, from all parties and from all around the country, who opposed American participation in the Great War. They were internationalists and idealists, but not isolationists. Once war was declared, the government unleashed all of its power to silence and punish them. The winning of the war led to the losing of the peace. Our participation changed our role in the world. By making the world safe for democracy we created a military-industrial complex and an FBI-supervised surveillance state.
                                                When war began, Wilson declared our neutrality but the administration could not stop American business from trading with Europe, and because of the Royal Navy's blockade, that meant trading with the Allies. J.P. Morgan became Great Britain's purchasing agent. After America concluded that war was good for business, the question became whether we should arm ourselves.  In opposition stood the Women's Peace Party, a powerful, well-organized entity consisting primarily of the women who were the backbone of the suffragette movement. After the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915, those clamoring for preparations, if not an immediate declaration, began the drumroll. Former President Roosevelt called Wilson "a coward and a weakling" who catered to "all the hyphenated Americans." Although there were east coast Democrats and Republicans anxious to arm, the majority of the country was opposed and they prevailed into 1916.  Wilson ran for re-election as a foe of intervention. The following January, he offered the world his idealistic vision to end the war with his 'Peace Without Victory' speech. The German response was to announce the re-inititiation of unrestricted submarine warfare. In March, three American merchantmen were sunk by submarines and on April 6, 1917, the US declared war on Germany.
                                              The administration initiated a significant propaganda effort "to drive home the absolute justice of America's cause, the absolute selflessness of America's aims" and passed the Espionage and Sedition Acts. Nonetheless, and more so than with any of America's other contentious wars (Mexican, Vietnam, Iraq), the peace movement endured through the early hullabaloo. On Flag Day, Wilson "all but equated opposition to the war with treason."  But opposition was staunch and "a higher percentage of men successfully resisted conscription than during the Vietnam War." By 1918, the peace movement was on it's knees thanks to the Sedition Act.  Eugene Debs, the four-time Socialist nominee for president was sentenced to ten years in jail for saying "the working class had never yet had a voice in declaring war" but were taught it was their duty "to have (themselves) slaughtered." America tipped the balance on the battlefield and Armistice came on Nov. 11, 1918.
                                             Two decades after the war, a Gallup poll found that 70% of Americans considered it a mistake for us to have participated in the Great War. The author clearly agrees that the US intervention was a mistake on every level. He surmises that the bloodshed would have led to a stalemate. There would have been no punitive peace, no reparations, no stab-in-the back theories, no Hitler and no fifty million deaths in the next war. That is a heady conclusion to come to. But, it is almost inescapable.  I have seen WW1 referred to as the catastrophe that begat all of the great catastrophes of the century. The war's conclusion which we midwifed was followed by a peace process where our President ineptly argued for his idealistic vision and the realpolitik's of George and Clemencau disastrously triumphed.
                                            This book is not an easy read, but it is truly enlightening. The depth, breadth and heartfelt sincerity and commitment to peace that so many people felt is truly impressive. I personally prefer an America that is not so comfortable projecting it's power.

The Last Templar's Last Secret, Walker - B +

                                               Chef de Police Bruno Courreges continues as the Perigord's* gourmand and exemplary community policeman in Walker's latest novel set in the south of France. The author is an accomplished historian now residing in the region and writing police procedurals that double as cook books. He mixes history, both ancient and modern in weaving his superb tales, that also shed a tremendous amount of light on modern day France. This series is an absolute delight.

*This blog's editor, Marcella, is bemused by the fact that region is famous for its truffles and I am a truffle and mushroomphobe.

Where The Water Goes: Life And Death Along The Colorado River, Owens - B-

                                                Because a book about a river probably can't be written without traveling the length of the river, river books are always part travelogue, part episodic history and part geography lesson. The over-arching story is the same one told in 'Cadillac Dessert', the mid-eighties masterpiece that introduced me* to the water crisis in the West. The 1922 Colorado River Compact between seven states (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and California) very reasonably allocated the river's water based on the rainfall, snowpack and river flow of the era. The problem was and still is that the early-20th century was later found to have been the wettest patch in hundreds of years.  There simply is not enough water to fulfill the agreed-upon allocations of the seven states, not to mention Mexico or the 10 Indian tribes that have reservations in the river basin.
                                                Just about everyone agrees that the current system of allocating water is so flawed that it will collapse upon itself in the future. The Bureau of Reclamation believes that by 2060 the annual shortage will be 3 million acre feet.  "Both the upper and lower basin are too busy grabbing what water they can instead of seeking a sustainable relationship with that water." The author has no solution, but suggests the federal government is the likely decision-maker, and that agriculture's 80% usage of the river's water is the place to start looking.
                                                Some of the fun facts unearthed herein are: the flow of the Colorado over a year is equal to two weeks of the Mississippi's; the single largest user of the river's water is the Imperial Valley of California, which receives 2.85 inches of rain per year; Colorado has 20,000 abandoned subsurface flooded mines, and the Indians could probably overturn the whole compact because they weren't privy to it and their water rights precede everyone else's.

*My Colorado house is on the western slope and is supplied with water from the Eagle River, a Colorado tributary.

Defectors, Kanon - B +

                                               In 1961, more than a decade after his brother Frank's defection, Simon Weeks goes to Moscow to edit Frank's memoir about his life as a KGB spy while serving in the OSS during WW2 and in the CIA in the early days of the Cold War. The assignment appears to be simple enough: spend a week with his brother and fine-tune a likely bestseller. However, Frank throws him a curve with a request to pass a message back to the CIA. He'd like to defect back to the US. But, Simon is actually working for the CIA. Does Frank really wish to leave or perhaps, is he trying to entrap a senior CIA man? There are plots within plots, which is why Le Carre was mentioned in a review or two. It's always good to go back to an old-fashioned Cold War thriller.

Camino Island, Grisham - B +

                                               John Grisham always guarantees a fun read and does so here in a non-legal tale of chicanery and greed. This novel is about a writer turned teacher, asked to work for an insurance investigation firm, and a book-seller turned fence of stolen goods, whom she is suppose to spy on. The opening chapter setting forth the theft of five F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts from Princeton is superb.  The book  drags a bit but finishes on a high note.

Anatomy Of Terror: From The Death Of bin Laden To The Rise Of The Islamic State, Soufan - C +

                                               By the time of bin Laden's death in 2011, al- Qaeda had been transformed from a "close knit, intensely hierarchical battalion into something like an umbrella organization, with a central staff overseeing a number of more or less autonomous franchises across the Muslim world".
                                               The young men who have been and continue to be the foot-soldiers of these franchises come from societies totally bereft of hope and possibilities. The average Arab has six years of education, never reads a book, and as many as 100 million of them are illiterate. "The striking absence of educational and economic opportunity, compounded by the lack of political accountability and a hopelessly distorted sense of history, has made Arab countries fertile ground for extremists."
                                                The successor to  bin-Laden was an Egyptian physician, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Pakistani Taliban, AQAP and AQIM all swore immediate fealty to Zawahiri. The Arab Spring followed and it was surmised in many quarters that the unfolding of democracy would lead to freedom and the end of terrorist organizations. Instead, the Arab Spring was quickly reversed and al-Qaeda affiliates prospered in Yemen, Libya, Iraq and Syria. ISIS was supported by Saudi Arabia and Turkey as a proxy against the Iranian supported Syrian government. Most of the soldiers of ISIS were Sunnis from Saddam's army. Ironically, many of the leaders of ISIS planned for the future while in US imprisonment at Camp Bucca. "By June 15, 2014, ISIS controlled most of Iraq's Sunni-majority provinces and ruled over a population of up to eight million luckless souls." The Caliphate had been established and with it, the imposition of medieval Sharia law. However, within two years, a combination of Russian, Iranian and Syrian military action had reduced its territory to about half its initial size. Today, it is being pounded by the US and its allies. Although ISIS cannot hold onto its territory, its philosophies and successes have fostered attacks around the world, and thirty-four militant groups from the Philippines to Algeria have sworn fealty. Al-Qaeda has forsworn ISIS and condemned its methods of extreme violence.
                                               Today, al-Qaeda is planning a comeback and touting the leadership qualities of bin-Laden's son Hamza. It is playing a long game and will survive long after the failure of ISIS. The author, a Lebanese- born Muslim and former FBI agent, fears they will continue to attack the West, its institutions and people.  The way to counter the breeders of terror is information and education. "The Taliban knows that the biggest long-term threat to its existence is neither planes nor tanks but teachers and books."                                                                                                      
                                               This has been a trying book. I understand that one cannot start in the middle of a story, but the author does not move to the post-bin-Laden era until page 199 of 304. And even then, he bounces all over the place. Nonetheless, I have learned a great deal here and have come to a depressing conclusion. Regardless of the source of blame or responsibility for the mess that is today's Middle East-the collapse of the Ottomans-the Sykes-Picot Agreement-Arab nationalism-Arab dictators-petro-states-the Cold War-the state of Israel-Black September- ignorance-poverty-totalitarianism-Salafism-Wahabism-bin-Laden-our invasion of Iraq-our botched occupation of Iraq- the meddling of Iran-Shia v. Sunni sectarianism,  this Rubik's cube of violence, hatred and revenge will be with us all for a very long time.

America The Ingenious: How A Nation Of Dreamers, Immigrants, And Tinkerers Changed The World, Baker - B-

                                               The author is a very successful historical novelist. Here, he turns his attention to American ingenuity and sets out dozens of examples of the things this nation's people have accomplished. He credits our system of democracy and  unfettered immigration for much of our history, and the rule of law for allowing this burgeoning of practicality and genius to prosper.
                                               The tidbits I truly enjoyed are: the Conestoga wagon was the size of modern SUV; the Hudson River rail tunnels move with the tides; the roadbed of the Golden Gate Bridge can sway 28 feet in each direction; and whaling was the 5th largest US industry in the 1850's. There are dozens of other interesting and diverse topics here in this paean to Yankee ingenuity.

The Dying Detective, Persson - B+

                                               The author is a psychological profiler, a professor at Sweden's National Police Board and is considered the country's foremost expert on crime.  He is also a helluva writer, winner of numerous awards and his works are now being translated into English.
                                                Lars Johansson has been retired from the police force, where he was the Chief, for over three years when he is felled by a stroke. A physician in the hospital provides him with a lead that puts him back in the saddle as solves a 25-year-old murder as a civilian, but one who pulls in quite a few favors. At the center of the story is Sweden's 2010 law that proscribed murder prosecutions for crimes more than 25 years old. In essence, the traditional rule that there is no statute of limitations for murder has been changed in Sweden. This is a really good novel.

A Rising Man, Mukherjee - B +

                                               Somehow Sam Wyndham survived  the Great War and was recruited to continue his  career as a detective in Calcutta. Captain Wyndham proves to be a pretty interesting fellow. He's trying to forget his late wife, who died of the flu, his friends, almost all of whom are buried in France and Belgium, and facilitates his forgetting with an opium habit. In his day job, the nabobs of the Raj seem to want to impede his every move investigating the death of one of the Lieutenant-Governor's aides, who was apparently done in by locals bent on evicting the British.  Wyndham and his Bengali sergeant stay one step ahead of military intelligence. Of course, matters are not what they appear. They unearth depravity and cynical evil in the highest reaches of the government.
                                              I have said many, many times that the attraction of historical novels is their ability to provide insight to different times and places. I have not read about India in this time period and this first time novelist, the Scottish-born son of natives of Calcutta, does a fabulous job elaborating on the nascent freedom movement that was burgeoning after a century-and-a-half of British rule. The relationship between Wyndham and Sergeant Banerjee will apparently be the basis of a new series.  Often, modern writers handle the sexism and racism of earlier times with a heavy, uncomfortable hand. This young man has shown a deft touch.

Dodgers, Beverly - B

                                                                       This intriguing novel is about a handful of LA gangbangers sent on a cross-country mission to kill a witness in Wisconsin. The boss tells them to buy some Dodger kit because white people like the Dodgers, and it'll help them fit in better. The primary character is East, short for Easton, a very serene and careful about-to-be 16 year old. He's engaging, charming and has never left the LA ghetto. The book is fun and insightful, although I wish the author had spent more time in the ghetto, instead of the Midwest.

Count Belisarius, Graves - B +

                                               The eminent English classicist, Robert Graves, published this novel in 1938. Like his 'Claudius' novels, this one is also based on the writings of a contemporary historian, Procopius, whose History of Justinian's* War' is the factual basis of the story. Belisarius is portrayed as a man of incorruptible virtue, a soldier extraordinaire and completely above the politics of the Byzantine Court.  He was born in the Balkans in 500 A. D. He attended school in Adrianople, and later a military academy in Constantinople. He excelled and at the age of 20 was in charge of training troops to fight and defend the northern boundaries of the Empire in the Balkans. Before he was thirty, he had caught the eye of Emperor Justinian and was put in charge of the armies fighting in the east, where he famously defeated the Persians at Dara in 530 A.D. He received many awards, including the hand of Antonia, dear friend of the Empress Theodora.

                                                By the sixth century, the western empire was no more and was occupied by Germanic tribes that purported to be allied with the Eastern Emperor. Offended by the Vandals in North Africa, Justinian sent Belisarius and a small invasion force to capture Carthage. He succeeded and returned to Constantinople with vast riches and 15,000 prisoners. He then turned his attention to Sicily, which he promptly occupied before sailing to Italy. He captured Naples after a brief siege and took Rome without any opposition. However, the Goths launched a major counterattack and besieged the city for over a year. Once again though, Belisarius prevailed and again returned triumphantly to Constantinople. Although very successful, his many enemies plotted against him and he was stripped of rank and wealth. Antonia and Theodora were able to convince Justinian to reinstate him and back to campaigning in Italy he went. He returned after five years of continual fighting to live quietly with Antonia. In 558, the ungrateful Justinian once more requested his help and he stopped an invasion of Bulgarian Huns at the gates of the city. Honored and then dishonored by his Emperor, Belisarius died in March, 565

                                                This novel may be appreciated by those who are familiar with and fascinated by the Romans.  I became intrigued while studying Latin in high school. That said, this story suffers from some of Rome's ongoing themes. The usual back-biting, politicking and betrayals are perhaps universal, but certainly endemic in Roman history.

*Justinian the Great codified Roman law, built St. Sophia and won back N. Africa from the Vandals, Italy from the Ostrogoths and Spain from the Visigoths.

The Thirst, Nesbo - B +

                                                This is the latest, and an absolutely fabulous, Harry Hole novel. He is not drinking, happily married to Rakel and a successful  lecturer at the Police College. He is approaching 50 with his life in pretty good shape. However, a case that involves"Iron dentures and no DNA and half a liter of blood missing" requires him to return to the field. He quickly concludes it is a serial rapist he had once put away, and who had escaped from prison. Taking risks and going against the book, he gets his man. But, there's still a lot of the book left and Nesbo adds, I believe unnecessarily, a late-in-the-story twist. Harry wraps thing up in quite an unexpected and dramatic conclusion.  Nesbo is a master at creating tension and does so from the first chapter to the last page. I believe this is the best Harry novel in quite some time.

Before The Storm: Barry Goldwater And The Unmaking Of The American Consensus, Perlstein - B +

                                            This decade-and-a-half-old book is the first of a tetralogy that sets out the history of America's transition  from a consensus liberal democracy to a right-leaning country with very little, if any, consensus.  After the 1964 election, the national conclusion was that conservatism in the country was as dead as Barry Goldwater's electoral standing. Boy, were they wrong.
                                             The first stirrings of Goldwater for President had came in 1959 and were led by the retired Dean of Notre Dame Law School, Pat Manion. He was a staunch anti-communist reared on the America First rhetoric of Robert Wood of Sears and Col. McCormick of the Chicago Tribune.  Goldwater was the grandson of a Polish Jew who built a dry goods empire in the Arizona desert. He believed in the rugged individualism of the west, was opposed to the New Deal and was elected to the Senate in 1952. He became known for his virulent anti-labor beliefs, opposition to deficit spending and willingness to raise money for Republican candidates. Manion was hoping to find a way to combine Taft Republicans and Dixiecrats, and concluded that with Goldwater, he could appeal to both constituencies. He published Goldwater's precis 'Conscience Of A Conservative', in which Goldwater took the ideas of the old-guard and somewhat updated it. Instead of railing that every raise for workers would lead to inflation or calling for the repeal of the income tax, he stated that the enemy was liberalism, which was weakening the core of American strength. The only way to beat the Reds was to stand up to them. He scared the hell out of  a lot of establishment folks, though, with his concept of winnable atomic war. Going into the 1960 convention, there was a flurry of interest in Goldwater, but it passed and he easily fell in line to support Nixon.
                                           In the early-60's two organizations that were integral to the rise of Goldwater came to the fore. The John Birch Society was founded by Robert Welch, a successful Boston businessman. Welsh was one of many obsessed with  communism and he matched his anxieties to his promotional skills and fundraising abilities. Joining the right-wing activists was the YAF (Young Americans For Freedom), a college student-based group inspired by Goldwater's 'Conscience Of A Conservative', as well as Bill Buckley's 'National Review'. The author points out that extremism in the face of communism came easily to many, as the government had been beating a drum roll of red fear and anxiety since the end of WW2. As for Goldwater, he had a great line about the establishment Republicans. He said the party of Ike, Nixon and Rockefeller was a bunch of "dime store copies of the opposition".  He was able to deliver it in 1961 in over 225 speeches. He was on the road and running. And the man he was running against had some issues. Jack Kennedy's first year in office saw the Bay of Pigs, a rebuff by Khruschev at Vienna and the construction of the Berlin Wall. However, he handled the Cuban Missile crisis the following year with aplomb, skill, restraint and strength.
                                          At the beginning of 1963, an underground group of young Republicans, political ideologues, and operatives led by Clif White had a strategy to nominate a conservative, and people lined up around the country to take over the nominating process. After Kennedy was assassinated, the early polls showed that without an eastern establishment opponent and with a southerner to run against, Goldwater's numbers and appeal dropped precipitously. But the truth be known, the base wanted him and only Rocky stood in his way.  The campaign began in New Hampshire, a conservative state where Goldwater's ideas were well received. However, he made mistake after mistake. His broken foot was in a cast, and the wags concluded that was the only way he could keep his foot out of his mouth. Rocky,  with his new and pregnant wife in tow, fared no better, as both contenders fell to Henry Cabot Lodge.  In an era long preceding super and endless Tuesdays, the May Oregon primary was next on the schedule. Rocky crushed Lodge and Goldwater. Goldwater was losing primaries, but in state after state, the team assembled by Clif White, with little if any help from the candidate, was locking up delegate after delegate. In the Golden State's winner-take-all primary, he won in a photo finish. A conservative, a man opposed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a hard-core anti-communist who believed in using tactical atomic weapons, a law-and-order believer in old-fashioned values for whom social security was an uncomfortable fit, and a true despiser of the east coast establishment, was on the threshold of becoming the GOP's nominee. And once he secured the nomination, he flaunted his distaste for business as usual with his well-remembered acceptance speech in which he declared "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice - moderation in the pursuit of liberty is no virtue". A man who didn't particularly care to campaign, who held the media in disdain, whose supporters were fanatics set out on a course toward self-immolation.
                                         The campaign opened with the 'Daisy' commercial Labor Day weekend and the warmonger  tag was applied to Goldwater, whose Arizona Mafia demoted Clif White, fired half of the RNC staff in Washington in September and began their iteration of amateur hour.  Goldwater thanked Boeing's workers for the performance of their planes in combat and assured them the planes "will be doing so again" . The man he put in charge of his campaign, Dean Burch, accepted the endorsement of the KKK in Georgia and Alabama. Goldwater was simply a poor candidate and his organization was in shambles. Republicans were running for cover, traditional Republican newspapers endorsed LBJ as the debacle headed toward November 3rd.
                                         In October, William F. Buckley made a speech to a YAF convention that didn't generate a single round of applause. He stated that defeat was imminent and the challenge was to take their fiery devotion and find recruits for future Novembers. In late October, Goldwater cancelled a $1000-a-plate engagement and the organizers substituted former actor and GE spokesman Ronald Reagan. He was so good that they put him on TV. On Oct.27 Regan's speech was televised nationally. It was called "the most successful national political debut since William Jennings Bryan electrified the 1896 Democratic convention with the Cross of Gold speech."
                                         In the end, Johnson crushed Goldwater and Scotty Reston in the NYTimes stated that the conservative cause was lost. The LATimes said the Republicans would be a minority party indefinitely.  However, Johnson had predicted the end of a Democratic south and he was correct, as five Confederate states voted for Goldwater. Throughout the land, a kind of polarization was beginning. As is so often the case in America, the divide was racial and cultural. The Democrats were embracing Negroes at a time when there were riots in the cities, crime rates rising, morals collapsing, and respect for authority and tradition fading. These were themes that Nixon would bludgeon onto the national agenda and Reagan would play like a harp.
                                         This is a fabulous book written by a very skillful man.  It is a reminder that the right/left, urban/rural, coastal/heartland divide has always been with us. Over five decades ago, the right was very hardcore, considered Ike a commie tool, social-security a commie plot and the progressive income tax a bulwark of government centralization.  I think the author could have delved deeper into the issue of how this era led to the total governmental discord that started in the 90's. I'd prefer not to have to read three more lengthy books to look for hints on that issue. In any event many thanks to my erudite brother for recommending this author.


                                         

Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign, Allen and Barnes - B -

                                            This book is a detailed analysis of the abject failure of the Clinton run for the presidency in 2016. The focus is not on what Sanders and Trump accomplished, but on what Hillary didn't. Before the inevitable campaign was announced, a NY Times report unveiled what would be its ongoing Achilles heel -the investigation of  the personal email server from her State Dept. tenure. Her staff was an agglomeration of people and interests, and the email question threw them for a loop. "No one was in charge, and no one had figured out how to make the campaign something bigger than Hillary. Hillary didn't have a vision to articulate. And no one else could give one to her. She had been running for president for almost a decade and still didn't really have a rationale."
                                           In the summer of 2015, the populism on the left of Bernie Sanders and on the right of Donald Trump pounded on Washington's insiders, and the ultimate insider was buried in inconsistencies, the blaming of others and her inability to admit she had made a mistake about her email server.  Her attempt to explain the problem in a one-on-one CNN interview flopped. Finally, after five months of plummeting numbers and a consensus that she was a liar, HRC apologized for her initial server decision. She rallied in October after a superb performance on SNL and followed up by crushing Sanders in the first debate and embarrassing the Republican Benghazi Committee. When the caucuses and primaries started, Sanders was surprisingly strong. The African-American votes in March put her way ahead of Sanders but there was a surprising loss elaborated on in a chapter called  'The Canary In The Auto Plant'. She lost Michigan's white blue- collar voters. The March 15 mini-Tuesday primaries put her ahead with an insurmountable lead.
                                          The campaign was haunted by its structure. John Podesta, who had been Bill's last Chief of Staff and was the Clinton's age was the Chairman. Robby Mook was thirty years younger, the analytic guru and the Campaign Manager. Robby was in charge, but there were consultants, media teams, strategic planners, policy analysts, Bill and his people and all of the outside influences of what the author calls 'Clintonworld'. Infighting, crossed lines of authority and influence damaged the campaign from beginning to end.
                                           Planning for the 'general', the Dems had absolute confidence in their electoral wall, the 242 votes they had captured in the last six elections. For the Republicans, they knew they had a golden opportunity because  of Hillary's unpopularity throughout the country. Their plan was to hammer away on her negatives. In July, FBI Director Comey announced that there would be no charges because of the email server but that Hillary and her staff had been "reckless" in its use, thus adding his name to the year's controversies. His condemnation was unusual, as tradition says you only announce the conclusion, not your opinion. The Dems had a successful convention, but so did the opponents, and both sides moved into September with Trump much closer to HRC than expected. September also saw Hillary's pneumonia diagnosis kept from the press and her characterization of half of Trump's supporters as "deplorables". After HRC won the first debate,  the nation learned that Russia was behind email hacks of the DNC, the Access Hollywood tape about Trump was released and the text of Hillary's Goldman Sachs speech was made public. Prominent Republicans called for Trump to step aside. One of the WikLeaks email exposures was of John Podesta's gmail account. Since he had been at the center of the campaign since the beginning, there were endless internal, critical emails to and from many, many people. Their exposure further divided the Democratic team. Staying on focus, HRC won the 2nd debate. On Oct. 27, Comey re-opened the email controversy because it came up in the latest Huma Abedin/Anthony Weiner juvenile imbroglio.  Matters were slipping in the heartland and "while Hillary was measuring drapes for the oval Office, her team was mismeasuring the electorate".
                                        In the end, the electoral count was 306-232. This soon after the election, the authors chose not to pin her loss on any one thing. The Clintons felt it was the FBI, KGB and KKK. Throughout the book, the data driven campaign of Robby Mook, who ignored the advice and instinct of Bill Clinton, comes under heavy fire.  In the end, HRC could not overcome her unpopularity.
                                     

News Of The World, Jiles - B +

                                               This superb novel is set in Texas in 1870. Captain Kidd is a-71-year old veteran of three wars, and a former printer who makes his living traveling around the state reading somewhat dated newspapers to crowds charging 10 cents per head. He takes up the task of delivering 10-year-old Joanna, who had been captured by the Kiowa, to her family 400 miles south. On their way from Wichita Falls to San Antonio, they overcome Indian raiders, white slavers, and ordinary outlaws as they bond as much as an old man and a young girl, without a common language, can. This is a fabulous tale of two people coming together, helping and supported each other, that deftly shares with the reader a fascinating and far-away time.  This could have been written by Larry McMurtry -  it's that good. To my favorite Texan -  Wendell, I recommend this wholeheartedly.

Strangers In Their Own Land: Anger And Mourning On The American Right, Hochschild - B -

                                             The  question this book attempts to address is why do those on the right resent and reject government?  The author, a Berkeley historian and sociologist, decided to try and discern the answer from deep in the south, in a hard-right state, very poor and the most polluted in the country - Louisiana. The state is 49th of 50 on quality of life measurements and receives a striking 44% of its budget from the federal government. Although it has served the petrochemical and oil industries by not regulating them, Louisiana's reward is a horribly polluted environment. The author moved to Lake Charles, La. and spent five years trying to understand the members of the Tea Party and what she calls the Great Paradox. Why do people that the government helps, or wish to help, hate it?
                                            Although they are impoverished and live in 'Cancer Alley', the Cajuns of southwest Louisiana put God and family first and do not wish to see their taxes (they hardly pay any) go to "non-working, non-deserving people". There is no one in their world - the local churches, the state of Louisiana, the companies there, Rush Limbaugh or Fox News - who does anything to question the certainties of this bias.
                                            The author discusses the concept of 'line cutters'. As the aging white population pursues the ever elusive American dream, it is not globalization and technology that are the enemies, the creators of income inequality, it is those who have cut ahead. They are blacks, women, immigrants and anyone else the government has helped. One of the leading cutters, in the eyes of the Tea party folk in Louisiana, is President Obama.
                                            "For the Tea Party around the country, the shifting moral qualifications for the American Dream had turned them into strangers in their own land, afraid, resentful, displaced, and dismissed..."
                                             This book is one of those recommended to the stunned, informed elite last November, to help understand the election. In that regard, it is good and helpful. I have lost all touch with the blue collar world that has seen its wages stifled for the last forty years. The concerns and anxieties articulated here are real and it is easy to be personally sympathetic. The plight of the Cajuns is compounded by the amazing environmental abuse inflicted on them. Thus, I am not inclined to conclude they are ill-informed or overly tribal. They are victims. One person said "Pollution is a sacrifice we make for capitalism." What an appalling conclusion to come to. In this story, it is the huge oil and petrochemical companies that have been given a free ride that are to blame. Their handmaiden, former Governor Bobby Jindal, reduced what little oversight the state imposed, cut taxes for industry, reduced social services and stood by while the polluters laid it on. This book is only 241 pages and a relatively easy read.

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Dahl

                                               This is another borrowing from the library of Eloise Anne Fairchild, my wonderful granddaughter. Charlie Bucket lived close by the Wonka Chocolate Factory when its proprietor, Willy, announced that the five children who found the Golden Tickets would receive a special tour. One day, Charlie found a dollar in the snow, purchased a candy bar and found a Golden Ticket. Charlie and his Grandpa Joe showed up on the appointed day. Oh the sights they saw: a chocolate waterfall, a field of gum, Oompa-Loompa workers, the fudge room, the chocolate river, and gobstoppers. Some of the children could not control themselves and greedily ate in the factory. Augustus floated away and into a pipe. Violet ballooned into a fat blueberry. Veruca was bratty and selfish and 100 squirrels carried her away to the garbage chute. Mike was so enamored with TV watching that he flew himself into the Wonka TV transporter. Only Charlie Bucket was left, and Willy declared him the winner. Because Willly liked Charlie the best, he told him that as soon as he was old enough, the factory was his. Willy gave the Chocolate Factory to Charlie.

Earthly Remains, Leon - B +

                                                   This is the 26th book in the Guido Brunetti series that the now almost 75-year-old Donna Leon started in 1992.  I seldom notice dedications, but here the expatriate American dedicates the book to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She then goes on to tell the most unique tale in the series that may or may not even involve a crime. There are certainly rising hints of a misdeed. She explores the geography and history of the lagoon and some corporate evil-doing along the way. It's great book by an enlightened author who loves Venice, its people, customs and history. Great series get better with age.

The Devil's Feast, Carter - B

                                               This, the third in the series, is set, as was the second,  in London in the 1840's. The first and best of the three was set in the Raj.  The take-away in this novel is the background of and establishment of the Reform Club and its trendsetting kitchen. It was the first significant non-Tory club and a political compromise between the Radicals and the Whigs, who eventually went on to be the Liberals. Most of the time in the novel  is spent on the workings of the kitchen and its real life creator and legendary chef, Alexis Soyer, of Paris.  In the second book, I compared Avery and Blake to Watson and Holmes. Blake as Holmes continues to peek through. As I've said before, when a historian takes up the pen of a novelist, the results are usually enlightening.

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, Frankopan - B

                                                This is a history of the world viewed from the perspective of the lands between the Mediterranean and the Himalayas. As the Oxford scholar author points out, this is the home of most civilizations and religions. The rise of Europe was neither inevitable, nor pre-ordained and most western historians fail to focus on  the lands around the Black and Caspian Seas, the original center of the world.
                                                Persia was the first great empire and creator of laws and civilization. It was conquered by Alexander the Great, whose successors ruled in the east for three centuries and began organizing the foundation of a trading system  along the Silk Road.* The Chinese engaged from the east and the Romans entered from the west. It was the wealth of Egypt and its trading as far east as India that propelled the greatness and wealth of Rome. The draw of the east was so compelling that Rome moved its capital to Constantinople. "The ancient world was much more sophisticated and interlinked than we sometimes like to think."
                                                Many and various religions competed in the area. "Religions rose and fell as they spread across Eurasia, fighting each other for audiences, loyalty and moral authority." Buddhism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism were the dominant ones. Christianity, pioneered throughout the Roman Empire by Constantine, was to eventually succeed in the east, not through conquest, but by acceptance. The rulers of Persia felt comfortable with and promoted religious tolerance. Indeed by the seventh century, it appeared as if Christianity was ready to dominate the east.
                                               In the century before the rise of Islam, the known world saw devastation everywhere. "The scale of death was unimaginable." From China to the Mediterranean, "Bubonic plague brought catastrophe, despair and death". Then, there was a major war between the Roman and Persian Empires. In southwest Arabia, a trend toward monotheism was building and in 610, a trader named Muhammad received inspiration from Allah. As the world struggled with the consequences of plague and war, he offered spiritual salvation that brought with it economic rewards. Expanding the religion through the sword, Islam quickly conquered Arabia and Persia. Its expansion was aided by Christians and Jews because from their perspective, "it looked inclusive and conciliatory, and offered hope of calming tensions." Within a century,  Islam spread from Arabia to Spain and China. The wealth that flowed to the center led to the construction of one of the great cities of the world. It was called the city of peace - Baghdad. The new-found prosperity of the Arab world led to innovation, urbanization, advances in medicine and mathematics and an upgrading of the quality of life, while in poverty stricken Europe, life went on with little change. Europe was an intellectual backwater restricted by a fundamentalist religion. "The Islamic conquests created a new world order, an economic giant, bolstered by self -confidence, broadmindedness and a passionate zeal for progress"
                                              In the later centuries of the millennium, the steppes increasingly influenced the civilized world. The Rus traded furs and slaves and, in the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks and other nomads were on the move. The Seljuks became rulers in Baghdad. Turmoil threatened Jerusalem and the faltering rulers in Constantinople asked for help from the west. Thus, began the Crusader era. In the summer of 1099, Jerusalem fell along with Antioch, Tyre and Tripoli. "Over the next two centuries, enormous effort went into holding the territories conquered in the First Crusade. Serving the King of Jerusalem meant serving God. The road to Jerusalem became the road to heaven." Additionally, the Muslim naval domination of the eastern Mediterranean was broken by the Italian city-states, of which Venice was foremost. They traded with and supplied the Crusaders. Venice was granted special trading privileges in the Byzantine Empire and there was a general increase in trading volumes between Europe and the Muslim world.  The Crusader era began to end in 1187, when Saladin retook Jerusalem, and in 1204, when the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople.
                                              Into this world where religions and empires wrestled for hegemony came the greatest disruption in recorded history - the Mongols. The contemporary world described them as it did the Huns centuries before. They were wild animals wearing the skins of dogs and mice. "Although the Mongols seemed to be chaotic, bloodthirsty and unreliable, their rise was not the result of a lack of order, but precisely the opposite: ruthless planning, streamlined organization and a clear set of strategic directives were the key to establishing the largest land empire in history." In half-a-century, they conquered China, India, the steppes, Russia and as far west as Palestine and Poland. They did wreak havoc wherever they went. But only initially. Soon, the rules, trading systems and governing procedures laid down by the Mongols led to a vast increase in trade and increase in wealth throughout the world. The significant movement of peoples around the world in the 13th and 14th centuries fostered an environment in which another great disrupter would once again emerge- the Black Death. From China to Ireland, millions upon millions died. However as society rebuilt after the plague, there were increases in wealth and prosperity in both Europe and Asia.
                                            From Europe, there was exploration that led the Portuguese east into Asia and the Spanish west to the New World. Armed with superior weapons, the Europeans plundered America, Africa and Asia and built the foundation for the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Soon, the British and the Dutch joined the action.  The wealth created in Europe increased demand for luxury goods throughout the Middle East and Asia and led to a rising tide of wealth around the world. "Continents were now connected to each other, linked by flows of silver."
                                          The British East  India Company, which traded with and eventually occupied the sub-continent had a significant impact on the history of the Silk Road. With their Russian rivals, they played 'The Great Game' throughout the area. The Russians moved aggressively into central Asia. Only Persia and the Ottoman Empire could hold them off. The Russian interest in Persia was so great and so anxiety inducing to the British, that the author posits that the Triple Entente was an attempt to befriend Russia and turn its gaze toward Europe. Then, World War I destroyed the finances of all it's European participants. "The experience of war had been shattering; it made control of the Silk Road and its riches more important than ever."
                                          In May of 1908, one of the most important events in world history happened in Persia when British drillers found "the motherlode, striking oil and sending black gold into the air." Earlier the Shah, in desperate need of funds, had handed the oil over to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, thus beginning a tension that would eventually explode in the form of Islamic fundamentalism. The British then asked the Arabs to support them in the war against the Ottomans and promised them independence. The British reneged, split the Middle East with the French, promised the Zionists Palestine and further planted seeds of fissures to come. A little bit further south, the Americans joined the party when they set up the Arabian American Oil Company. Relying on a system that put monarchs on thrones, the western system 'managing' the Middle East's oil wealth held through WWII. It was successful in the early days of the Cold War, but fell apart over Arab nationalism and US support of Israel. Twice in the 1970's OPEC brought the west to its knees with supply boycotts and price increases. And in 1979, the Iranian Revolution placed the most important oil power firmly in the anti-western camp. The fuel that ran the modern world and all of its attendant wealth and power was on its own.  The US intervened aggressively in 1991 and disastrously in 2003.
                                        The region's natural resources are leading to a rebirth of the world's center.  Pipelines and railroads criss-cross the area. Airports and cities are rising from the steppe. "The Chinese government is building networks carefully and deliberately to connect to minerals, energy sources and access to cities, harbors and oceans." IPhones are  manufactured in western China. Yale, Columbia and NYU have campuses in the Persian Gulf. The US has 'pivoted' its foreign policy to Asia. President Xi has spoken of 'One Belt, One Road'. Hopefully, a new Silk Road is in the offing.
                                        In the preface to this book, the author points out his coming of age realization that the Eurocentric view of the world often taught is, in fact, not quite correct. He is, of course, not plowing any new ground on that front. Nor does he stick to his core themes, as he spends chapter after chapter going far and wide discussing Europe and  even the US at length. Any well-read person knows that the history of the world is one of trade, migration and a vast sea of people, ideas, and religions mingling and evolving from one end of the Eurasian land mass to the other and that before the discovery of the New World. What the author has done, in my opinion, is put it together better, particularly in the first millennium, than many of the other books that I've read.

*The phrase was coined by a 19th century German history professor.

A Great Reckoning, Penny - B +

                                               In the latest in this well-written, insightful, if not brilliant series, Gamache comes out of retirement to become Commander of the Academy Surete. His mission is to clean up the last bastion of the old-boys corruption and cruelty network. He fires half of the staff, but keeps on the evil 'Duke' and brings in his former best friend, and now failed and disgraced former Superintendent Michel Brebeuf. Armand's path to a new and improved Academy is not apparent with these two on board. The 'Duke' is soon murdered and everyone is under suspicion.  The parallel story involves a hundred-year-old orienteering map from Three Pines and the four students Armand has tasked to study the map and to try and 'solve' it. The map allows the author to go back in history and explore, with extraordinary passion, the agony of being the mother of sons at war. This is probably the best in the series.

City of Dreams: The 400 Year Epic History of Immigrant New York, Anbinder - A*

                                            The first federal Superintendent of Immigrants for NY Harbor was appointed in 1890. For most of NY's history, anyone could enter the British colonies or the young United States. Around the turn of the 19th century, medical check-ups, with possible quarantine on Staten Island was the first attempt to supervise the flow.  Later, in 1855, a reception center was established at Castle Garden in the Battery.  Over time, convicts, prostitutes, Chinese contract laborers, idiots, paupers, and polygamists were barred. On January 1, 1892, Ellis Island was opened. It could process 15,000 people per day. It would be the point of welcome for 15 million Americans before it closed in the 1950's. They all came with dreams.
                                            The Dutch came to New Amsterdam in 1624. Trade in furs was the city's first business. Over the 60 years of Dutch rule, six thousand immigrants, many indentured servants, came to the New World. The colony became New York in 1664. It would take until the early 18th century for NY to be Anglicized and for there to be more English than Dutch speakers. The English and later Scotch immigrants were of a higher caliber than those that went to many of the other colonies. They were not indentured servants and often were businessmen from London. Anglicization was accompanied by a vast and diverse flow of immigrants from throughout Europe. Tolerance was a watchword. A visitor observed that residents "seemed not concerned what religion their neighbor is of, or whether hee hath any or none". Only Papists and Jews were not free to openly live their faiths.
                                             The last census before the Revolution showed 22,000 people in NY in 1771. Thousands fled before the British arrived in August, 1776. In the end there were only 5,000 residents left in the city. Tories rallied to the city and by Yorktown, there were 33,000 in NY. Evacuation Day came on November 25, 1783. Only after Waterloo, though, did British immigration to NY pick back up.  It took until 1824, the 200th anniversary of New Amsterdam, for the population to exceed 100,000. From that point on, NY added 100,000 people per decade. Even before the famine, the Irish were the largest group of immigrants to the city.  Unskilled laborers were the dominant percentage of the Irish immigrants. In 1845, 36% of the residents were foreign born and of those, there were more Irish than all the other nationalities combined. A decade later, there more foreign born than native. The famine caused 1.5 million people to leave Ireland and two-thirds of them came to NY. "The famine Irish were the most impoverished immigrants to ever arrive in the US and the least prepared for life in NY." They were totally lacking in any skills and many did not speak English.
                                             Although at times it seemed to be an Irish metropolis, between 1852-4, the city was flooded with Germans. There were 120,000 German New Yorkers on the eve of the Civil War. The residents of Kleindeutschland were skilled laborers and not day workers. They and the Irish found common political cause in the 1850's with their opposition to temperance and nativist movements. Both immigrant groups were indifferent to abolition and opposed to Lincoln, who did not carry the city. Notwithstanding their position, they believed in the US and rallied to the flag. The Irish in particular hoped that supporting the Union would show their commitment to America and overcome  prejudice.  The famous 69th regiment was part of the Irish Brigade, and after Antietam and Fredericksburg, their casualties were so high that they began to believe they were being sacrificed for the northern cause. The announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation followed. In the spring 1863, the Union defeat at Chancellorsville necessitated Lincoln's announcement of a draft*.  On the 13th of July, the city's Irish led the 4 day draft riots that remain the most significant outbreak of civil violence in American history. The city's lack of enthusiasm for the war was again reflected in the 1864 elections. Lincoln garnered one-third of NY's vote and significantly less of the Irish. Notwithstanding the politics of the war, the city celebrated victory and deeply mourned the 16th President.
                                           After the war, the proportion of German and Irish immigrants arriving in NY dropped to 53% in 1875, 43% in 1885 and 22% in 1895.  The Statue of Liberty rose in NY harbor in 1887 and, because of the poem by Emma Lazarus - "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" - it came to symbolize a welcoming of immigrants to America. In the 1880's, fleeing pogroms, the Jews of the Russian Empire came, and a decade later, the Italians would outnumber all else who came. On the eve of WW1, Jews and Italians outnumbered Irish and German immigrants by a ratio of 9:1. "Hunger, political oppression, and a lack of economic opportunity drove most of the immigrants to the United States, just as these same factors had pushed the Irish and Germans to America before them." Racial hatred, violence and poverty were the primary motivating factors for eastern Europe's Jews. For the four million Italians who arrived between 1880 and 1914, grinding poverty was the impetus. Ellis Island was the welcoming point from 1892 onward. The processing at Ellis Island was the most important step in the progress of the immigrants and the story remembered and retold for life.
                                       Like the Germans and Irish before them, it was to the Lower East Side that the Jews and Italians went. It was almost always the first step in America. Many of the immigrants to America came in serial fashion; i.e. one, followed by another and eventually, the rest of the family. However, the Jews came as families and thus, there were more women and children, leading to tremendous crowding on the Lower East Side.  Up until the 1892 banning of garment work in the tenements, the crowding was compounded by all those working at home. The garment workers and peddlers desired more and moved up to become cigar makers, butchers, bakers and painters. They began to move to Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. By 1920, 1.6 million Jews lived in NY, three-quarters of them in Brooklyn and the Bronx. "Yet until their dying day, the city's eastern European Jewish immigrants considered their years on the Lower East Side their formative American experience."
                                      Across the Bowery to the west was 'Little Italy'. There, and in east Harlem, the Italians began the upward climb from punishing poverty and overcrowded tenements just as the Jews and Irish had before them. However, because trans-Atlantic crossings were now cheap and fast, many Italians would work in the warm weather and return to Italy in the winter. As they became assimilated, they too moved to the outer boroughs, and because they apparently cared much more about what they ate than their predecessors, the boroughs provided an opportunity to tend gardens and grow fresh vegetables, thus ameliorating some of the pains of being in the city.
                                     Reform in the lives of NY's immigrants started with Jacob Riis'  'How the Other Half Lived', a book filled with photographs raising the premise that it was the horrid conditions of the tenements, and not their occupants, that were behind the poverty, violence and depravity of the slums. Housing codes were passed, various groups started settlement houses, hospitals were built, parks were squeezed into the neighborhoods, unions were formed, and after the tragedy of the Triangle Waist Company fire in 1911,  the Progressives acted to improve working conditions in New York State. Unfortunately, nativist principles and the 'otherness' of the recent arrivals along with a post-war outbreak of anarchy, led to the National Origins Act of 1924 which reduced by 95% immigration from eastern and southern Europe. It was one of the most significant laws ever passed in America. Immigration was capped at 150,000 and a country of origin system was enacted. The 'huddled masses' were barred. "Over the course of the next forty years, until Congress repealed the act, immigrants would play a diminishing role in New York." Immigration was so sparse that Ellis Island was closed in 1954.
                                     Immigration in the 50's picked up when hundreds of thousands of Americans from Puerto Rico came to NY. Meanwhile the quota system was increasingly attacked and actually was touted by the  communists as a symbol of American hypocrisy. The 1965 Hart-Celler Act imposed a quota of 150,000 for the western hemisphere and 170,000 for the eastern. Family members of citizens were exempt and further exceptions were made for those fleeing communism, thus, in both instances, significantly increasing the number of Asians entering the country. In NY, Dominican, Chinese and West Indians dominated the new wave. Of the three, the Chinese story is most similar to those of their predecessors. Many were illegal, smuggled into the country as part of an extensive and elaborate system. Fujianese succeeded Cantonese and spread out throughout the city. They worked in restaurants and hard as it is to believe, they did piece work at home, like the Jews a hundred years earlier and re-established NY's garment industry. The Dominicans and West Indians were quicker to the outer boroughs and now dominate Brooklyn and Queens#. As it has for almost four centuries, the city continues to change, evolve and process people like a great machine from dreams to becoming Americans.
                                          "Today, 3.2 million of NY's 8.5 million residents, 37 percent of the total, are immigrants." That's the same percentage as in 1900. For the record, the percentage in 1851 was 55%, the all-time high. "Today's immigrants are no different from previous generations of newcomers." Many are suspected and feared. The author, grandson of Jewish immigrants, points out that every single argument made today against Muslims was made for a hundred years about the Irish Catholics. Fear of the new and unknown is part of our tradition. That said, "New York is the promised land, looking green, fat, luscious and joyous from the outside; the promised land flowing with milk and honey." I hope it never changes.
                                          I am a third generation American. My great, great-grandfather came to NY, with his wife and son in tow,  sometime in the 1850's, approximately a hundred years before I was born.  How is it then that the immigrant experience is such a part of my take on the world?  I suspect some of it is that my parents, dutifully told the stories of those who came before.  I also think that a significant part of it is that in those first hundred years, no one had made the step up from the immigrant experience, still living lives of blue collar poverty, very close to  the neighborhoods they arrived in. Thus, this book resonates for me and touches upon my greatest interest and fascination with America and our history. American stories - how people came from everywhere and how they strived to achieve the dream - has always, and will always fascinate me.


*I believe my great-grandfather, David Barry, entered the Union Army in 1863. Although he may have been drafted, it is more likely that he accepted the bonuses that were behind the enlistment of the immigrants, as only citizens were eligible for the draft.
#The community my family lived in for 14 years, Cambria Heights, in Queens, is now a West Indian and Haitian enclave. Flushing, also in Queens, where I lived and worked for 7 years, is now almost exclusively Korean and Chinese. Ironically, the neighborhood in Brooklyn where I started school is still almost all working-class white ethnics.

The Orphan Master's Son, Johnson - B +, Inc.

                                             This brilliant novel was published five years ago, won a Pulitzer, and was recommended to me by Greg Weiss. The first half of the book is about Jung So, who was raised in an orphanage, trained as a tunnel rat for the Army, assigned to a unit that kidnapped people off Japanese beaches and was then sent to language school. Able to understand and transcribe English, he was placed on a a fishing boat as an intelligence officer. Although the story rambles, it entices by telling of the extreme poverty, absurd philosophies and baffling primitive life of the people in North Korea. The fishing boat, some leftover Soviet wreck, has no running water, toilets or even a life raft. And the sailors don't expect those comforts. The home port has a new tin factory because the old one gave everyone botulism and of course, there is no medicine or doctors, so lots of people simply die. And they often die in the dark, because there's no electricity at night in the Hermit Kingdom. Throughout North Korea, there are loudspeakers in almost all work places and dormitories reporting on news, warning about the next American sneak attack and singing the praises of the ruling family.
                                           Perhaps it was a personal distraction, but I got so confused in the second chapter, where the book turns from one to three narrators, that I gave up. It involves a somewhat ditzy Kim Jong Il and a truly flaky set of twists and turns. The book is invariably described as brilliant. That said, I am comforted by the 'New Yorker' review that says "the Candide-like picaresque of the first half - with its absurd but fully plausible turns of the screw - persuasively evokes life under brutal totalitarianism, the identity-switching and intrigue of the second part seem to originate in little more than the need to spin a yarn. When Johnson echoes the plot of 'Casablanca', the absurdity that characterizes life in a totalitarian state devolves into narrative improbability."
                                            Although I elected to not finish this book, I acknowledge its brilliance and appreciate the insights into a very different, and by my assessment, very strange place.

Journey Into Fear, Ambler - B +

                                             Eric Ambler was one of Britain's great mid-century authors of spy and suspense thrillers. He had an uncanny ability to write novels that were made into movies, which is how I stumbled across this 1940 masterpiece set in Istanbul, the Aegean, Athens, and Genoa. Graham (Joseph Cotten in the film) is a British naval engineer who attracts the murderous intentions of the Germans. His local contact and the police chief, Col. Haki (Orson Welles) decide to send him home on an Italian freighter, rather than the Orient Express. Unfortunately, the German killer, as well as his boss, is also aboard. Their plan is to assassinate Graham in Genoa when he leaves the ship.  Somewhat implausibly, he slays a bunch of bad guys in a pretty weak finale.  The story is somewhat dated, but Ambler had a mastery of the English language.

The Last American CEO, Vines and Cappy - C +

                                               This brief book is about American Motors, the hodgepodge of an auto company composed of Nash, Hudson and Packard, surviving on Rambler when it acquired Jeep in 1970. A hook-up with Renault in the 70's provided it with capital to withstand a series of losses in the 80's and saddled AMC with the Renault Alliance. Before the sub-compact was hurt by warranty costs, it won a Motor Trend Car of the Year award. Joe Cappy was appointed CEO, and while AMC continued to struggle with its Renault automobiles, but began to enjoy success with the Jeep brand. Jeep had caught Chrysler's attention and in 1987, Chrysler purchased AMC. Jeep blossomed under Chrysler and today is the stalwart that continues to prop up the latest iteration of the parent company.