Red Widow, Katsu - B

      This is a thriller set in modern Washington at CIA headquarters in Langley. Lyndsey is recalled from home leave to lead a search for a mole after three Russian agents are discovered by the FSB. She suspects Theresa, widow of a noted CIA leader captured and killed in an off the books op two years before. But perhaps Theresa's husband is not dead. Could the section chief be running a rogue investigation? As always in spy thrillers, there are endless loops of intrigue and deceit. 

The Art of Losing, Zeniter - B

       This novel is a multi-generational look into the war in Algeria that shattered France and its nearest colony in the 1950's and 60's. It is seen though the eyes of Ali, a modest merchant in the Algerian countryside; his son, Hamid, and Hamid's  daughter, Naima. An FLN attack on a French patrol in May, 1956 marks the eruption of violence and the beginning of the war. French revenge and reprisals against the civilian population quickly follow. The violence against the Algerians is indiscriminate, continual and justified by some sense of racial superiority that allows the French to believe in the morality of their occupation. In 1960, De Gaulle announces a referendum on Algerian self-determination. Independence follows, and with it anxiety for any who had anything to do with the French. Ali, as a WWII combat vet, had liaised with the French in a years' long effort to smooth life over for his village. Threats mount and the disrespect for Ali and his brothers intensifies. Ali does the only thing he can do to save his family. He takes them to France in 1962.

    Ali, his wife, and their three children arrive in a resettlement camp near Marseilles. It previously held Spanish Republicans, Jews and POW's. The barbed wire has not changed. They are traitors to the Algerians, and nonpersons to the French. After eight months in a tent, they are sent to a forest settlement in Provence and live in a cabin for two years before being sent to an apartment in Normandy. Ali works in a metals fabrication factory and the children attend school and try to become French. Hamid excels and becomes the liaison for the Muslim community with the French bureaucracy. He reads all of his neighbors letters and pens the appropriate response. Hamid's friends are French, he gives up honoring Ramadan, and his brother and sister too feel more and more of a chasm opening up between themselves and their parents.

   Hamid moves to Paris, where he meets and falls in love with a French art student, Clarisse. After a year of living together, they decide to meet the parents and face the reality of loving outside of their tribes. Surprisingly, Hamid's family, in particular his dad, handle the meeting with grace. Clarisse's parents are very uncomfortable and slowly distance themselves from their only child. Hamid and Clarisse go on to have four daughters, the second of whom is Naima.

   Naima works in an art gallery in the 6th arrondissement.  After the assault at 'Charlie Hedbo' in 2015, it becomes very unpleasant to be a French Muslim, even though Naima is an atheist and half-Gallic. The gallery owner decides to present an exhibit on Algerian art and to send her to the country she has heard about for her whole life, but never has visited. She realizes she knows very little and begins to research the events of the past. Her father evasively states that he knows nothing of Algeria, or why Ali fled in 1962. She delays obtaining her visa, but eventually steps up, takes an overnight ferry to Algeria, and begins her exploration for the gallery and of her family's past. Her travels take her to the mountains, where she meets her grandfather's brother and a dozen or so aunts, uncles and cousins.  As she leaves, she wonders: what did she expect? She is a Parisian, not an Algerian.  She will never return. She, and her family, have lost Algeria.

Mother May I, Jackson - B+

      This is an intriguing thriller set in current day Atlanta.  The wife of a successful lawyer turns away from her infant son while watching her middle school daughters practice for a play at a prestigious private school when her son is snatched. She hears from a very old woman who issues a series of instructions that must be followed if the boy is to be returned. What could prompt this conduct? The answer lies in events that transpired thirty years ago. This is an excellent beach read.

The Year of Peril: America in 1942, Campbell - Incomplete

   After Pearl Harbor, the US faced a world war with an army that a few years previously had been smaller than Portugal's. It trained with a 1903 Springfield bolt action rifle. Our air forces were a tenth of Germany's and our world class navy had suffered terrible losses on December 7th. There was a palpable fear that the US homeland would be attacked. A month later, in a historic State of the Union address, FDR vowed to bury the Axis Powers by massively outproducing them.  His plans frightened many who were concerned about a centralized government overwhelming democracy and capitalism. Nonetheless, the nation quickly converted to a wartime footing and began producing planes, tanks and ships.

  I gave up on this book early on when, in a few pages, it referred to 'Engine' Charlie Wilson as the CEO of GE, and stated that Rommel reached the Suez Canal. Wilson was at GM, and Rommel never made it past El-Alamein.

Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague, O'Farrell - A*

       This is an imagining of the life of Will and Agnes Shakespeare at two critical junctures: their marriage in 1582, and the death of their son in 1596. The story's heroine is Agnes, who stands up to Will's bullying, glove maker father, decides that Will should seek opportunities away from Stratford, holds the family together in a vast array of ways and nurses her daughter, Judith, Hamnet's twin, through the Plague. Judith was very small at birth and has required assiduous attention to stay healthy.  Her weakness is cited as the reason Agnes could never join Will in London.  While helping Judith through the Plague though, it is the healthier Hamnet who succumbs.  His death destroys his mother, who falls into a deep and lengthy period of painful morning. When Agnes learns that Will has written a play titled with their son's name, she and her brother travel to London. She arrives at the Globe in time to see a presentation of Hamlet, which she perceives as a blasphemy against her sons name. She slowly realizes the play is an homage to her son; Will's way of coming to grips with his son's death. This is the historical novel at its best, with vivid and detailed descriptions of life and death in the late Elizabethan era. This book won the national Book Critics Circle Award.

The Big Fella: Babe Ruth And The World He Created, Leavey - B+

         "By any standard or metric, ancient or modern, Ruth remains the best, most remarkable player in baseball history. He is still ranked first in slugging percentage (.690), and is also first in the newer, chic modern metrics of on-base + slugging (OPS.1.164) and wins above replacement (WAR 182.5)."

          In June, 1902, seven year old George Herman Ruth, Jr. was sent by his parents to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, a place where incorrigible and unruly white boys of Baltimore were placed when their parents felt that they had lost control.

          His story is told through the prism of a barnstorming tour featuring the Larrupin Lou's and the Bustin Babe's, conducted after the conclusion of the Yankees most famous season - 1927. The tour begins in Providence, RI on Oct. 10th. Before the '27 season, Ruth had promised Jake Rupert, Yankees owner, that he would hit 60 homers. He and Gehrig were tied at 44 apiece as late as Sept. 5th. The Babe had almost singlehandedly knocked the Pirates off in the World Series in four games, causing the owners to refund the gate for games 5 and 6. On the tour, the two superstars conducted home run contests before the game and then played on local teams. Ruth played for the Universal Winding Company and Gehrig for the Immaculate Conception Institute in Providence.

        Babe's childhood had been tumultuous. His family's finances were precarious, and most importantly, his mother kept burying newborns and infants. His parents divorced in 1906. He occasionally came home, but was at St. Mary's for a dozen years, until he was 19. The consensus is, and the Babe certainly felt, that he had been abandoned by his parents.

       The  day after Providence they were in Trenton, NJ. The tour was arranged by Ruth's agent, Christy Walsh, whose primary job was keeping the Babe's drinking and womanizing out of the papers. Walsh was the first sports agent. He had a flair for publicity that coincided with the explosion of interest in sports in the newspapers of America in the 1920's. He syndicated ghostwritten stories by Babe and others.  Walsh was so good that the Babe was being paid as much for his off field promotions as he was for his play for the Yankees. He was the number one story in a city that sold 3.5 million newspapers per day. He was on the cover of Time, Vanity Fair, Liberty, Popular Science, American Boy and Hardware Age. On that day in Trenton, they played against a Negro League team. The Babe regularly played against men of color, to the eternal consternation of Commissioner Landis.  On the 12th, they played at Dexter Park on the Brooklyn-Queens boundary line. Babe was the draw, the one the people wanted to see and touch. And he loved it, knew how to make sure everyone loved him, and always wanted to be around as many people as possible. At the end of the game, thousands stormed the field and it took a phalanx of policemen to extract Ruth from the crowd. 

      Next up was Asbury Park, where they had an uneventful day. On the 13th and 14th, they were on a train to Lima, OH. As they did in every town they went to, Ruth and Gehrig visited institutions that cared for kids. In Lima, it was a children's home, a hospital and an elementary school.  They played a nine inning game and were on to Kansas City. There, the itinerary included three orphanages, two newspapers, a hospital, and a parade before a 2:30 game. He pocketed $3,000 for a photo shoot and headed for Des Moines. He had become America's first and most famous pitchman. He would sell anything for a price. On one day alone, while still in Boston, he did ads for Dr. Reeds Cushion Shoes, the Talbot Co., Wolf's clothier,  Beckwith Hardware, Partridge Co. sporting goods, the Donovan Car company, a phonograph manufacturer and a cigar company. He made movies. He partnered with Louisville Slugger and A.G. Spaulding on lines of products. The one product he never received a penny for was the Baby Ruth candy bar, whose owners insisted it was named after the late Ruth Cleveland, the former president's daughter.

    Ruth had married the fall he left St. Mary's and became a baseball player.  Helen Woodford was a tragic figure who married and died young. Mystery surrounds their marriage and the birth of their daughter, Dorothy, who was adopted, but they claimed to be theirs. There are suspicions that he may have been sterile, as he slept with any and all women he could and was sued for paternity only once. In the early 20's, he met a Georgia model, Claire Hodgson, whom he would eventually marry.

   On the 19th, they arrived at Union Station in Denver and were met by 3,000 fans. By 1927, the fact that Ruth was a womanizing heavy drinker had become a commonly known fact. Two years previously, he had missed much of the early season with the "bellyache heard round the world." There was an extraordinary focus on his well being. Over the summer, it was apparent to all that Ruth was spending a great deal of time with Claire Hodgson, and the New York Daily news broke the story at a time when no one ever reported on the private life of celebrities. He showed up at the Stadium after being out all night and was suspended by the Yankees. The Babe's failings were now national news.  

    Babe and Helen had been secretly separated when she died in a house fire in early 1929. He married Claire in April. They held a reception at their 14 room W. 88th Street apartment, where, per Red Smith "the 18th Amendment didn't apply." Claire was sophisticated, assertive and hoped to reform the Babe.  

   The final two stops were Fresno and L.A. on the 29th and 30th. By the time they left for NY, they had traveled 8,000 miles, played before 225,000 fans, autographed 5,000 baseballs, visited dozens of charitable institutions and made money for the charities and themselves.

   The retirement that came in 1935 was a lonely one and loneliness was something he could not countenance. He had no financial concerns because of all the money he made, the extras that Walsh made and the fact that Walsh had insisted in the funding of an irrevocable trust with $200,000 of contributions he extracted from the Babe. He acted in 'Pride of the Yankees' and before his death was an advisor on the 'Babe Ruth Story'.  In 1946, he began to have headaches and an x-ray showed a mass at the base of his skull. Endless hospitalizations, chemo and radiation led to a weight loss of 125 lbs. MLB organized opening day of the 1947 season as Babe Ruth Day in all of its parks and the Babe spoke at the Stadium.  Experimental chemotherapy restored him that summer and gave him another year of life. In May, 1948, it was announced "that the Yankees intended to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Stadium on June 13 and retire number 3." He needed help to walk from the dugout to home plate to the cheers of 50,000 as Mel Allen boomed out "Ladies and Gentlemen, George Herman Ruth." He spoke to the crowd and left the Stadium for the last time. He died on August 16th. There was an around the clock viewing at the Stadium and a funeral mass, conducted by Cardinal Spellman, at St. Patrick's.

   The telling of this story in the format chosen has been difficult for me, as I prefer linear narratives. Like most Americans of my generation, I was raised on baseball lore and know much of the story. I feel I would have enjoyed a more in depth exploration of just about every topic touched here. He clearly was one of the century's iconic Americans, and meant so much to his times, and in particular, to his 'boys'. Thanks again to my brother. 

   

 

Cathedral, Hopkins -B +

         This is one of those grand, sweeping historical novels covering a century and a half in the city of Hagenburg, near the Rhine in Alsace. We begin in 1229 and meet our first two narrators, Rettich Schaeffer, a bright stonemason's apprentice, and the Bishop's Treasurer, Eugenius von Zabern, a cynical older man. Zabern's job is to continually raise money for the Bishop's varied expenses, not the least of which is funding the new cathedral. He travels around the diocese twice per year raising funds and collecting taxes. He outs various noblemen and whole villages as heretics, so the Dominicans can come in, burn them at the stake, and he can confiscate their wealth. The bishop sends Zabern to Rome in a failed attempt to improve the diocese's finances where he makes some powerful enemies. Nonetheless, he is still the Bishop's preferred successor.

        A few years later, the cathedral project has been cut back with fewer workers, masters and obviously, money. Rettich's  younger siblings are prospering. His sister Grete is a mistress in the drapers guild and his brother Emmerich is an important financial liaison to the Jewish community. They are representative of the rising merchant class that is politely challenging the church and its role as the leader of  society. They are anxious about piracy on the Rhine affecting their profits. When the Bishop finally dies, Zabern is again in Rome where his enemies attack and viciously blind him. The new Bishop, von Stahlem, is stricter; with a penchant for doing things by the book, and he re-prioritizes the cathedral project. The Bishop turns a blind eye to the piracy supported by Count Schwanenstein, a supporter, and someone displeased with the rise of the merchants and Jews. The Count's castle is besieged and falls to a catapult that turns the tide. Emmerich, who had led the fight on behalf of the merchants, and the Baron, who had provided the fighters, have a falling out, and Emmerich heads off to greener fields in Constantinople. He leaves behind a town with the Bishop becoming more autocratic and the community desiring to be free of his overbearing rule.

      The following year, 1249, sees the butchers and tanners , motivated by the Jews perceived responsibility for the plague and their petty debts to the lenders, descend on the Jewish quarter in a crazed frenzy of slaughter. Plunder follows the burning at the stake of 1,000 of the town's citizens. A decade later, Judah Rosheimer, the illegitimate son of Emmerich Shaeffer and the wife of a pious Jewish man and the leader of the community coordinates with the Rabbi an exploration of an invitation to leave the Rhineland and move to Poland. A new Bishop is about to be installed and the dynamics of the community will change. He is Walter von Kolzeck and he will reinstate the church to its appropriate place atop society. He excommunicates the city's leaders and then excommunicates the entire city. There is turmoil and war throughout the Rhineland, and the Bishop is allied with the forces opposing Rudolph von Hapsburg, who was backed by the city's merchants. The Bishop loses, takes to drink, and soon passes from this veil of tears. Once again, the future of Hagenburg is up in the air.  The aged and blind von Zabern gets the Papal nod.  Emmerich returns after a sixteen year absence and assumes the role of the Bishop's secretary. Emmerich plays a winning hand for the city and the Bishop when he favors von Hapsburg with a generous gift prior to his election to the Holy Roman Empire throne. The Bishop dies in 1273 and the now ennobled Emmerich in 1279.

     The story closes with an epilogue in 1350. The spires of the cathedral reach to the sky, but below, the city lies in near ruin. The Plague has struck.

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, Egan - B

          This is the story of "how the greatest grassland in the world was turned inside out, how the crust blew away, raged up in the sky and showered down a suffocating blackness off and on for most of a decade." It covered parts of Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. At its peak, it affected100 million acres. A quarter of a million people fled in the 1930's. American scientists say it was the number one weather event of the 20th century. 

          The land wasn't much to begin with. It had never really been settled until hardscrabble, desperate farmers homesteaded it at the turn of the 20th century. The land was subject to floods and fires. But it prospered during WWI, when, with irrigation and a government price support for wheat, everyone made money. The key was access to the Ogallala Aquifer, a few hundred feet below ground,  the size of Lake Huron, with water easily pumped to the surface. The wheat replaced the grasslands. The 1920's were wet years in the west. There was a worldwide wheat surplus in 1929 that led to a plummeting of prices the following year. The Depression soon followed. In Sept. 1930, the first black duster, a sandstorm so big and fierce that static electricity in it could short out a car, rolled through Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. The following year, banks stopped opening in the mornings. Drought and Depression led a third of the farmers on the plains off their lands. In January of 1932, the Texas panhandle saw a black storm 10,000 feet high with winds of 60 miles per hour, sort of a cross between a sandstorm and a tornado. The earth was dead and blowing away. Some began to realize that plowing under a grassland that had been there for 20,000 years may have been a mistake. The wind blew for the entire spring of 1933. The land was dead and soon, almost all of the animals were too.

       The New Deal began to buy the dying animals to restore market balance in the west. The storms continued into 1934; few bothered to plant anything. Millions of acres went fallow. The government began to pay farmers. Harold Ickes, the Sec. of the Interior, believed people needed to abandon the southern plains. A new illness, dust pneumonia, filled lungs and took the most vulnerable. In 1935, scientists estimated that 4.7 tons of dust fell per acre in western Kansas. The worst storm of the decade, Black Sunday, came that April. The above picture expresses the horror of that day. It was breathtakingly wide, 200 miles, as it raced down from the north. The region was on its knees. Congress passed a Soil Conservation Act, and soon 20,000 CCC workers were trying to repair the plains. The US also began to buy back land for $2.75 an acre. The Soil Conservation Council advised FDR that man had tried to do the impossible, to farm where it couldn't be sustained. They advised trying to let the grasslands revert. The president didn't like that idea and ordered that 200 million trees be planted. "In 1937, there were more dusters in the High Plains than in any other year - 134 ." On July 11, 1938, the president visited the plains. There was a massive turnout in Amarillo where, ironically, it poured as his train pulled into town.

     "The High Plains never fully recovered from the Dust Bowl." Today, much of the land is a national grassland run by the Forest Service.  There is some farming, but it is big agribusinesses sucking the aquifer dry. A few of the families whose stories told this tale have descendants still there. Thanks to my brother again. This is a National Book Award Winner from 2006.

           

 

Take It Back, Abdullah - B+

          Zara is a 30-year-old Muslim woman, beautiful and very successful. She is a London barrister on the fast track to a great future. But her Indian background and the expectations of her community and family force her into an arranged marriage. The stress and illogic of it all leads her to walk out on the marriage and resign from her career. She becomes a rape counselor and helps a deformed teenage girl initiate a case against four nice Muslim boys. She becomes a pariah and is humiliated in the tabloid press. The trial turns on a piece of late-surfacing video for a dramatic finale. The insights into this closed world where a woman could excel at the law and be expected to kow-tow to her new mother-in-law are frightening.

Ali: A Life, Eig - B +

          Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. was born in Louisville, Kentucky on Jan. 17, 1942. He was the descendant of violent men, and distantly, possibly of Henry Clay, the great Senator. Louisville's blacks lived well under a local "polite racism" system, and the Clay's lived in a better than average black middle-class neighborhood. His mother, Odessa, cleaned houses in the white neighborhoods. His dad did odd jobs, most often as a sign painter. Young Cassius was distraught by the segregation he faced. Although his father told him he could never be rich in a white man's world, he had other ideas. At 12, he stepped into a gym and began training. It sparked his ambitions. "It offered respect, visibility, power, and money." It also transcended race. He did poorly in school, and was barely literate. He probably was dyslexic. Between the ages of 12 and 18, he fought over 100 amateur bouts. In his later teen years, he fought in the Golden Gloves in Chicago and began to experience life in a big northern city. He also was exposed to the ideas of the Nation of Islam, and began to question his slave name and religion. In 1960, he won the AAU's, and gold in the light-heavyweight division in Rome. He signed a deal with a Louisville syndicate of six wealthy men, received a $10,000 signing bonus, and bought a pink Cadillac. His professional career began Oct. 29th. He moved to Miami to train with Angelo Dundee. He won fight after fight, but his dancing, circling to the right and not slugging it out style failed to convince his critics.  Throughout 1961 and 1962, he beat no-names and rose through the ranks. In late 1962, he faced a mid-forties, former champ, Archie Moore. He dropped Moore in four. Soon, he was ranked fourth in the division, and not just for his boxing skills. He was flat out the greatest self-promoter America had ever seen. He was on a Time cover in March of 1963. He sold out the Garden in NY for a fight against the third ranked heavyweight. That summer, Clay had a tune up in London against Henry Cooper, while Liston fought against Patterson in Las Vegas. The big fight would be in Miami in the new year. The near unanimous consensus was that Liston would destroy the "loudmouth from Louisville." The experts knew Liston could punch, but seemed to overlook that Clay had put on twenty pounds of muscle in the last two years, was a decade younger, two inches taller and much faster than the champ. While Clay trained relentlessly, Liston coasted. On Feb. 25th, Liston quit after six rounds. The champ had just turned 22, made a million dollars for the fight and spent the night in Malcolm X's room with Jim Brown and Sam Cooke. The following day he embraced Islam. He would now be known as Muhammad Ali. His decision threw the white establishment into a frenzy. The WBA said he should be stripped of his title because he was a poor example for young Americans. Complicating matters,  the Army announced he twice failed their mental acuity test. He didn't fight for the rest of the year. He toured Africa. He married Sonji Roi, a beautiful woman from Chicago of somewhat questionable background. His rematch with Liston was deferred into the following year, after Ali had emergency surgery in the fall. The rematch took place in Maine in the summer of 1965, a time when "Ali may have been the most widely disliked man in America..." Ali knocked Liston out in the first round. Slowly but surely, the Nation of Islam, in the person of Herbert Muhammad, son of Elijah, took over his life. Herbert, who had introduced Sonji to Ali, convinced him to divorce her because she wouldn't comply with the tenets of the religion. He became Ali's business manager. The group of Louisville businessmen who had provided Ali with a quality set of honest financial services were let go primarily because they were white. Herbert began lining his own pockets. As the war in Vietnam escalated, draft boards reconsidered their prior decisions and Ali was reclassified as 1-A. Ali didn't want to go and soon couched his objections as grounded in his religious beliefs. He filed paperwork claiming conscientious objector status. He later claimed to be a minister. He was now so unpopular that he had to fight in Canada and Europe. White America still called him Cassius Clay. On April 28, 1967, he refused induction. The same day, the WBA stripped him of his title and NY suspended his license to box.

         Ali didn't have much to do and was alone most of the time. For someone who thrived on activity and attention, it was torture.  He married a young Muslim woman, Belinda Boyd, later in the year and soon thereafter was convicted of draft evasion and sentenced to five years in jail. He was on bail pending his appeal. To white America, he was a traitor; to black America, a martyr. He was also broke. A federal circuit court upheld his conviction. As the war in Vietnam became more and more unpopular and the draft resistance movement prospered, and as black men demonstrated on the victory stand in Mexico City, Ali began to appear a bit more mainstream. A federal court in NY ruled for Ali and against the commission that had lifted his license. He was back and no longer the bad guy. Everywhere he went, people chanted Ali, Ali, Ali. A fight with Jerry Quarry was set for Oct. 1970 in Atlanta. Black America's celebrities flocked to the fight. Movie stars, singers, baseball players, as well as pimps and drug dealers were there. Ali had become the face of black empowerment. He was 28. He won, and won again against Oscar Bonavena, but he was slower. A statistical study of his career done years later showed that pre- suspension Ali hit his opponents twice as often as they hit him. For post-suspension Ali, the numbers were equal. And since Ali's favorite punch was a left jab, that meant he was getting hit harder than he was hitting. Taking a punch became the key to his second career in the ring. His 1971 fight with Joe Frazier was called the Fight of the Century and each was paid $2.5M, more than Hank Aaron made in his entire career. A NY writer said: "Muhammad Ali had become Lucky Lindy, and the Brown Bomber, Bobby Kennedy and Joan Baez all rolled up into one irrepressible folk hero hailed as our favorite defender of the truth and resister of authority." On March 8, 1971, the Garden was packed and 300 million watched on closed circuit tv. Nixon had a line installed at the White House so he could watch and root against "that draft dodger asshole." The afternoon of the fight, Ali had a $40 whore to his room. Ali fought toe to toe and won the first half of the fight before he ran out of gas. Frazier pummeled him. In the 15th Frazier was bruised and bleeding when his left hook sent Ali to the mat. Smokin Joe won and retained his crown, but both men were very badly hurt and arguably, never the same.

          At the Supreme Court, the initial vote was to uphold the conviction. A clerk had Justice Harlan read a book about Black Muslims and he began to have doubts. Potter Stewart pointed out that they were about to send one of the most popular men in the country to jail. The Court compromised on a technicality about the the reasoning of the Draft Board appeal, and unanimously reversed the conviction. He returned to boxing and in the 27 months prior to his second fight with Frazier, he fought 13 bouts. He was not only slower, but some began to believe he was brain damaged. He was also speaking more slowly than he ever had. The heavyweight arena got complicated after George Foreman took Frazier's title and Ali was so woefully unprepared for Ken Norton that Norton beat him and broke his jaw in 1973. He beat Norton in a split decision rematch and won Ali-Frazier II in a unanimous decision. He earned a bout with Foreman, and what would become a circus and spectacle, was scheduled for Zaire, the former Congo.  Each boxer was paid $5M. With thousands of Africans screaming "Ali Boma Ye" he rope-a-doped his way back to the title. He was now an American hero, embraced by all, welcomed to the White House. He fought a series of stiffs until Ali-Frazier III, the Thrilla in Manila. He out-endured Joe in a match he said "was like death." Frazier's corner threw in the towel before the last round. Ali had asked his corner to let him quit. They had almost killed each other. For all intents and purposes his career was over. He would never be the 'greatest' again.

          He continued fighting bums. Everyone in his corner knew he was a shadow of himself. Belinda gave up and divorced him.  He married Veronica, who gave birth to his fifth child. He needed money and continued fighting people no one had ever heard of. After a fifteen rounder at the Garden in late 1977 with Ernie Shavers, the Garden announced that he couldn't fight there anymore. They put his health and well being before their desire to make money. Ferdie Percheco, his ring doctor, resigned. He lost the title to a young Leon Spinks in early 1978. He won the title back later that year, primarily because he trained, and Spinks drank a lot. He retired, but came back three years later and embarrassed himself against Larry Holmes.  His final fight was a loss to Trevor Burdick later in the year. 

          Ali was forty and in bad shape. He was slurring his words. shuffling his feet and occasionally drooling. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's syndrome. He travelled endlessly, flying hundreds of thousands of miles per year. In 1986, he married Lonnie, his fourth wife. "No matter where he went, he was the most famous person in the room, and even in his diminished condition, made pulses quicken and left lasting impressions." Everywhere he went, he basked in the love of his fans. When the Olympic torch was passed to him in 1996, the crowd chanted Ali, Ali. He was 54.  A decade later, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Lonnie was a skilled businesswoman and finally got rid of Herbert Muhammad. She signed a marketing deal that netted the champ $50m. He was 74 when he died on June 3, 2016. His memorial service was televised around the world. 

        I do not remember a time in my life that I didn't admire Ali.  I'm not sure I ever even processed how much white America hated him. As an 11 year old, I was awed by his Olympic victory and amazed by his audacious, outlandish personality. Throughout high school, I saw him become world champion and a world-wide fan favorite. My college years, the last three of which were filled with anxiety about Vietnam, coincided with his opposition to the draft and his suspension. I was in law school for his first fight with Frazier. It was the era when you had to see him on Wide World of Sports because there were few broadcasts on tv. I remember listening to the Rumble in the Jungle on the radio. I was so sad to see him lose to Leon Spinks with Brent Musburger making an ass of himself as the announcer.  He then faded from public view and we next saw him lighting the flame in Atlanta in 1996. By then, Michael Jordan had surpassed him as the most famous person in the world. But MJ had a vast interconnected tv and video world at his fingertips. Ali was the most famous, and beloved, person in the world in the analog era. His faults and failures as a human being were endless.  He wasn't very smart. He was shallow. He was a faithless husband who fathered many out of wedlock children, and had thousands of woman over the years.  He showed no loyalty to Malcolm X. He succumbed to the harsh domination of his life by Elijah and Herbert Muhammad. He was the pawn of hucksters and shysters. He treated his opponents, particularly Frazier and Foreman, abusively, endlessly characterizing them as 'Uncle Toms'.  He was a horrid father. But he was on the right side of the big issues. He resented the way he was treated because of his color, and who wouldn't. He loved life and people; his generosity was extraordinary and his enthusiasm uplifted millions. He was, in my opinion, correct on Vietnam. I believe he was a great American, and someone I still admire, but considerably less because of all the miscues and endless personal failures enumerated here.  This is a very good book. Thanks to my brother, Will, for the recommendation.

 

2034, Stavridis & Ackerman - B +

   The Sino-American war begins with a provocation by the Chinese during an American 'freedom of navigation patrol' near the Spratlys in the South China Sea.  Two US destroyers are sunk after Chinese cyberwarfare eliminates all US Naval technological capacity in the Pacific. The US will be fighting a 21st century war with a hundred years old tool box. Slowly, the escalation begins. Two US fleets respond and again, without the ability to use their avionics, they are sunk. A tactical nuke hits the Chinese mainland, and two responses hit the US. Enjoying the chaos, Russia grabs Polish territory in order to pen up a corridor to Kaliningrad. The Indians intervene dramatically and stop the war before it ends the world. The US, though, is greatly diminished, and China is hurt as much. 

   Insight into the two sides are seen through a Chinese Admiral whose mother was American and an Indian-American staffer on the NSC in the White House, who was born in the US to immigrant parents. The author points out each nation's failings based on their historic tendencies. The US still believes it has the right to do whatever it wants, without regard to its own hypocrisies. Decades of partisan battles have left the country a shadow of itself.  Even this war can't bring the US together. The technologically superior Chinese are too are arrogant, and are convinced that the concept of appropriate response form Sun Tzu will keep matters under control. It doesn't. 

 The authors, two very important members of the US military military establishment, close with a quote from Lincoln: "If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. " This is a dark warning to us about our overreliance on technology and fractious, non-constructive methods of governance.

The Burying Place, Freeman - B+

                          Stride is still recuperating from his plunge off a bridge into Lake Superior. He broke bones in the fall, but more importantly, he is fearful and suffering from anxiety attacks. Some are so bad that he passes out.  He locks up and keeps Serena at arms length. He is dreading going back to work when he is drafted by a neighboring jurisdiction to help solve the case of a missing 11 month old. Simultaneously, Maggie is trying to do Stride's job as chief in Duluth, where three, now four, woman have disappeared and are presumed dead. Serena is hired to help on the kidnapping case. Slowly, the investigations begin to merge and frighteningly and dramatically come together. As the case is solved, Stride's personal life unravels and Serena walks away. He and Maggie are back running the department and dealing with a new complexity in their decades old, complicated relationship. This series gets better and better. 

The Cold Nowhere, Freeman - B

              Jonny, Maggie and Serena join together to investigate a number of missing people. The central link is a 16 year old street girl whose mother was murdered by her father a decade ago. Why is everyone looking for her, and why does someone wish to kill her? Somehow, the president of the city council, known to many as 'Lowball Lenny' for the pricing of his car dealership, is in the mix, but he's untouchable. Plenty of twists and surprising turns at the end.

Smoke Screen, Horst & Enger - B

            This follow-up novel is good, but not nearly as good as the first one. The journalist, Emma, is at the waterfront on New Year's Eve when a bomb goes off at midnight. Another countdown? Actually, it's a tie in to a case Blix worked on a decade ago when a 14 month old was kidnapped. The pacing doesn't pick up until the last third, when it hurtles to a surprising conclusion.

Death Deserved, Horst & Enger - B+

       This is a Nordic noir page-turner set in Oslo. A somewhat jaded detective and a young woman reporter are thrown into the middle of the hunt for a serial killer.  The distinctive aspect of this novel is that the killer leaves so many hints about what he's up to that it's almost as if he's advertising what comes next. He becomes known as the 'countdown killer' because his victims are associated with a number.  From seven down to one, either they, or something in their life, jumps out. For example, number three is the pastor of a popular church identified with the Trinity. The daughter of the detective is involved in a reality tv show that the entire nation is watching.  With one eye on the tv show and one on the murders, Norway sees them come together in an action packed resolution. A very fast-paced, enjoyable read.

The Plague Cycle: The Unending War Between Humanity and Infectious Disease, Kenny - B

     Mankind's transition to farming and the domestication of animals altered the dynamics of our battle with disease. "Large scale infection was the poxed handmaiden of agriculture and civilization ." Over our history, "pestilence has wiped out far more lives than famine and violence combined..." Prior to the eradication of smallpox in 1980,  hundreds of millions died in the first eight decades of the century.  Nineteenth century improvements in sanitation and twentieth century advances  in science have provided the species with unimaginable improvements in longevity and good health. 

  During the Stone Age, the population of our hunter-gatherer predecessors never grew materially because of their constant movement, violence, precarious food supplies and infectious disease, as pathogens diversity has always been higher in the tropics. When homo sapiens moved together to farm and live in cities, proximity allowed "species hopping infectious killers to spread." The agro-urban diseases of measles, smallpox and malaria have been history's great killers and have "had the larger role in shaping societies and economies." Trading over distance soon added to the exchange of infectious diseases. The Roman Empire stretching from the Atlantic coast, and eventually Britain,  to Egypt was a highway of non-stop disease transmission. Plague and pandemic accompanied the declines and border failures of the later Empire. It inhibited the expansion of Islam and, in the 14th century, the Black Plague killed up to half of Europe. Perhaps the most dramatic example of disease affecting humanity was the devastation of 90% of the peoples of America by the "microbial invaders from Eurasia and Africa" after the Spanish arrival in the New World. Disease, particularly typhus, stymied Napoleon in Egypt and Russia, and one of his lieutenants in Haiti.

  For most of history the primary way to avoid illness was to isolate, segregate and quarantine the sick. The 19th century's rapid industrialization and concomitant increase in urban population spurred the creation of clean waters systems and sewers. The ultimate game changer has, of course, been vaccination. The earliest recorded activities were in the 18th century in China and Constantinople. Europe  followed suit in the 19th century. WWII saw the American introduction of antibiotics in the form of penicillin. Life expectancy around the world doubled in the 20th century. The connectedness of the world may be resetting the equation between microbes and man. Both AIDS and Covid-19 were quickly spread around the world. Similarly, anti-vaccination believers are hurting the general health of the public, as is over cleaning and keeping children away from 'normal' microbe exposure. Overuse of antibiotics, in both humans and animals, leads to viruses that resist the medicines.  These trends can and should be stopped. "The massive decline in premature death is something we should celebrate and protect as humanity's greatest triumph."

These Truths: A History of the United States, LePore - B+, Incomplete

          The US Constitution "was meant to mark the start of a new era, in which the course of history might be made predictable and a government established that would be ruled not by accident and force but by reason and choice." The question of this book is whether our history shows that the self-evident truths of political equality, natural rights and the sovereignty of the people have been proven or belied. This book is  a civics primer, a political history, and "an explanation of the nature of the past."

          I. The Idea 1492-1799        Desperate and poor, outflanked by Islam, the nations of western Europe sailed west to find markets to trade with. The extraction of the wealth of the Americas was accomplished by 2M Europeans migrating west along with the 12M African slaves they forced to the Americas. In the section that became  British America, white settlers, between 1600-1800, numbered about 1 million. The imported Africans were 2.5M. The English were latecomers, over a century behind the Spanish, and decades behind the French. The Europeans, appropriately, asked themselves by what right did they come and conquer. The Spanish simply decided that God was on their side because the indigenous peoples did not worship as they did. Thus armed with right, they pillaged and plundered central and southern America. The English, at least, came as settlers and those settlers brought with them their rights as Englishmen. In Virginia, they came with James I's  charter. In 1619, twenty Englishmen were elected to the House of Burgesses, America's first elective body. Simultaneously, twenty Africans were sold into slavery in Virginia. Those who went to Massachusetts, the Pilgrims, were religious dissenters fleeing their perception of tyranny. They were followed during the reign of Charles I with thousands more leaving as England descended into Civil War. Ultimately, almost all the colonies were formed under the guise of religious freedom and toleration. Throughout the 17th and into the 18th century, British America, from the Caribbean to Massachusetts, slaves rebelled again and again, as did the indigenous Indians, both raising the question of by what right do you rule.

          Up until the 1760's, Parliament had set the rules of trade and the colonies and taxed themselves. With the Sugar and Stamp Acts,  Pitt and the parliament attempted to change the established practices. The road to revolution was open.  And in New England, "the zeal for liberty raised the question of ending slavery." Many in the north wondered about the relative tyranny of imposing taxes versus enslaving a human being. After a year of war, the colonies published their Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. During the war, one in five slaves attempted to join the British, who offered them freedom. The Revolution saw slavery bend but not break.

          What we now know as the Constitutional Convention was convened in 1787 for the purpose of amending the Articles of Confederation. It was agreed quickly that the Articles needed to be set aside and some semblance of a national government needed to be established. "Slavery became the crucial divide in Philadelphia because slaves featured in two calculations: the wealth they represented as property and in the population they represented as people." The eventual compromises on the topic of representation was two votes for each state in the Senate and the three-fifths compromise for the House of Representatives. Ratification was put to the people for approval in their state legislatures.  The new government, led by Washington, began the process of ruling by choice and not power. A decade later when Washington died, a popular print was of he and the Archangel Gabriel giving the Constitution to the American people.

       With 640 pages to go, I'm pausing, likely stopping, as I don't have the patience for this. It is very, very good, but it is too long. Also, I am not certain I wish to spend close to 18 more hours grappling with our 'original sin'. I acknowledge wholeheartedly that it remains unresolved today. I've long thought that it is our signal failure as a nation. But my view is that the immigrants who poured into America in the sixty years after the Civil War, and then again in the last half century, built our phenomenally successful society with those here before them, and together they forged a nation that delivered these self evident truths from coast to coast. 

 

Wedding Station, Downing - B+

            This book is a prequel to a series of six that ended almost a decade ago. Five of those six, like this one, are named after a Berlin train station. Wedding was a blue collar neighborhood in the interwar years, populated by communists. 

             John Russell is a crime reporter, an English veteran of the Great War, who has been living in Berlin for nine years. He and his wife are estranged, and he stays because of his devotion to his six year old son. On the night of the 1933 Reichstag fire, a young 'line boy', a male prostitute, is brutally murdered. An SA officer was rumored to have been at the club. Russell diligently pursues the case and eventually finds the young man's diary in which he implicates five top SA men as homosexuals. A close friend suggests getting it to Himmler as it appears the SS and SA are on a collision course. He provides the information to the SS, who, a year later of course, were instrumental in the violent elimination of their rivals.

           He also works on other stories, the disappearance of a designer who happens to be Jewish and predicted the fire; a missing daughter inclined toward communism and devastating her dad, a general on the rise; a genealogist with information on people's now toxic Jewish heritages, as well as  a few others on the seedy side of Berlin life. The excellence of this novel is what epitomizes all good historical fiction. You feel as if you are living in Berlin in the winter of 1933 and watching the world around you fall apart.

Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause, Seidule - B

      The author is a professor emeritus of history at West Point, a retired  Brigadier General and an author of four official West Point histories.  For decades, he "believed the Confederates and Lee were romantic warriors for a doomed but noble cause." The author was raised in Virginia, and attended Washington and Lee University.  He came of age, and lived, in a world where Lee was a "deity."  Although history has shown that the South seceded to protect slavery, the Lost Cause myth is built around the gallant defense of everything else: tariffs, states rights, nullification, etcetera, anything but slavery. It also promotes the idea of happy slaves in need of protection and posits that the North overwhelmed the South only because of its size. 

      He attended college in Lexington VA, a town where both Lee and Stonewall Jackson are buried. The University features the Lee Chapel,  "the St. Peter's Basilica of the Lost Cause religion." The chapel is not consecrated, has no Christian imagery and features a statue of Lee lying in repose on the altar.  After accepting an ROTC scholarship,  the author went on active duty and spent most of his time at Forts Bragg and Benning, both named after Confederate officers. The Army has always insisted the forts are named after 'historic names' and are not a political/historical statement. While teaching at West Point, he came to realize that Lee was the most memorialized name at the school. The consecration of Lee at the school began in the 1930's, ran through the 70's, and in almost each and every instance, the statue, plaque, barracks, road, or prize was in response to a specific event in the advancement of civil rights. The last example was a major increase in Black students after the 1968 assassination of Dr. King which led to the dedication of the largest dormitory at West Point - the Lee barracks.

        His verdict on Lee is treason to preserve slavery. After thirty-six years in the US army, he levied war against the US, the Constitution's definition of treason. Prior to his resignation, he was opposed to disunion, believed secession to be revolution and supported a perpetual union. However, he did state that he would follow Virginia if necessary. "Lee chose the Confederacy because of his abiding belief in slavery." His wealth came from marrying Mary Custis, the only child of Washington's adopted son. Their wealth derived from owning approximately 200 slaves. He supervised the whipping of three slaves who had escaped and been recaptured. He believed in slavery and fought to maintain it. After the war though, he encouraged his soldiers to reconcile, signed the amnesty oath and requested a pardon. He died in 1870.

       One must agree with just about everything Gen. Seidule says. Lee violated his oath. He was a slaver, and one who on at least one occasion turned to violence. He believed in slavery, and in his last years, was bitter about the South's loss and the prospects for the future. However, he is not guilty of everything done in his name in the last 150 years, nor is he responsible for his "deification" that the general so ardently pushes back against. Clearly, the monuments must go. For Black cadets to live in a barracks named after Lee is wrong. For soldiers of color to serve at Ft. Lee or Hood or any of the 9 forts named after Confederates is wrong. 

       I am a northerner and recently I learned that my great-grandfather was in the Union Army. But my opinions were formed long ago. I condemn the South, its war and its quarter of a millennium treatment of Africans. However, I believe any assessment of Lee must be made by the standards of the mid-19th century and not today. I do not believe Lee was wrong to choose Virginia. At that time, people's first identity was to their home state. Furthermore and most importantly, the Union was still believed by many to be consensual and not irrevocable. And let's not forget that our country has never produced a more capable field commander. That said, this book has forced me to continue to reconsider this era of our history.

      

   

A Tip For The Hangman, Epstein - B+

      This superb novel is about Christopher 'Kit' Marlowe, on scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and recruited, while a graduate student, as a spy by Sir Christopher Walsingham, the Queen's secretary. His first task was to work as a footman for Mary, Queen of Scots.  He exceeded all expectations when he deciphered her letters to Catholic plotters on the continent. He worked for Walsingham at the castle where Mary was held for the five months between her arrest and execution. The Privy Council asked the university to award his degree, which he had not finished, and released him from service, but with the admonition to stay in London as he may be needed again.

     Five years later, he was the toast of London, a successful playwright when the summons to Whitehall came. Another cipher, another plotting Papist, but this time it was his patron, Lord Strange. He winds up playing a double game, letting Strange think he's a Papist supporting the Catholic cause. It's a road that is almost impossible to negotiate. After Walsingham dies, Sir Robert Cecil takes over, and does not trust Marlowe. The Catholics were never sure of him either. Death, treachery and double dealing abound.  And, Kit meets his end at the hands of a team of lowlives in a bar in 1593.                                                                                                              History does not know why Marlowe was killed. The endless theories are almost 21st century in their varied hypotheses: it was the Catholics, the Queen's men, Sir Walter Raleigh, a debt collector or perhaps, it was no more than a barroom scuffle. This is a  historical novel of the first order. It artfully delivers a great feel for the time and places: Cambridge and London, the late 16th century. N.B. The explicitness of Marlowe's homosexual relationship with Tom Watson can be/ is  off-putting.

Untraceable, Lebedev - B

            A Russian defector, living in the German iteration of a witness protection program, attracts the attention of his former masters. They learn that he recently helped with the investigation of a mysterious poisoning case. He was uniquely positioned to advise on the matter. After all, he was the chemist who invented Neophyte.  Notwithstanding the fact that he is dying of cancer, the SVR sends a hit squad. While the old mans sits with a bottle in his hand reminiscing about the old days in his closed-off world of science and security, the two hitmen circle closer and closer. Meanwhile, the old pastor, a priest who survived years of communism, sees the defector for what he is - - a man hiding from his past. The thoughts of the defector, the pursuers and the priest are all vehicles for deep Russian introspection about life, death, despair, poison, the police state and the soul crushing evil that the totalitarian state inflicts on its people.

The Border: A Journey Around Russia, Fatland - B-

                  Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, And The Northwest Passage

       The author circumnavigated Russia with one question in mind: "what does it mean to have the world's largest country as your neighbor?" There is no one or simple answer. The dissolution of the USSR led to the creation of 14 new states.    

      To the north is the Arctic Ocean with a coastline extending from Murmansk, abutting Norway, to the Bering Straits, a few miles from Alaska. It is cold, forbidding and filled with the detritus of the Soviet era. Climate change is affecting the Arctic more than anywhere else, and the historic islands in the Arctic Sea, which saw centuries of explorers are being inundated by the rise of the sea. At 19 kilometers, the N. Korean border is the shortest. The country is, of course, the most closed, corrupt and poorest place in the world, one that barely survives thanks to an illegal black market economy, and trade with Russia and China.  The deluded populace believes the US started the war in 1950, that we are on the verge of attacking, that the North and South will unify under the leadership of the North, and that it is the best place on earth to live. In 1858 and 1860, Russia forced a severely unequal border treaty with China, taking vast amounts of Chinese land and allowing the Russians to build Vladivostok, which means 'Ruler of the East'.  The borderlands are China's most northern territories, and abut Russia's Far Eastern District, which is actually east of Siberia. The District is one-third of Russia's land and has 6m people, while the bordering smaller Chinese region has 40m. Mongolia has been a battleground between its two massive neighbors for centuries and had been a Buddhist theocracy until Stalin's 1930's suppression. The country was not part of the USSR, but was a satellite state that Moscow completely controlled. Kazakhstan is the 9th largest country in the world and was home to the USSR's nuclear testing programs. Its border with Russia is just over 4,000 miles. A fifth of the population are Russian and live in the north near the border, thus unnerving the government, which is anxious about maintaining positive relations with the Russians. In Azerbaijan, it is not anxiety but dislike of the Russians and their history of conquest and oppression in the Caucasus. Ethnic tensions, the essence of the history of the region, permeate life in Azerbaijan because of its breakaway region, Nagorno-Karabakh, which is ethnically Armenian. Similarly, in neighboring Georgia, the animosity is over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two breakaway republics recognized as independent by Russia. It seems that the less history and contact with the Russia of the Tsars, the USSR and Putin's Russia, the better off one is. The only Asian neighbor that is a successful country is China and it has never been subservient to or reliant on Russia. As for the rest, the only calculus is who is worse off.

        In Ukraine, all Russian speakers believe the Rose Revolution was a US plot, and between the annexation of the Crimea and the war in the Donbas, tensions are higher at this border than anywhere else in Europe. And sadly for this accursed country, Chernobyl is now a major tourist attraction. In Belarus, the Soviet Union is alive and well. Statues of Lenin are still standing and the KGB hasn't bothered to change its name. Its border with Russia is completely open. In Lithuania, only 5% of the population is Russian. It was the first country to declare its independence in 1991. Poland's long history with Russia is a lengthy litany of hatred that lies just below the surface today.      It should be noted that both Lithuania and Poland only border Kaliningrad, not mother Russia itself. Latvia was heavily Russian when it was part of the USSR and consequently, today it is one-quarter Russian. It suffered at the hands of both sides in WWII, but the most difficult memory is the thousands who were sent to Siberia and the Gulag. Estonia too is heavily Russian. Its border with Russia is still not settled by treaty. The two countries have also been arguing about monuments, particularly one memorializing a soldier of the Red Army. Finland was Swedish for seven centuries and was conquered by Russia in 1809. It was a stand alone Grand Duchy when it declared its independence in 1917. They fought and lost to the USSR in the 1940 Winter War, and lost twelve percent of their territory. They were affiliated with the USSR during the Cold War, but not occupied like the countries behind the Iron Curtain. Today, the borders of Russia, Finland and Norway meet at a cairn above the Arctic Circle. From there, it is 117 miles north along the Norwegian border to the Arctic Sea. This border is NATO's oldest with Russia, dating to 1949. As in Asia, the country with the least interaction with Russia, Norway, is the most successful. Finland had extensive contacts, but was never occupied and it's a close second. All the rest continue to struggle with the latest iteration of evil. 

            Erika Fatland is a Norwegian journalist in her thirties with a real case of wanderlust. She traveled alone over 12,000 miles 'around' Russia. She concludes, "It is not just its neighbours that are disparate; Russia contains within its border myriad disparate histories, terrains and ethnic groups."  The country lost half of its population when the USSR dissolved. Her guess is that further border disintegration is in its future. As for me, I have a fondness for offbeat travelogues and, that said, still skimmed quite a bit. 

Kearny's March: The Epic Creation of the American West, 1846-1847, Groom - B

    When the war with Mexico started, President Polk ordered Gen. Kearny to take his 2,000 man Army of the West from Kansas  down the old Santa Fe Trail to capture the New Mexico Territory. Afterwards, he was to go a further 1,000 miles and add California to the flag. At the same time, 7,000 Mormons were leaving the US and heading west, as were a few families that would be known to history as the Donner Party, and already ahead of them was US Army Captain Fremont's third topographical expedition to the coast. Kearny's march..."was an astonishing, daring and difficult adventure..."

    The 962 mile trek was no walk in the park. Indians were a risk, as was the weather, and the simple fact that, as you progressed, there was no wood and cooking was done with buffalo dung. The heat was intense; men and horses began to die. Kearny persevered and entered Santa Fe on August 18th. "For the first time in its history the United States had taken by military conquest a territory belonging to a foreign nation - and, remarkably, without firing a shot." 

   California, where very few officials ruled on behalf of faraway Mexico City, was initially just as easy. A substantial influx of Americans frightened the locals, whom the Yanks rebelled against in the summer of '46. Fremont had entered California with less than a hundred men and the belief he was under orders to capture California when war broke out. Time has never resolved whether he had, or had not, received such orders. He pitched in to help his countrymen, and soon found out that a naval ship arrived to announce the war and raise the American flag in San Francisco. Commodore Stockton sent Fremont to conquer Los Angeles and it too fell without a fight. 

      In September, Kearny took 300 men and headed for California. Halfway there, he learned that conquest was no longer necessary and he sent back two-thirds of his men. It was over a thousand miles through unchartered desert and extremes of weather. After months on the trail, Kearny then learned that a rebellion in Los Angeles had freed much of southern California from American rule. His troops were exhausted, had lost most of their horses and were riding mules. They engaged in a vicious skirmish with Mexican forces and had to send Kit Carson to San Diego for help from Stockton. In the nick of time, the Navy rescued Kearny. Together, the two services recovered the City of Angels.

    When Kearny left Santa Fe, he sent Colonel Alexander Doniphan and a thousand men south to march on Chihuahua and capture the city and province. Once again traveling great distances, the Americans marched to El Paso and on to Chihuahua defeating the enemy at Brazito and overcoming a larger force at Sacramento.  After occupying the capital for two months, Doniphan was ordered to head hundreds of miles southeast to Saltillo. They had marched 3,500 miles before a grateful Army ordered them home.

    The triumph in California was sullied by contretemps, arguments and insubordination pitting Kearny against Stockton and Fremont, that led to a court martial of Fremont later in the nation's capital. The three month trial was a national media circus that featured Fremont's father-in-law, Sen. Thomas Hart Benton attacking General Kearny. When the 'Pathfinder' was convicted, he was offered a degree of clemency by Polk and the opportunity to stay in the Army. He declined. Kearny was named Governor General of Mexico City, but died later in 1848. Fremont lived to 1890, but never again accomplished anything to equal his feats as an explorer. Polk had always intended to be a one term president. He had accomplished a vast expansion of the country in the southwest and had settled the Canadian border with the UK.  He fell to cholera three months after leaving office. The victorious General Zachary Taylor had succeeded him. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo settled the war. The US paid Mexico $18M and garnered the entire southwestern United States. The war was condemned by many, including Ulysses Grant, who said it was "one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation." A century later,  John Eisenhower said, "The fact is that Mexico stood in the way of the American Dream of Manifest Destiny." The war proved to be a training ground for what came next, because almost every general in the Civil War had fought in Mexico. I am not sure who of my friends recommended this book, but thank you.

Smoke, Ide - B+

    In the fifth book in the series, IQ, Isaiah Quintabe, leaves behind LA, its violence and cast of despicable characters, for breathing room in the exurbs. Of course, it all follows him and he has to resolve multiple issues, including a serial killer on the run, an ex-con after him and threats to his girlfriend, Grace. The author hits a new stride here with a more cohesive plot and the development of the story of Q's best-friend, Dodson, who transfers his 'hood' skills to a white-collar office. The next in the series is teed up because Grace is missing and Q is on his way back to LA.

The Secret Guests, Black - C

                     This ManBooker-winning Irish author goes a bit overboard here in a novel with the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret sent to Ireland to avoid the Blitz. Off they're sent to a rundown castle in the Irish Midlands with an aged, widowed, and dimwit Duke as host. The sisters are overseen by a young woman from the Secret Service and a Garda detective, selected because he was from the 5% of the Republic that was Protestant. Celia Nash and Det. Strafford  eventually conclude that they have security concerns. Soon enough, the IRA arrives, and in a comedy of errors, two of the three attackers are killed and Miss Nash is gravely wounded. Maybe it's a satire and I missed the point.

The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III, Baker and Glasser - B+

"Delegate hunter, campaign manager, White House chief of staff, treasury secretary, secretary of state, James Addison Baker III played a leading role in some of the most critical junctures in modern American history." He was principled, but practical, with a fervor for "getting things done. He was born into a world of wealth in Houston in 1930." Privilege was his birthright, but it came with formidable demands of duty and discipline." The law firm  Baker Botts was founded by his great-grandfather after the Civil War. His grandfather was one of the builders of the city, a virtual pillar of the establishment. His father was a WWI hero as well as a tough taskmaster. Growing up, Jimmy had little interest in school, but rather preferred hunting and tennis. He was an indifferent student at Princeton and upon graduation in 1952, joined the Marines. A year later, he married Mary Stuart of Dayton, Ohio and Finch College. He graduated at the top of his class at UT Law School in 1957. Back in Houston, while starting a family and pursuing his law career, he became a doubles partner at the Houston Country Club with a young oil man, George Bush. His world fell apart in 1970 when his 38 year-old wife, mother of their four sons, died of cancer. Tiring of the law, he took up George Bush's suggestion that he get involved in politics. He remarried in 1973 to a good friend, recently divorced and with three children of her own. With the help of then- Ambassador to China Bush, he was appointed Undersecretary of the Commerce Dept. in 1975. A year later, he moved over to Ford's re-election campaign. He was instrumental in garnering the nomination for the president and then was made campaign manager. After Carter's election, Jim Baker returned to Texas to practice law. He took his one shot at electoral politics and ran for and lost the 1978 race for Texas Attorney General. He managed his best friends presidential run in 1980 and pulled off an upset of the frontrunner, Ronald Reagan, in Iowa. Throughout the primaries though, Reagan slowly pulled away. He withdrew Bush from the race in late May and maneuvered him to the VP nomination. He managed Reagan in the two debates, is considered to have out-negotiated Carter's men and was rewarded with the WH Chief of Staff job. As he was non dogmatic and much more establishment than Reagan's people, the conservatives were none too happy. Baker set out to, and did, master the job. When Reagan was shot in March, Baker handled the crisis skillfully and calmly. He courted journalists and was very solicitous to members of Congress. He shepherded the 1981 Tax Act through to passage. As the recession continued to clobber America, Reagan's poll ratings fell and the Republicans lost seats in the House in 1982. The following spring, the commission Baker designed to stave off problems with Social Security delivered a compromise satisfactory to both sides. At this point, all he wanted was out of the hardest job in Washington and harder in this administration because of the President's lack of focus and the backbiting by the hard right. The roaring economy of 1984 led to a Reagan landslide in November. When Don Regan proposed they swap the Treasury and WH Staff jobs to Baker, he jumped at it. At Treasury, he had a presidential mandate to redo the Internal Revenue Code. He led the charge and reconciled the competing political interests in support of the change. The 1986 Tax Reform Act was a monumental success that had true bipartisan support and could not have been accomplished without the skills and commitment of Rep. Rostenkowski and Sen. Packwood. Simultaneously, Baker arranged the Plaza Accord to bring down the price of the dollar. He had always worried that the crazies would start trouble in Central America, and right after the mid-terms Iran-Contra surfaced. Baker was behind the appointment of Alan Greenspan to the Fed. He worked out the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement with the Canadian PM Brian Mulroney. Reagan turned a corner, and spent his final years negotiating with Secretary Gorbachev, and leaving office with some of his highest ratings. Jim Baker now turned his attention to his best friend, George Bush. The nomination was clinched in March. As he was reluctant to leave the Treasury, Baker put off joining the campaign until the summer, at which point Bush was trailing Dukakis by 17 points. Helped by the negative, over-the-top attacks orchestrated by Atwater and Ailes, Bush won handily. He asked Baker to be Secretary of State. The greatest issue of Bush's presidency was responding to Gorbachev's unwinding of the communist empire. In time, Bush ignored the right-wingers and fully embraced working with the Party Secretary and his foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze. Baker met Shevardnadze in Paris, and then hosted him for a few days in Colorado. Shevardnadze painted a bleak picture of the crumbling USSR, and essentially asked for help holding off the Soviet hardliners. When the Wall fell in November, Gorbachev stood by and did not intervene. The US was shocked and had no plan, but both Bush and Baker were careful not to dance on the East's grave. The reunification of Germany was an incredibly complex issue. The West Germans simply wanted to move on and get it accomplished. Thatcher was opposed. The US proposed that the two Germanys work it out and let the four occupying powers chime in as needed. The USSR agreed and received Baker's assurance that NATO jurisdiction would not spread an inch east. In the spring, Lithuania declared its independence, and the E. Germans voted for a Parliament headed by Helmut Kohl's party. Changes were swift and unpredictable, and in both the US and the USSR, the cold warriors fought every concession. At a summit in Washington in May, Gorbachev conceded that a united Germany could choose to join any alliance it preferred. In September 1990, Germany was reunified and forty-five years after the end of WWII, the Four Powers relinquished their occupation rights. Immediately, another great crisis came to the forefront. The invasion of Kuwait would occupy the world's attention for the next year and a half. Baker traveled the world putting together the coalition that supported the US's leadership. He flew 100,000 miles in ten weeks and held 200 meetings. The Soviets reluctantly assented, and coalition forces booted the Iraqis from Kuwait. It was a clear-cut victory. He had promised Gorbachev he would try to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian puzzle and he did. At one point, he spent 23 consecutive days on the road and arranged for a conference of all interested parties in Madrid. That summer, 1991, saw the attempted coup against Gorbachev. The coup failed, but led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It formally ended on Christmas day, 1991. Suffering from Graves disease and a thyroid condition, Bush's last year was marked by a severe lack of energy on his part, a deteriorating economy, and disarray in the White House and in the reelection campaign. In mid-August 1992, Baker was back as Chief of Staff and helping the campaign. A disengaged Jim Baker couldn't help, and Bush was handily beaten by Bill Clinton. Unsure of what would come next, the 62-year-old Baker signed on with Baker Botts, where his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had worked, and the Carlyle Group. He also began to explore a 1996 run for the presidency, but it did not come to pass. His next foray onto the national stage came in 2000 when he masterminded the younger Bush's post-election efforts in Florida. Once again, the fixer came through for the Bush family. Throughout the Bush 43 presidency, Baker took on various high-level assignments, even though he had been opposed to the 2nd Iraq war.  When his dear friend George Bush died in 2018, he was at his bedside. Today, he is 90 and his grave in a Houston cemetery awaits him. This book has been criticized as being hagiographic and it is a very valid criticism. It is extremely pro-Baker, and dismissive of both Reagan and Bush. But it is a truly great biography that sheds light on some fascinating times. I suspect history will be kind to Reagan because of his unwavering optimism and his fortitude in pursuing the Cold War. And whether Baker/ Bush will be credited for handling the collapse of the USSR, I do not know. But for those of us who remember the Wall going up, all that it symbolized for 38 years and the fact that it came down, the fact that eastern Europe was freed and that the USSR disintegrated without a shot being fired is still the most significant geopolitical event since 1945 and is an event that remains hard to fathom. The authors heap praise on Baker for "getting things done", and that he did. A text of 585 pages has worn me down, but I'm glad I persevered.

The Dig: A Novel Based On True Events, Preston - B

                     This story is set in Suffolk in 1939 and features an excavation of burial mounds on private land. A widow, Edith Pretty proceeds with the project that had been a dream of her late husband. She hires Basil Brown,  a local man with decades of experience with the soils of southeast England. Brown proceeds to unearth the most important archeological discovery in the country's history. A ship from the Anglo-Saxon era is found, and various museums battle over who will display it. In the end, the intervention of war stops all the plans in their tracks. This is a delightful read and one that has been turned into a good, if not better, film by Netflix.

The Mercenary, Vidich - B+

        This is the fourth high-quality CIA thriller, partially based on historic characters, that the author has penned. The mercenary in question is former CIA and former KGB. It's another heck of a page-turner with action in Moscow, a visit to the Lubyanka and a finale at a Czech border crossing. 

A Nation Forged By Crisis: A New American History, Sexton - A*

                     This book looks at our nation through a global prism, positing that it has been the impact of events beyond our shores that have crafted the US, as much as, if not more than our internal evolutions. The focus of this book is on the Revolution, the Civil War and the era of FDR's presidency.

                    "That thirteen of Britain's North American colonies came to seek their independence was the unexpected result of a volatile international environment." Our independence occurred in the middle of Britain and France's century-long struggle that ended at Waterloo. The middle years of the 18th century also saw a vast wave of migration to the colonies that stressed the existing governance structures. Scots, Ulstermen, Germans and Africans came in significant numbers. Trade and investment ballooned. The Revolution was less a rebellion, and more a civil war about how to manage the growing colonies. After victory in 1763, "...Britain had neither the means nor the will to project its authority in the interior of North America." Asking the colonists to help pay for the recently concluded war was a total failure. Paine's 'Common Sense', which made "the most influential case for the independence of the colonies was less the culmination of some distinctly American political tradition than it was the unanticipated product of the growth and integration of the British Atlantic system."   

                        The war in America was internationalized by France, which was prompted by the defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga and the drafting of the Articles of Confederation. Foreign military and financial assistance provided the US with victory and independence. As the 1780's saw a disintegration of American coherence, and the British from the north and the Spanish from the south threatened their independence, the Americans came together at the Constitutional Convention to solidify the nations institutions. They built a system that could hold off centralized domestic tyranny, but that was strong enough to "compete with the monarchial-fiscal states" of Europe. The companion piece, the Northwest Ordinance, "harnessed westward migration on behalf of national interests." Ultimately, the disunion of America and Britain benefited both parties. The UK financed America's expansion and provided innumerable immigrants to the new land. The US became its greatest trading partner. The flaw in the new American establishment, slavery, would eventually push the system to the brink. 

                      The crisis over slavery had domestic and global causes. In the late 18th century, slavery was fading in America. Two generations later, it dramatically increased because of the UK's insatiable hunger for cotton. Over half a century, cotton production grew from 3,000 to 4,000,000 bales per year. By the time of the Civil War, there were 4 million slaves in the South, up from substantially less than a million in 1789. While slavery flourished in the US, it was declining around the world. Britain abolished it in 1833 and most states in Latin America did as well. Its existence in the US became a hot-button issue in the 1830's.  In the US, religions, families, states, and institutions all began to fragment over the issue. When Mexico was dispatched, it was evident that the Union would do more than survive. No longer were the British a geopolitical threat. Once we became masters of the continent in the 1850's, how we would handle the potential westward expansion of slavery became the paramount issue.  Further complicating matters was  the massive German and Irish immigration of that decade.  Religious and ethnic animosities were added to the cauldron of domestic politics and helped wreck the Whig party and divide the Democrats. Into this mix strode Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans, whose electoral victory led to secession.

                   The Civil War took place in the midst of international transitions around the globe and is "notable for what did not happen - foreign intervention." The war disrupted the movement of people, capital, and cotton across the Atlantic. The UK declined to intervene, concluding that the risks outweighed the rewards.  To find raw cotton, it turned to Egypt and India. They also backed away financially and the North funded the war primarily through war bonds sold throughout the country. During the war, immigrants flocked to the North. Eight hundred thousand  arrived, and fully a quarter of the Union army were born elsewhere. Union victory stabilized the world's great emerging market and propelled it to finish colonizing the west and eventually, the US turned its ambitions overseas. "By stabilizing the politics of the US, the outcome of 1865 ignited a surge of immigration and foreign investment that would enhance the population, economy and power of the nation. The US would not realize its potential world power until it was rustled into a period of further innovation during a new crisis..."

                    The great crises of the mid-20th century were whipsawed by America's "volatile and inconsistent" policies. We alternated between isolation and engagement, "economic nationalism and international initiative", nearly unfettered immigration and a closed door. We avoided Europe, engaged in a European war and stepped away again. We reduced annual immigration to 7,000 by 1930 from a million before the war. We swung from being the world's greatest debtor to largest creditor.  All of these shifts took place in and around the First World War. Our economic power stemmed from our upward path, while Europe destroyed itself.  "The First World War... accelerated  the international rise of the United States."  After the crash of Wall Street, we initiated an era of high tariffs that cut world trade by 90%. FDR's policies may have been drawn from foreign models, but his focus was domestic. Most Americans did not wish to be involved overseas. Those with Irish and German backgrounds disliked the British and their empire.  Only between 1938 and 1941 did the tide begin to turn. Roosevelt began to speak of our 'national security'. The outbreak of war led the US to cast its power into all corners of the world. The rest of the world was brought to its knees and we prospered like never before. "The war unleashed the most productive industrial economy the world has ever seen." At war's end, we assumed responsibility for the worlds economic well-being as well as assuring its security arrangements. Our "global commitments had no parallel in world history." "The peculiar postwar form the new American superpower took...was as much the creation of its zigzagging course through this era of international crisis as it was the culmination of long-standing policies and political ideas." The wild swings were "smoothed out into a more linear and coherent course after 1945 - so much so that Americans came to imagine their history as one that had inexorably unfolded toward their global ascendance."

                     The crises of the 21st century have thrown into disarray the idea of America forever on a seamless upward trajectory. In the past, transformative change tackled the problems of each era of crisis. There were also significant foreign factors in the creation of each problem and its resolution. We clearly have not adapted to the era of post-Cold War globalization. So far, the pillars of American democracy and capitalism have held. It appears though that "stormier waters lie ahead." "As we navigate our way through" the next great crisis, "whenever it may be, we would be well served to remember something that American history teaches us: the more we look outward, the more prepared we'll be."

Captain Putnam for the Republic of Texas, Haley - B

                    Putnam receives a letter directing him to New Orleans to await further orders.  He receives a secret directive to command a ship for Texas in its 1836 revolution against Mexico. Under no circumstance is it to be acknowledged that he is an American naval officer acting on orders. His second-in-command is a former colleague, and they are instrumental in stopping a ship carrying canons to Santa Anna. Throughout the novel, Putnam is sidelined for days at a time with malaria, but makes it home to Connecticut.  As a reward, President Jackson offers him any post he wishes, but he pens a letter to the Navy Secretary resigning his commission. My suspicion is that he will go back to sea.  This series appears to have been very accurate historically, but a cursory inquiry indicates that arming a navy for Texas was not something the US undertook. But maybe that's the point of Jackson advising him to never tell a soul.

In The Dark, Freeman - B+

                     Stride, and just about everyone else in Duluth, is not happy when a woman who had graduated from high school in 1977 returns to town. She intends to write a book about the death of a fellow classmate who was murdered on July 4th that summer and whose death is an open cold case. Revisiting the past brings back pain for many, including Jonathan, the town's leading lawyer, and the friends of the late Laura Starr. Once again, this series delivers an intriguing page-turner.

Transient Desires, Leon - B+

                     Yet, another quality entry in a long-running series. Guido and Griffoni investigate an accident on the 'laguna' at night and they delve deeper and deeper into more than the usual crimes and misdemeanors. They seek help from the coast guard as they face an international smuggling operation. Additionally, as the author has done for decades, the tale explores changes in Venice and as a bonus, provides some insight into Griffoni's home, Naples. A pleasure.

Nine Days: The Race to Save Martin Luther King Jr.'s Life and Win the 1960 Election, Kendrick and Kendrick, B

     These events took place in October, 1960. The imprisonment of the 31-year old King and the response of the Kennedys, particularly three of their campaign staffers, had a profound effect on the election and the ensuing decades.                                        Harrison Wofford, along with his boss, Sargent Shriver, had been tasked with liaising with the Negro community. Forty percent of Blacks had voted for Ike, and Nixon had a better reputation on civil rights than Kennedy. Shriver's team was known as the Civil Rights Section, or CRS. They were assisted by a Black Chicago newspaperman, Louis Martin. King came from middle-class Atlanta, a staunch Republican community, and in light of Nixon's reaching out to him, was inclined to believe in the VP. The catalyst for King's time in jail came from a Morehouse student leader, Lonnie King, who had targeted Rich's department store, the most famous in Atlanta. He planned a sit-in at their lunch counter and kept encouraging Martin L. King to join the students. On Oct. 19, King and others were arrested at Rich's. Nineteen women and seventeen men refused bail and were sent to the Fulton County Jail. Although he had been arrested before, it was King's first night in jail.                                                                                                                   As national attention focused on Atlanta, its mayor, William Hartsfield, sprang into action. He brokered a deal to have everyone released from jail and negotiated a truce that would eventually desegregate the stores. To do so, he said that Sen. Kennedy had been in touch, even though it was only Wofford who had called, and he had done so of his own volition. When word of the Kennedy campaign's involvement spread, those in the Republican party seeking the Black vote encouraged Nixon to chime in.                                                                                                                                    As matters in Fulton County were heading toward resolution, an unforeseen problem in neighboring DeKalb County arose. King had a suspended sentence there for driving with an Alabama license while a Georgia resident, and the local judge felt that his actions at Rich's violated the terms of his probation. When the students were freed, King was sent alone to DeKalb. He faced a hearing in a packed court house and, at day's end, the judge revoked his probation and sentenced him to four months in a work gang. The next morning at 3 am, King was awakened, shackled, and driven three hours to the notorious state prison at Reidsville. That same morning, JFK called Georgia Governor Vandiver and asked if he could get King out of jail.  Sargent Shriver also convinced Jack to call Coretta King and, in a minute-and-a-half conversation, Sen. Kennedy expressed his concerns to Mrs. King.                                                                                                                       The following day, Bobby Kennedy called the supervising judge, who had an appeal of the license conviction before him. He decided to grant the appeal and allow King to post bond. The judge mentioned the call and King acknowledged the help from the Kennedys when he was released saying "I hold the Senator in very high esteem..." Wofford, Martin and Shriver decided they had to capitalize on the story and had 3 million pamphlets printed praising Kennedy and lambasting Nixon. The CRS team had those pamphlets distributed at Black churches in the South and Midwest.                                                                                                                                     The election was close. It was the last time an election was fought in every section of the country. Eighteen states were decided by three points, or less. In Georgia, there was a foreshadowing of future trends. DeKalb voted Republican and  Blacks in the state started to turn to the Democrats. Nationally, the Black vote helped Kennedy by increasing from 61% in 1956 for Stevenson to 68% for JFK. Nixon felt he had lost the election because of his actions during the King crisis. When Theodore White published his groundbreaking 'The Making of the President, 1960', he attributed the Black vote in eleven states as decisive.                                                                                                                      "The arrest of King is not only the fulcrum on which the 1960 election pivoted but the dividing line between between the moderate vice president and the president who reshaped a political order that divides us still. Nixon's intuitive genius for exploiting racial divisions, born in the final stretch of the 1960 election, maintains its hold over us. By way of his 'southern strategy' Nixon took Americas's explicit rhetoric of racism and smoothed down its rough edges so that the Republican party...could turn the solid Democratic South red in 1972 and keep it that way for decades."