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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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."
A woman very high up in the FBI and her husband, with the NSA, take a trip to Barcelona, where their college-age daughter is kidnapped. The plot has a complexity and a series of twists and turns that shock, surprise and confound. This is a fun read by a master of the genre.
The third novel in this series falls flat. It's set in Sicily and Lt. Boyle is tasked to get a message to the local Don from Ike with the blessings of Lucky Luciano. Although in prison, Luciano assisted the Office of Naval Intelligence to help US forces invading the island. He also helped keep the labor peace on the NY docks. He was released from jail in 1946 and deported to Italy. When he died in 1962, his remains were returned to NY for internment in Queens.
This is a fabulous thriller where the layers of complexity keep unfolding and revealing more and more intrigue. The starting point is a woman, mother of two, sitting in her office in Manhattan watching her nanny on top of her husband on the 'nanny cam' she recently installed. For reasons she can't quite fathom, she mentions this to a complete stranger on the train to the suburbs. From that point on, all the wheels come off.
"Fame and infamy attached themselves to Calhoun early in his life and have persisted since his death in 1850." He was born in 1782 to a Scotch-Irish family from Ulster in the Carolina backcountry. His father had arrived there in the 1750's, and by the end of the war in 1783, he owned 16 slaves and 2100 acres of land. Patrick Calhoun taught his son to despise Britain, and to believe in individual liberty and limited government. He received a classical education at his brother-in-law's academy before enrolling at Yale. He was already a Jeffersonian when he reached Connecticut. He found himself in a very Federalist environment, one critical of chattel slavery. He studied law at a private school in Litchfield, returned to South Carolina to read the law in 1806, and opened his own office in his home county of Abbeville after passing the bar. After the invention of the cotton gin, all of South Carolina, including what was now known as the upcountry, experienced a boom that united the state economically, and confirmed its reliance on slave labor. He was elected to the state legislature in 1808 and the US Congress in 1810. The following year, he married a wealthy cousin, Floride Colhoun. Once in Washington, he very quickly came to everyone's attention with his analytical and articulate exposition of the need to prepare for war with the UK. Although there were trade issues between the two countries, it was Britain's continuing impressment of naturalized American citizens that rankled the most. He was the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee when war was declared in the spring of 1812. Although the war and its concluding treaty were, at best, a draw, Jackson's victory at New Orleans led many to consider it a triumph over the British.
In the post-war era, Jeffersonian orthodoxies about the fear of standing armies and centralized government were shunted aside as the nation looked to expand, grow and dominate the continent. After championing bills to advance the nation, Calhoun left Congress and accepted Monroe's offer to be Sect. of War. He modernized and efficiently managed the government's largest department. He navigated through Andrew Jackson's unauthorized attack on the Spanish in Florida and a major recession in the 1820's. During the debates over the Missouri Compromise, Calhoun mused to his good friend and colleague, John Quincy Adams, that the law protected property rights and for he and other slaveowners, their slaves were their property. He also acknowledged the potential for the controversy over the extension of slavery to the west to sunder the union. He aspired to higher office and "as 1824 approached, there were few figures on the national stage who could legitimately claim to have a larger hand in the progress and prospects of American civilization than Secretary of War Calhoun." He won the Vice Presidency in an electoral landslide, while Adams eked out a victory in Congress, over Jackson. Long a nationalist, he began to fear the growing power of the North and started to think about a state's right to veto federal action. A tariff that favored the North and that he believed would impoverish the South moved him further away from the center. He suggested that state conventions, not legislatures, could 'nullify' federal laws detrimental to their state, and that that action could lead to necessary amendments to the Constitution. "While other states' rights advocates saw only a choice between domination by the federal government or disunion, Calhoun worked creatively, almost desperately, to find the resources for a solution within the system itself."
1828 saw Calhoun returned as VP, with Andrew Jackson the new president. At the annual party celebrating Jefferson's birthday in 1830, the most famous exchange of toasts in American history took place. The President offered, "Our union, it must be preserved." Calhoun's reply included, "may we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States..." Soon thereafter, and particularly at the encouragement of Sec. of State Van Buren, Jackson broke with Calhoun. A national debate on nullification, or interposition, propelled by continuing tariff contretemps, saw Calhoun, quoting extensively from Jefferson's Virginia Resolutions, double down on his position. In 1832, Calhoun resigned and was appointed to the Senate by the SC legislature, which declared the Tariff of 1828 nullified. A historic debate between Webster and Calhoun about the nature of the union followed and most agreed that Calhoun's "compact" concept among sovereign states prevailed. In the end, SC repealed its nullification bill.
The role of slavery in the world came under attack in the 1830's when Great Britain emancipated the empire's slaves and the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed. The abolitionists initiated the first direct mail campaign against the peculiar institution. "Slavery was part of who he was, a generational atrocity woven so seamlessly into the fabric of his identity that he could not imagine himself, his family, or the South without it. So, he defended it." He led the fight against a proposal to emancipate the slaves in DC and argued that slavery was a "positive good" that enhanced the wealth of America and its white population, while raising up the lives of those from Africa. Throughout his long career, though, he did not argue for disunion. He believed in the Constitution.
In the spring of 1844, Pres. Tyler appointed him Sec. of State. He served a year, but was unable to annex Texas or finish a peace treaty with Britain over the Oregon border. He returned to the Senate. Throughout the war with Mexico, he attempted to rein in Polk's more aggressive ambitions, vehemently opposing a proposed annexation of the entire country. He opposed Wilmot's proposal to ban slavery in New Mexico and California. Beginning in 1848, tuberculosis began to ravage his lungs. The following year, California requested admission with a clause in its constitution prohibiting slavery and provoking a great national debate. Throughout the South, secession was considered. A compromise was offered by Henry Clay, also dying of tuberculosis. Calhoun's final speech was read to the Senate by a colleague on March 4, 1850. He spoke against disunion, but asked for an equalization of power between the free and slave states. If the North was not willing to share power, it should let the South peaceably go. He died later that month.
This excellent biography has been acclaimed by historians and journalists alike. Calhoun was clearly an incredibly complex and brilliant man. His prodigious talents place him in the pantheon of Senate greats, alongside his contemporaries, Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. His articulation of the theory of the union as a compact between sovereign states was believed by many in the first half of the 19th century. The flaw, of course, was his reliance on slavery as the foundation of that belief. The idea died with the Confederacy. It is worth remembering that Shelby Foote stated that before the Civil War, the common phraseology was that the United Stares "are."After the war, it became the United States "is."
Edward VIII acceded to the crown at the age of 41 on January 20, 1936. His father did not consider him fit for the throne. For the previous four years, he had been having an affair with a married American, Wallis Simpson. "From the outset of his reign, he was an unsuited and reluctant monarch, unwilling to compromise his own happiness for the sake of a symbolic role that he barely believed in. He was neither a good sovereign, nor a good man..." His affection for Wallis and his intent to eventually marry her began to unnerve those close to the monarchy. In July, Wallis initiated divorce proceedings against her husband. On Oct. 8th, the PM, Stanley Baldwin, tried to convince the King to stop Wallis' divorce. The feeling in the government was that if an affair with a married woman was conducted discreetly, there would be no serious repercussions. Meanwhile, the divorce garnered extensive foreign press coverage. For the time being, Fleet Street remained mum. In court, Wallis perjured herself to achieve the desired judicial result. For many, the prospect of the monarch marrying the twice-divorced American daughter of a Baltimore boarding house proprietor rankled deeply. Edward, though, was bound and determined to marry her. The King's Private Secretary, Alec Hardinge, wrote him a very stern letter citing "grave dangers" to the country and crown, and recommending that he send Wallis out of the country. The letter had the approval of the PM, whom Edward met with on Nov. 16 and indicated he was prepared to abdicate. Wallis was well aware of the crisis that was blossoming and gave serious consideration to simply leaving the country and Edward. Baldwin discussed the possibility of a morganatic marriage with the Cabinet. They declined to take up legislation on the topic and also refused to allow Edward to appeal to the people on the radio.
With Fleet Street ready to pounce, Wallis left for Cannes on Dec. 2. Meanwhile, the populace sided with the King. His supporters, primarily Beaverbrook and Churchill, believed he could wait out the crisis and make a decision after his scheduled spring coronation. Nonetheless, Edward decided to abdicate. Wallis again offered to break her relationship with Edward, who refused to hear of it. As the crisis came to a head, the issue of finances came to the fore. His brother agreed that the royal family would approve a title and funding going forward. On Dec 10, he signed seven copies of the Instrument of Abdication. Parliament approved the bill authorizing the abdication the following day. That night, he spoke to the nation and sailed from Portsmouth for the continent. He married Wallis in 1937; they were married until his death in 1972.
Series that run for decades have their ups and downs. This one is pretty good. It is spring 1921 and Rutledge is sent to Wales to investigate a drowning. The local constabulary cannot determine if it is murder or suicide. It turns out to be a complex murder case, with a missing child whose paternity is uncertain in the middle of it. Just about everyone Rutledge deals with lies to him and he spends almost a month in the English/Welsh borderlands running it down. As always, there is some fascinating insight into those who fought and those who suffered at home.
This book is an assessment of today's "dramatic shifts of geopolitics and energy." The focus is on the big three, the US, Russia and Saudi Arabia. In America, the shale revolution has made the US an energy exporter and has provided a material financial advantage for our economy. Russia remains an energy superpower, but continues to struggle with the dissolution of the USSR and is losing some of its gas supply leverage over Europe. For the Saudis, the decline in oil prices in the last decade has led to efforts to diversify its economy. For all, the move to a zero carbon society presents an overwhelming challenge.
The first successful horizontally fracked gas well was completed north of Dallas in 1998. The ensuing glut of gas led to a reduction in coal usage and consideration of exporting the newfound asset. One enterprising Texas company, realizing that the glut in gas was severe, decided to look for oil through fracking. EOG was wildly successful. Soon, the Bakken field in N. Dakota and the Permian in west Texas were producing massive amounts of fracked oil. Texas alone was producing more oil than every OPEC country except Saudi Arabia. By 2019, the shale revolution was supporting 2.8 million US jobs. "The shale revolution has dramatically improved the competitive position of the US in the world economy." We now are exporting liquid natural gas (LNG) by ship around the world and natural gas to Mexico by pipeline. Most importantly though is the fact that we are once again a net exporter of oil. In February, 2020, we were producing 13M bpd, three times the amount in 2008. A massive trade imbalance has been reversed. The US now exports oil and gas to Europe, China and Japan.
Over the last 20 years, control of Russia's energy has been at the core of Putin's agenda to restore the country. Oil production peaked at 11.4M bd a few years ago and the country has substantially benefitted from the relative price stability (notwithstanding the 2014 price collapse) of the past two decades. It is in the arena of natural gas and LNG supply that Russia is currently carving out its energy future. Russia supplies Europe with a third of its natural gas, most of which passes through Ukrainian pipelines. Russia built the Nord Stream pipeline, which runs under the Baltic Sea, in order to circumvent Ukraine's control of the pipelines. US sanctions halted the completion of Nord Stream 2. Most western Europeans view transacting with the Russians as a commercial, non-political matter. Those Europeans who were occupied by the USSR feel differently. Europe's natural gas industry has been deregulated and market forces now appear to be controlling supply and demand. The Russians are also exporting LNG to Europe, and most importantly, China. Russia has also implemented a three decade, $400B natural gas supply deal with China, which has prepaid $80B for oil to be delivered at a later date. The once communist rivals are clearly energy partners and strategic partners as well.
Today, China consumes 25% of the world's energy. Its oil imports come from the Middle East, through the Strait of Malacca, a source of considerable anxiety as the US Navy could easily interdict their lifeline. Concern about protecting its oil is what has led to the aggressive actions China has taken staking its claims in the South China Sea. China's BRI has many strategic objectives, and securing an overland energy supply is one of them.
The most compelling problem in the Middle East is the ongoing confrontation between revolutionary Shia Persian Iran and the cautious monarchy of Sunni Saudi Arabia. Iran has built an arc of Shiite power and influence stretching through northern Iraq and Syria into Lebanon. In essence, they have extended their revolution abroad. Iran and Saudi's proxies are currently fighting to a stalemate and totally destabilizing Yemen, on Saudi's southern border. Notwithstanding Saudi Arabia's challenges from Iran and its own desires to diversify away from oil dependence, it will for a very long time benefit from the fact that it has massive reserves and is the lowest-cost producer.
The convergence of electric cars, ride-hailing services and self-driving cars will change the demand for petroleum in the future and lead to major industrial and geopolitical disruptions. Solar and wind are changing the way energy is delivered. There is a new focus on carbon free nuclear, research into hydrogen propulsion and carbon capture and use. "In the years ahead, carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas policies will bring continuing changes in how energy is produced, transported and consumed.." The developing world's demand for electricity is going to slow the industrial world's movement toward a carbon-free planet. The creation of a new infrastructure for battery development and the construction of wind turbines will bring a new set of challenges. The transportation consumption of oil is not limited to cars and light trucks, but also includes trains, heavy trucks, ships and planes, none of which are on the threshold of major change. Oil demand will peak in the next decade or so and then begin a gradual decline. Nonetheless, billions will continue to be needed for investments to maintain oil and gas supplies into the future. The Covid-19 crisis has stalled world growth and likely set us back a decade, in addition to throwing into doubt many of the precepts our globalized world is built upon.
"Yet the notion of a fast track to a wholesale energy transition runs up against major obstacles - the sheer scale of the energy system that supports the world economy, the need for reliability, the demand of resources for renewables, and the disruptions and conflicts that would result from speed." Oil will maintain its position as the fuel that makes the "world go around." Policies and technology will determine the future.
