And There Was Light

Last year I bought a copy of Jon Michael's newest  book, And There Was Light. It is a biography of Abraham Lincoln and it covers his entire life from birth to death. It has received a couple of awards. The book won the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize and was longlisted for the Biographers International Plutarch Award. Both Kirkus Reviews and the Christian Science Monitor said it was one of the best books of the year for 2022. It took me awhile to get through it's 750 pages but it was well worth it. Note that this review is going to be long. There is a lot to say, yet I have left much comment out.

It is obvious that Meacham idolizes Lincoln as he describes Lincoln’s self-education, romances with women, bouts of depression, political successes and failures, and his faith. In America Lincoln tends to be seen as the greatest of American presidents. I don't disagree with this statement but in this book Meacham gives the reader a new portrait of a very human Lincoln, an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment, essential to the story of justice in America, began as he grew up in antislavery Baptist churches. What was surprising to me was the number of times in Lincoln's life that his friends had to watch over him for several weeks or months to prevent him from killing himself. After his first love Ann Rutledge died he was despondent and unable to work for months. When his son Willie died, he had to be watched over again. It is interesting that history tells us that Mary Todd Lincoln lost her mind after this loss. However, Abe was in worse shape. He was suicidal. I counted the number of times that he was suicidal to be 7 times during his life. 

Meacham addresses Lincoln’s religious faith by stating in the Prologue: 

Raised in an antislavery Baptist ethos in Kentucky and in Indiana, Lincoln was not an orthodox Christian. He never sought to declare a traditional faith. There was no in-breaking light, no thunderbolt on the road to Damascus, no conviction that, as the Epistle to the Philippians put it, “every knee should bow” and declare Jesus as Lord. There was, rather, a steadily stronger embrace of the right in a world of ambition and appetite. To Lincoln, God whispered His will through conscience, calling humankind to live in accord with the laws of love. Lincoln believed in a transcendent moral order that summoned sinful creatures, in the words of Micah, to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with their God—eloquent injunctions, but staggeringly difficult to follow. “In the material world, nothing is done by leaps, all by gradual advance,” the New England abolitionist Theodore Parker observed. Lincoln agreed. “I may advance slowly,” the president reputedly said, “but I don’t walk backward.” His steps were lit by political reality, by devotion to the Union, and by the importuning of conscience.  Meacham, Jon. And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle (pp. 15-16). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

 

“I have often wished that I was a more devout man than I am,” Lincoln said in his White House years. “Nevertheless, amid the greatest difficulties of my Administration, when I could not see any other resort, I would place my whole reliance on God, knowing that all would go well, and that He would decide for the right.”  Meacham, Jon. And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle (pp. 16-17). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

 

Lincoln, who knew slavery, saw it, and was likely exposed to teaching and preaching that declared it wrong. Still, there was something in the faith of his father that kept Lincoln from declaring himself a believer and joining the church in which he was raised. Perhaps he disliked following his father, a parent with whom he had a complicated relationship on the best of days. Perhaps he was uncomfortable with the Baptist expression of predestination, which held that an omnipotent God had previously determined who was to be saved and who was to be damned, a theological assertion derived from John Calvin. Perhaps he never truly felt the call to make a public assent to the claims of the frontier Baptist sect he knew. And perhaps he sensed, at some level, a discrepancy between scripture, which Lincoln was coming to know well, and religious doctrine.  Meacham, Jon. And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle (pp. 60-61). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.  

 

Lincoln's step-mother Sarah Bush Lincoln recalled. “He read all the books he could lay his hands on.” The psalms of the King James Version were favorites, as were the hymns of Isaac Watts. Meacham, Jon. And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle (p. 70). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.  

 

I personally believe that conflicts over his father's abusive treatment was the reason he never joined a church. Lincoln did, however, get his anti-slavery stance from his father so it was complicated. Another reason I believe Thomas Lincoln was the reason is that Abe never introduced his children to Thomas or his step-mother.  

A president who govered a divided country has a lot to teach us in the twenty-first-century given the polarization and political crisis we are currently experiencing. I was amazed at how similar our past is just like our present. There are the same calls for state's rights. In fact, until the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, the U.S. Constitution was interpreted to mean that the federal government could not force the states to do anything. This is the reason that abolitionist leaning leaders did nothing to stop slavery. Lincoln changed this interpretation which angered both pro-slavery and anti-slavery people. Lincoln also ruled by executive order. He was the first president to do this and we know from current headlines how well this goes over. Citizens called for Lincoln to be assassinated the day after his election and then continued until he was assassinated. Also, he had to come to Washington for his inaugural disguised as someone else. In addition, I was surprised to learn that the southern states began seceding a few days after his election and all but one state had seceded before his inaugural. Southerners knew that Lincoln would outlaw slavery and did not wait until he was in office to take action. There was speculation that they would take over Mexico or the Central American countries and create a new nation based on slavery. Many of the confederate leaders were U. S. Senators and willingly resigned their offices in support of the south.

And There Was Light is a fantastic account of Abraham Lincoln's life. While there is a lot of minutiae concerning his political fights, it is good that we have this record to lean back on.  I am rating the book 5 out of 5 stars.

The Middle Ages

Eleanor Janega is the author of this graphic history of the medieval era. She has done a fantastic job of portraying this 1,000 year era with all its complexities. 

The publisher's summary: 

The Middle Ages: A Graphic History busts the myth of the ‘Dark Ages’, shedding light on the medieval period’s present-day relevance in a unique illustrated style. This history takes us through the rise and fall of empires, papacies, caliphates and kingdoms; through the violence and death of the Crusades, Viking raids, the Hundred Years War and the Plague; to the curious practices of monks, martyrs and iconoclasts. We’ll see how the foundations of the modern West were established, influencing our art, cultures, religious practices and ways of thinking. And we’ll explore the lives of those seen as ‘Other’ – women, Jews, homosexuals, lepers, sex workers and heretics. Join historian Eleanor Janega and illustrator Neil Max Emmanuel on a romp across continents and kingdoms as we discover the Middle Ages to be a time of huge change, inquiry and development – not unlike our own.

This month I have read 3 books on the Middle Ages. This graphic novel is the best of them. It gives the reader an accurate and comprehensive overview of the era in an easy to understand way. The comedy from this format helps the reader remember details. I love it!  The book is not a graphic novel in the usual sense but rather a book with funny memes on most pages that match the writing. While it is Eurocentric the author has included the contributions of other regions on the globe to Europe. It has the feel of a young adult book which I don't think it is. The illustrator Neil Emmanuel, though, is a well known children's book illustrator. While the book cover is colorful, all of the drawings are in black and white. The writing is casual. The author surprisingly refers to one pope as a dude. 

I loved this mini history of the Middle Ages. I would recommend it to both adults and young adults. 5 out of 5 stars.

The Bright Ages

The Bright Ages is a 1,000 year history of medieval Europe beginning in the 400s. I selected it for the Nonfiction Reader Challenge because I am fascinated with this era. 

The publisher's summary:

The word “medieval” conjures images of the “Dark Ages”—centuries of ignorance, superstition, stasis, savagery, and poor hygiene. But the myth of darkness obscures the truth; this was a remarkable period in human history. The Bright Ages recasts the European Middle Ages for what it was, capturing this 1,000-year era in all its complexity and fundamental humanity, bringing to light both its beauty and its horrors. 

The Bright Ages takes us through ten centuries and crisscrosses Europe and the Mediterranean, Asia and Africa, revisiting familiar people and events with new light cast upon them. We look with fresh eyes on the Fall of Rome, Charlemagne, the Vikings, the Crusades, and the Black Death, but also to the multi-religious experience of Iberia, the rise of Byzantium, and the genius of Hildegard and the power of queens. We begin under a blanket of golden stars constructed by an empress with Germanic, Roman, Spanish, Byzantine, and Christian bloodlines and end nearly 1,000 years later with the poet Dante—inspired by that same twinkling celestial canopy—writing an epic saga of heaven and hell that endures as a masterpiece of literature today.  

The Bright Ages reminds us just how permeable our manmade borders have always been and of what possible worlds the past has always made available to us. The Middle Ages may have been a world “lit only by fire” but it was one whose torches illuminated the magnificent rose windows of cathedrals, even as they stoked the pyres of accused heretics.  

 

My expectation for the book was that each European country would be delved into. It does that but it is still Rome-centric. There are chapters on Rome, Jerusalem, Britain, France, Russia, Spain and Mongolia. People from other areas are covered briefly with a sentence or two. I was disappointed with this focus of the book. Alot of history was left out but note that the author covered 1,000 years of history in 250 pages. There is a 60 page bibliography at the end. 

The book opened with a fascinating profile of Galla Placidia, sister and mother of Roman emporers. In addition, she was the queen of the Visigoths and led many successful battles for them. Placidia lived in the 400s. A devout Christian, she built or restored churches in Jerusalem, Rome, and in Ravenna where the book begins. This lady captivated me and I must find material to read about her. Maybe someone has written a historical novel about her?  I was disappointed that other historical figures were not discussed later in the book because a fun way to learn history is through the lives of people.

I was struck by the description of the book as a new history of medieval Europe. I was expecting information new to me but halfway through I realized that I knew more about medieval history than the author. From this point I began critiquing the information he included as well as what he excluded. Too much was left out and much of what was included was not explained.

Two sentences in the last chapter refers to the Dark Ages of our present time and the author blames the U. S. for it. He states that the U. S. was founded on white supremacy.  Obviously, he did not study U. S. history but as I contemplated this remark I realized The Bright Ages could be considered a history of just white people. While he centered the book on Europe, which is primarily white, he excluded the contributions of Muslims to our "white" art and literature. All the credit is given to well known Europeans. Also, I was frustrated when he mentioned the Paris physicians who were consulted on the origins of the plague. All of the medical knowledge that we have originated from the Muslims. Jewish scholars learned medicine from them and brought it to Europe. In addition, there was no mention of the contributions from North Africa to our culture. Thus, if the author wants to put blame somewhere for white supremacy let's lay it at his feet. Yes, I was offended by his remark over the founding of the U. S. as you most likely can tell. The remark came abruptly with no references so why include it? 

Having taken many courses on medieval history, I feel that I can write my own history book of this era. My book would be over 1,000 pages and no one would read that! However, it would be a complete history of the era that included every area of the map and explain how each culture intermingled with each other. As such, it is hard to give The Bright Ages a rating. It delivers a Eurocentric history which is what we were promised. I will go with 3 out of 5 stars. There are probably few people as interested in this era to be as dogmatic as I am. I know we are probably a little crazy.

The Light Ages

The Light Ages is a history of science in the medieval era. The author has redefined what we today call the Dark Ages as the Light Ages as far as science is concerned. Many scientific discoveries were made that are still current science.  Others were later improved upon by subsequent scientists. 

The publisher's summary:  

Soaring Gothic cathedrals, violent crusades, the Black Death:  these are the dramatic forces that shaped the medieval era. But the so-called Dark Ages also gave us the first universities, eyeglasses and mechanical clocks. As medieval thinkers sought to understand the world around them, from the passing of the seasons, to the stars in the sky, they came to develop a vibrant scientific culture.

In The Light Ages Cambridge science historian Seb Falk takes us on a tour of medieval science through the eyes of one fourteenth century monk, John of Westwyk. Born in a rural manor, educated at England's grandest monastery and then exiled to a cliff top priory, Westwyk was an intrepid crusader, inventor and astrologer. From multiplying Roman numerals to navigating by the stars we learn emerging science. On our way we encounter the English abbot with leprosy who built a clock, the French craftsman turned spy and the Persian polymath who founded the world's most advanced observatory.

The book opens with a question concerning whether Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a book on science. It was later determined that John of Westwyk wrote the book. I thought it was fascinating how scholars figured this out. The chapters are laid out by type of science. We read about how monks learned to tell time and that there are planets they mistook as stars. From figuring out the time of day by watching the daily difference in light and dark hours, these monks, the scholars of the day, later brought the world clocks. While they initially thought the sun orbited Earth, their conclusions about time were correct. The later discovery that the Earth orbited the sun did not change these conclusions. Astrology was a major topic for study as was the invention and later improvement of the astrologer.

I enjoyed the first half of the book but was less interested in the second half. Alot of material was repeated and I was bored. I found myself skipping pages. At 396 pages in length, the book may have been easier to read if it was shorter. 

3 out of 5 stars.

The White Ship

I needed to find a book that had the color white in the title for the Color Coded Reading Challenge.  I found this history book by Charles Spencer that I thought would be good. However, I had a hard time becoming interested in it.

The publisher's summary:

The sinking of the White Ship in 1120 is one of the greatest disasters England has ever suffered. In one catastrophic night, the king’s heir and the flower of Anglo-Norman society were drowned and the future of the crown was thrown violently off course.

In a riveting narrative, Charles Spencer follows the story from the Norman Conquest through to the decades that would become known as the Anarchy: a civil war of untold violence that saw families turn in on each other with English and Norman barons, rebellious Welsh princes and the Scottish king all playing a part in a desperate game of thrones. All because of the loss of one vessel – the White Ship – the medieval Titanic.

One review of the book states that it is just as gripping as a thriller. I beg to differ. The writing style is scholarly and while it tells a part of English history most of us are unfamiliar with, it was rather dull. The most excited I got was when I ran across a name of a direct ancestor here and there. I was expecting the book to be about a ship that sank at sea and wondered whether there would be some mystery concerning the sinking. The ship didn't sink until the halfway point in the story. 

The White Ship is a history book with a small section about a shipwreck. 2 out of 5 stars.

Salt

I read Mark Kurlansky's Salt as a selection for the Nonfiction Reader Challenge. It is a history of the discovery, mining, sale and taxing of salt by cities and nations from 3600 BCE to the present. It is Kurlansky's 5th nonfiction book and here he explains how salt has shaped civilization from its very beginning and how its story is an important part of the history of humankind. For most of its history salt has been used as a currency. It also influenced the establishment of European trade routes as well as cities, provoked wars between cities and inspired revolutions. Civilizations in China, Greece, Egypt and Rome all discovered salt on their own at about the same time. None of them can say that they discovered salt, although all of them make this claim. In each case, salt was discovered when lake and river waters evaporated in the sun. People harvested the square crystals on the surface of the water. Almost immediately it was used to preserve fish. As a necessary commodity for sustaining life, ancient politicians knew that they could make money by taxing the sale of salt. Cities that had saltmines made money from harvesting it while others that did not have this resource made money by regulating it. It is interesting that salt is a rock, the only rock that humans eat.

The book reads like a textbook, which in my mind is a negative. Almost every other sentence contains a new fact and made the book an overwhelming one to read. Kurlansky has found a salt connection nearly everywhere, especially in the modern era. The Erie Canal was built for the sake of salt, which needed to be moved from the upstate Onondaga region to New York City. The West Indian slave trade was primarily underwritten by sales of salt, even more than by molasses and rum. So how did salt encourage revolution?  It was the salt tax in India that inspired Mohandas K. Gandhi to start a rebellion that led to independence.  The American Revolutionary War was partly incited by salt shortages.

While it is pretty cool to amass these interesting facts about salt, the book itself is a hard and sometimes dull book to read. I am rating it 3 out of 5 stars. 

Dear Abigail

Dear Abigail is a biography of Abigail Adams and her two sisters. The author reviewed correspondence between them to paint a picture of their lives.  Given that they lived during the American Revolution their stories are important to our American history. Their letters are a snapshot of what life was like in colonial times.

The sisters were the daughters of a poor Congregational minister and his wealthy wife. Their correspondence began when the oldest, Mary, married and left the family home. Abigail was the next to marry but Betsy was much younger than them and didn't leave the house until her parents had passed. By that time Mary and Abigail had been married approximately 17 years already. Their letters to each other were frequent. The discussed their pregnancies, children, husbands, social lives as well as their political ideas. All supported freedom from England and were advocates for educational equality of the sexes. 

Much has been written over the years about Abigail's suggestion that her husband "remember the ladies" when he was involved with the writing of the Constitution. Current thought is that she was a feminist seeking complete equality of the sexes. Nothing could be further from the truth. During this era, women were so subjected to men that they would not have even been able to think about becoming equal to men. However, they desired to be educated in the same manner as the men were educated. They were successful in this endeavor. Educational equality was granted at the end of the Revolutionary War. The men agreed to this because they believed that their children would be educated well if their mothers were educated well.

The book covers the lives of the sisters from 1766 until 1801. Abigail's letters were, naturally, more prominent as she was the wife of our second president John Adams. All three of the sisters, though, led lives that were progressive for the era. Mary was basically in charge of running her village and Betsey co-founded a school that taught both girls and boys. 

Two interesting facts emerged from Abigail's letters. During Washington's presidency he left Philadelphia where the new nation was based to stay in Haverhill where Elizabeth lived. People came out in one of our coldest winters to hear him speak. They all got sick and their ailment was commonly known as the "Washington Cold." Also, when the new Executive Mansion was built there was an oval room constructed on the second floor. It was built in reverence for George Washington. When Washington lived in Philadelphia during his term in office he had an oval room in his home. It was his favorite room. We now call this oval room the "yellow oval room" in the White House. I am presuming that the Oval Office in the West Wing where modern presidents work was also constructed out of reverence for our first president.

When I picked up this book I knew I would relish the history within its pages. I read slowly to savor the words and I was not disappointed. I highly recommend it. 5 out of 5 stars!

Revolutionary Mothers

I am so happy that someone wrote a book about the founding mothers of the United States. This history book has several sections devoted to the wives of famous patriots, the wives of loyalist men, slave women, Native American women, camp followers, general's wives, and other heroines of the American Revolutionary War. Author Carol Berlin discusses their contributions before the war broke out, during the war and after the war.  

It was interesting that though these women managed their husband's businesses while they were gone from home and had to deal with both British and Continental Armies taking over their homes, they were still considered to be merely helpmates for their husbands. Their natural inclination was to obedience, industriousness and frugality and their natural function was to bear children. Women's destinies were dictated by the authorities in their world such as ministers and lawmakers and for the most part they followed what they were told to do. When the men determined to free themselves from British rule, it was up to the women to ensure that they handled their household's boycott of English products. Many had to learn how to spin fiber and weave clothing when English resources were cut off. The only advancement that women achieved at the end of the war was that they would be entitled to the same education as men. They still had no rights to own property or vote. 

I always thought it odd that women would follow the armies and camp with them. However, Berlin shows that this was the only way to ensure that they would have food to eat. If they stayed home food was scarce. Loyalist wives had it bad, especially when the war ended. The patriots punished them for not supporting independence and many left the colonies. Our famous founding fathers had difficulties communicating with the Indian tribes because they were matriarchal societies. They just could not handle having to deal with a female tribeswoman.  

This short, 166 page book is filled with the histories of all types of women and I highly recommend it.  5 out of 5 stars.

The Soul of America

The Soul of America The Battle for our Better Angels is the first book by Jon Meacham that I have read.  Part of the title comes from a famous quote from Abraham Lincoln wherein he says that the memory of our bonds of affection will swell the Union when touched by the better angels of our nature.  I was inspired even before the Introduction by 3 quotes.  One from James Baldwin, another by Franklin Roosevelt and the third by Lyndon Johnson.

As I was reading I felt I inspired by the recitation of American history that I was quite familiar with but have not heard anyone talk about in decades. Citizens from my baby boomer generation are well familiar with the thoughts the author presented and believe them.  I am not so sure that young Americans do and I doubt that they would bother with a book written by someone from my generation.  I am 60 by the way.

The author's grasp of history is evident as he connects events from Reconstruction and the Civil Rights movement. He showed Lyndon Johnson's knowledge of the need to return to the events at Appotommax, where Gen. Lee surrendered to Gen. Grant, in order to fix the civil right wrongs of the 1960s. He shows how politicians in our past and present have used fear to get elected and how that did not work out well for them or for the country either.

One fact that I was not aware of was that every President from Reconstruction to the beginning of the 20th century had to make deals with the KKK in order to get elected. Warren Harding, who did not like them, made a critical public remark about them and their response was to create a conspiracy theory that he had black blood.  This conspiracy theory was backed with false affidavits concerning his birth record. Sound familiar? Another new fact for me was that there was a national debate at the end of the Civil War whether emancipation meant equality. The South got organized and won that political debate.

While it seems that the Trumpian politics of today are a new low for the U. S., Meacham tells us a forgotten history that says otherwise. Our politics have always been nasty with brief interludes of peacefulness.  However, there have always been several voices in each generation speaking against the wrongs of the day, voices that succeeding generations followed.

While I have always believed that each generation has improved life in our nation and that this would always continue throughout history, I cannot be as optimistic about the future as the author.  The reason is that the young people I know do not acknowledge that there is a shared American past or even a shared creed. This is new. We have never had a generation so unconnected with the past. It's only what can I get for myself from so-and-so in the fastest way possible. What I think is discarded by them because I am old and responsible for all the things they think are wrong with the country. Many of these things are not wrong, it just prevents them from having to work to get ahead.

As I write this review, I have just watched the funeral of Sen. John McCain where the ideals presented in The Soul of America were talked about but only by those whose careers were either over or will be over soon due to their advancing age. Who will take up our American cause and show our true soul? I am anxious about this. I try to be hopeful but it is hard.

The author offers a salve for these feelings in the final chapter with a Harry Truman quote, "The next generation never learns anything from the previous one until its brought home with a hammer." The author ends with "The moral utility of the past should help us prepare to act in the present."

I did not have high expectations when I got this book even though it has had many great reviews and everyone told me I had to read it. I viewed it as a political book, a type of book that I try to avoid. However, I was surprised by how Meacham connected the past with the present. It is a fabulous trip down America's memory lane and Meacham shows all the good, the bad and the ugly parts as well as how it explains where we are now as a nation. I am thrilled that I read the book and highly recommend it.