The Johnstown Flood

The Johnstown Flood was published in 1987. While I love anything David McCullough has written, I skipped this one at the time of publication because it sounded too serious. I wasn't sure that I would enjoy a book on the history of a flood. The What's in a Name Challenge convinced me to read it. I needed to read a book for the category of a natural disaster. The Johnstown Flood is a story of one of America’s great disasters, a preventable tragedy of Gilded Age America.

The publisher's summary:

At the end of the nineteenth century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation’s burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. Despite repeated warnings of possible danger, nothing was done about the dam. Then came May 31, 1889, when the dam burst, sending a wall of water thundering down the mountain, smashing through Johnstown, and killing more than 2,000 people. It was a tragedy that became a national scandal.

Graced by David McCullough’s remarkable gift for writing richly textured, sympathetic social history, The Johnstown Flood is an absorbing, classic portrait of life in nineteenth-century America, of overweening confidence, of energy, and of tragedy. It also offers a powerful historical lesson for our century and all times: the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly.

OMG this book was boring. As I mentioned above I was not sure if I would like a book about a flood. However, every review that I read gave glowing remarks. I skipped many pages in the first third of the book. All I read here was descriptions of buildings and nature. There was no human story. As the flood began to happen the book became much more interesting. 

The City of Johnstown received funds from all over the country in order to rebuild. Private citizens as well as businesses mailed money. Just as people today donate monies to aid natural disaster victims, the citizens of the U. S. acted similarly in 1889. It must be part of the human spirit to provide assistance when it is necessary. Likewise, there was a fair amount of travelers to Johnstown to see what was left of the town and reporters published false reports about the disaster just as they do today. Preachers can't help themselves from preaching hellfire. Gossip prevails as people never change. 

There are photos at the back of the book of Johnstown both before and after the flood. It is easy to see how the coastline changed following the disaster but also that the construction of homes close to the water was a bad idea. Similarly, in the 1990s the Mississippi River flooded coastal Illinois and homes built in the flood zone were destroyed. I never understood why people bought these homes in the first place. They disregarded the physicality of the area just to have a waterfront home for a few years. 

I had to skip alot of pages to finish this book. I am rating it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Redbone

Redbone is a full length graphic novel that was created with cooperation from the Vegas family, authors Christian Staebler and Sonia Paoloni. Pat and Lolly Vazquez started the Redbone rock n' roll group after playing their music for years on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles and on the radio. In their beginning, politics made them change their surname to Vegas. It was the only way to get gigs. The book is part biography and part research journalism and tells a the story not only of the group but also about the history of Native Americans.

The publisher's summary:

Experience the riveting, powerful story of the Native American civil rights movement and the resulting struggle for identity told through the high-flying career of West Coast rock 'n' roll pioneers Redbone.

You've heard the hit song "Come and Get Your Love" in the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, but the story of the band behind it is one of cultural, political, and social importance.

Brothers Pat and Lolly Vegas were talented Native American rock musicians that took the 1960s Sunset Strip by storm. They influenced The Doors and jammed with Jimmy Hendrix before he was "Jimi," and the idea of a band made up of all Native Americans soon followed. Determined to control their creative vision and maintain their cultural identity, they eventually signed a deal with Epic Records in 1969. But as the American Indian Movement gained momentum the band took a stand, choosing pride in their ancestry over continued commercial reward.

Redbone was officially formed in 1967. Their first album was a double album. They went on a national tour as well as playing concerts in Europe. When the song "We Were Wounded at Wounded Knee" was recorded it was banned in the U. S. While it was popular in Europe the American powers that be thought it would encourage civil disobedience and there already was alot of unrest over the Vietnam War. At their last concert in 1974 they were told that if they sang the song, the concert promoter would pull the tour. Well, they sang it and the promoter, true to his word, ended the tour. This was also the end of the group's career. 

At least half of the book tells the history of Native Americans, especially the past 100 years. The authors delve into the U.S.'s attempts to assimilate them by sending Indian children to western schools. Many of these schools were boarding schools so the kids were separated from their families and culture. English only was required at the schools. If a student spoke their Native language they were severely punished. This assimilation attempt was news to me. I have never heard about it before and, yes, I was shocked.

The book ends with an interview of Pat Vegas by the authors. A bibliography and discography follow. 

The Real Watergate Scandal

I have been a follower of the America's Untold Stories You Tube Channel. The channel hosts recently interviewed Geoff Shepard who wrote this book on the Watergate scandal. Shepard worked in the Nixon White House and has an intriguing viewpoint on the scandal. This book was published in 2015.

The publisher's summary:

“The system worked’—Carl Bernstein’s famous assessment of Watergate—turns out to be completely wrong. Powerful new evidence reveals that in the prosecution of the most consequential scandal in American history, virtually nothing in the justice system worked as it should.

The roles of heroes and villains in Watergate were assigned before Marine One carried Richard Nixon into exile on August 9, 1974. But Geoff Shepard’s patient and persistent research has uncovered shocking violations of ethical and legal standards by the "good guys”—including Judge John Sirica, Archibald Cox, and Leon Jaworski.

The Watergate prosecutors’ own files reveal their collusion with the federal judges who tried their cases and heard their appeals—professional misconduct so extensive that the pretense of a fair trial is now impossible to maintain.

Shepard documents that the Watergate Special Prosecution Force was an avenging army drawn from the ranks of Nixon’s most ardent partisan foes. They had the good fortune to work with judges who shared their animus or who quickly developed a taste for the media adulation showered on those who lent their power to the anti-Nixon cause.

In the end, Nixon’s fall was the result of the “smoking gun” tape recording in which he appeared to order a cover-up of the Watergate burglary. Yet in a stunning revision of the historical record, Shepard shows that that conversation, which he himself was the first to transcribe, was taken out of context and completely misunderstood—an interpretation with which Nixon’s nemesis John Dean concurs.

Crimes were committed, and an attempt was made to cover them up. But by trampling on the defendants’ right to due process, the Watergate prosecutors and judges denied the American people the assurance that justice was done and destroyed the historical reputation of an exceptionally accomplished president and administration. This book will challenge everything you think you know about the Watergate scandal.

Author Geoff Shepard believes that the Nixon resignation was a coup d'etat and that Nixon should not have had to resign the presidency. Normally I would reject such a notion as a conspiracy theory. Having lived through Watergate I believe that I know everything about it because I read many newspapers around the time that it occurred. However, since Shepard worked in the White House as a lawyer at the time of the scandal, I believe that his opinion matters. Shepard's main argument is that the judges hearing separate Watergate cases met together several times with prosecutors and colluded to bring down a president that they opposed politically. This reasoning does not ring true for me. 

Leon Jaworski and John Sirica were at the juxtaposition of the case. Leon Jaworski served as the second special prosecutor during the Watergate scandal. John Sirica,  as a D.C. District Court judge, was responsible for hearing a request by Jaworski to force Nixon to turn over evidence. Jaworski had issued a subpoena for the tapes of 64 presidential conversations to use as evidence in the criminal cases against indicted former Nixon administration officials. Sirica issued an order granting the request. Nixon refused and Jaworski followed up with an appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court and won the appeal. Nixon, with his back to the wall and having been impeached by the House of Representatives, chose to leave office.

Years later the author obtained full copies of the judicial record of each case. Inside those boxes of documents he uncovered contact between the prosecution and the Judiciary that the defendants were not aware of. It is true that if one party in a lawsuit contacts a judge, that a copy of the request to see the judge must be given to all parties and all the parties must be present together with the judge in any meeting. Also, there is alot of case law overturning convictions based on this type of due process violation. However, it happens all the time in the U. S. and usually to people no one will ever know or care about.

My question for the author is "who cares" if this happened to Nixon. Shepard acknowledges in the book that crimes were committed and that Nixon was "flawed." OK. He admits Nixon is guilty. So what if there was a technical violation of the law. It happens every day in this country and to people who are not guilty of a crime. It is hard to feel any pity for Nixon who was guilty. Not only was he guilty of several crimes but he tarnished the office of the presidency. I feel no compassion for him and reject the author’s premise that the resignation was a coup d'etat. 

Nixon resigned in order to receive a pension. If he stayed in office and was removed after a trial in the Senate, then he would lose his pension based on official misconduct. Nixon did not want to risk losing his pension. That was his decision to make. It was not forced upon him. It was not scandalous for him to choose this path and was not the "real" scandal in this matter. Therefore, I reject the author’s premise that the resignation was a scandal and a coup d'etat.

I am rating the book 3 out of 5 stars mainly because the material was not presented in chronological order. I understand what Shepard is saying because I lived through Watergate. Younger generations may not understand and will need to have the facts laid out in order.

Okinawa

Okinawa is a manga story that examines the history of Okinawa, Japan and its military occupation by the U. S. It is a manga classic that was recently translated into English and it was published in the U. S. in August 2023.  I have not read any manga before but enjoy reading about history in comic form so I picked up this book. The comic won several awards: 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction - Longlist, American Library Association Best Comics for Adults 2023, Booklist Editors' Choice: Best Graphic Novels 2023, and Washington Post Book World Editors' Staff Pick 2023.

The publisher's summary:

A peaceful, independent kingdom until its annexation by the Japanese Empire in the 19th century, Okinawa was the site of the most destructive land battle of the Pacific War. Today, the archipelago is Japan's poorest prefecture and unwilling host to 75% of all US military bases in Japan.

Okinawa brings together two collections of intertwined stories by the island's pre-eminent mangaka, Susumu Higa, which reflect on this difficult history and pull together traditional Okinawan spirituality, the modern-day realities of the continuing US military occupation, and the senselessness of the War. The first collection, Sword of Sand, is a ground level, unflinching look at the horrors of the Battle of Okinawa. Higa then turns an observant eye to the present-day in Mabui (Okinawan for "spirit"), where he explores how the American occupation has irreversibly changed the island prefecture, through the lens of the archipelago's indigenous spirituality and the central character of the yuta priestess.

Okinawa is a harrowing document of war, but it is also a work which addresses the dreams and the needs of a people as they go forward into an uncertain future, making it essential reading for anyone interested in World War II and its effects on our lives today, as well as anyone with an interest in the people and culture of this fascinating, complicated place. Though the work is thoroughly about one specific locale, the complex relations between Okinawan and Japanese identities and loyalties, between place and history, and between humanity and violence speak beyond borders and across shores.

Please note: This book is a traditional work of manga and reads back to front and right to left.

All of the drawings were done in black and white, not my favorite style but I wanted to read this history book regardless. The colorful cover design is deceiving. Also, I had problems following the story. Much of the plot action was shown in the drawings and I became confused between real action and the drawings of spiritual beings. In addition, the book shows the Japanese viewpoint of events which I knew beforehand. However, I was offended by many statements made by characters who were obviously anti-American. This is an unfair statement on my part because the book is from the Japanese viewpoint and, let's face it, the Americans were occupying Okinawa. I was unable to change my feelings though. Another reason I developed bad feelings about the book is that one month after the Japanese surrendered in WWII, they sunk a submarine off the coast of Okinawa that my uncle was on. Everyone on the U.S.S. Twiggs drowned. I did not expect to feel this way about the city of Okinawa but it was unavoidable.  

I am rating the book 3 out of 5 stars. I had problems understanding the action. This was probably due to it being a manga story but, nevertheless, I had issues with it.

A History of Japan in Manga

I loved reading this graphic history of Japan.  What initially attracted me to the book is the color palette. The book has line drawings colored in a cool pink. Pink is my favorite color. The book tells the Japanese saga from its misty origins up to the present day. Epic battles, noble Samurai and duplicitous leaders are all portrayed in modern manga fashion. The stories in this book include:

• The Birth of Buddhism and the transition from hunters-gatherers to agricultural societies of ancient times;

• Savage battles between the Taira and Minamoto clans that led to the powerful warlord Minamoto no Yoritomo naming himself Japan's first Shogun;

• A decade-long struggle for domination of Japan in which thousands of Samurai fought and tragically lost their lives; known as the Onin Wars.

•  Loyal Samurai who vowed to avenge the death of their master, choosing honor over surrender and being forced to commit mass ritual suicide as a result;

•  A dramatic last stand by Samurai loyal to the Shogun who revolted against the new Meiji government and its plans to finally modernize Japan; known as the Satsuma Rebellion.

This history is told with plenty of portraits, manga stories, maps and informational sidebars that bring the entire sweep of Japanese history into life in one easy-to-read book. I have been using it along with other Japanese travel guides to prepare for my October trip. One place that I will be visiting is a samurai village. Without knowing much about the samurai, this book helped me decide to spend some time there.

4 out of 5 stars.

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.