History Nation: A Citizen's Guide to the History of the United States. David Hanna. Morris & Essex Books, 2024. 357 pages.
David Hanna has written an excellent and concise overview/review of American history, just in time for America's semiquincentennial, and I'm extremely jealous. Hanna is a high school history teacher and author, and he's basically written up his class curriculum. It feels like his curriculum and mine were very similar. Here, he's told America's story, albeit in broad strokes, the good, the bad, and the ugly, using the "city on a hill" theme as bookends, from John Winthrop's use of the phrase in 1630's "A Model of Christian Charity" to Ronald Reagan's invocation of the phrase throughout his political career. He connects events and ideas across time and makes them incredibly accessible. It is a progressive and inclusive historical summary, but it's much more balanced and objective than Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, a book that some reviewers have compared it to. If you're interested in celebrating "America250" with a solid review that will encourage thinking about America's story and how it should be studied and taught, this is a great book for you.
Author Talk
Democracy: A Case Study. David A. Moss. Belknap Press, 2019. 784 pages.
David A. Moss is a business administration professor at Harvard, and a proponent of the Harvard Business School Case Study Method of classroom discussion. He designed a course in which he applied those principles to the study of history and began training secondary and college history teachers to use it in their classrooms. The idea is to begin with an objective summary of a case and break it down in an open student-led discussion of 5 questions: 1. Define the problem, 2. What is the context?, 3. What key facts must be considered?, 4. What alternatives are available to decision makers?, 5. Finally, as the decision makers at the time of the case, what action should we take? In this book, Moss has selected 19 cases that represent challenges to democracy in American history, some you're familiar with and some you're not. The case is left open-ended to allow contemplation or discussion, but the outcome of each event is discussed in an appendix. The whole point of this book is to encourage discussion. As we are becoming more and more anxious about the state of our country and the rising divisions and tensions that threaten us and our ideals and discourage constructive debate, discussion of these cases in classrooms, book clubs, friends groups, etc. is a powerful antidote. I'm engaged with it as part of a lifelong learning class, and I thoroughly enjoy the thoughtful and respectful discussion of history and politics that I haven't been able to enjoy for twenty years or more. The structure of the book allows a facilitator to pick a few of the cases to study as a group (My group is only doing 4 cases together. The facilitator does the classes at other times with other groups and picks other cases.), but be sure to include Moss' introduction and conclusion as well, because they contain great insights. This is another fantastic book for America's semiquincentennial, and I highly suggest it as a group read.
A Podcast episode reviewing the case and book
Bringing Down the Colonel: A Sex Scandal of the Gilded Age, and the "Powerless" Woman Who Took on Washington. Patricia Miller. Sarah Crichton Books, 2018. 384 pages.
I can summarize this book in three words: Men are pigs. And those three words are a major slander against pigs everywhere. It's 1894, and Madeline Pollard does the unthinkable, she files a breach of promise lawsuit against the popular and powerful Kentucky Congressman William Breckinridge, alleging that the pair had begun a decade-long affair when she was a teen, despite the thirty year age gap and the fact that he was married. That affair, she charged, had led to multiple pregnancies, and, when Breckinridge's wife died, he promised to marry Pollard before abruptly marrying another woman, leaving her abandoned and broken. Shockingly, she won, and the case captured America's attention and mobilized Kentucky's women to enter the political world for the first time, ending Breckinridge's political career. However, much of the book is a history of the cultural and legal abuse suffered by women in the 19th century. The double standard applied to the genders was staggering. A woman who had premarital sex was considered to be irredeemably "ruined" for the rest of her life while there were no negative consequences for men. A woman who had the temerity to work in any mixed-gender environment or exercised any sort of social independence was widely considered to be automatically sexually available. In the South, society conformed to the old English aristocratic patriarchal idea that every woman in a man's household was his to do with as he pleased, whether she was an indentured servant, slave, wife, or relative. Rape was impossible to prosecute because prevailing legal opinion held that a woman could only be penetrated if she was willing. "Doctors" wrote medical textbooks arguing that education caused women's internal organs to dry up and to fail, creating chronic invalids and early deaths. Thousands of babies conceived out of wedlock were murdered, dumped, and abandoned. The author creates a quite vivid, disturbing, and enraging context for the society that was shaken when Madeline Pollard defied the status quo and took her stand, becoming an unlikely women's rights crusader and icon.
2012 movie trailer
The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925. 208 pages.
For years, I believed that I didn't like The Great Gatsby. Maybe because in ninth grade I couldn't relate to the fast, alcohol and jazz drenched, social world, but then again, more than forty years later, I still can't relate. I mean, invited to parties? What's that like? However, in the past couple of weeks, I've come across multiple references to it and figured that the universe was telling me that it was time for a re-read. Now I see why it's remained a touchstone in American culture for a century. This time, I enjoyed it. It's such a classic, quintessentially American story and so incredibly modern for a novel published over a hundred years ago. Just to refresh your memory: The Great Gatsby follows narrator Nick Carraway as he becomes entangled with the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby, who throws lavish parties in hopes of rekindling his past romance with Daisy Buchanan. As Gatsby pursues this dream, tensions with Daisy’s husband Tom Buchanan lead to betrayal, tragedy, and ultimately Gatsby’s downfall. My enjoyment may have been heightened by the fact that I listened to the audiobook version read superbly by actor Tim Robbins.
Author Talk
Circe. Madeline Miller. Little, Brown and Company, 2018. 400 pages.
I'm a big fan of modern retellings of myths, if they are well done, Stephen Fry's latest books for example. This book got all the buzz and lots of acclaim when it was published, and, although it took me a minute to get into it, and the language is sometimes a little overwrought, I found it to be successful and entertaining. Circe, a daughter of the Titan and sun god Helios, feels weak and powerless by comparison and just doesn't fit in too well amongst the gods, constantly struggling to find her niche. She discovers that niche in pharmakeia, the art of using herbs, potions, poisons, and drugs to perform transportations and other magic. Soon, that ability and the great skill which she develops are seen as a threat to Zeus and the other Olympians, and Zeus forces Helios to banish Circe to a deserted island for the rest of eternity. Despite being banished, Circe manages to cross paths with many of the famous characters in Greek mythology like the Minotaur, Scylla, Daedalus, Icarus, Ariadne, Hermes, Athena, Jason, Medea, and, of course, Odysseus. The result is a great story told from a fresh, new feminist perspective.
Author Talk
Paradox. Douglas Preston and Aletheia Preston. Forge Books, 2026. 352 pages. Book 2 of 2, Cash and Colcord series.
I took a little action thriller detour for the newest book by one of my favorite thriller authors, Douglas Preston. For this one, he teamed with his daughter, "a reformed lawyer and prosecutor turned thriller author," to continue a series he began with Extinction, starring Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Frankie Cash and local Sheriff Jim Colcord. That book set up a "Jurassic Park"-type resort in the Colorado mountains where scientists had brought extinct megafauna mammals back to life with, of course, dangerous unintended consequences. Specifically, in this case, the scientists went the extra mile and re-created murderous Neanderthals. Now, sometime later, with the "Neanders" still hiding in the mountains, Cash and Colcord are called in for a strange murder. A reclusive, schizophrenic hermit is found ritualistically tortured and murdered in his cabin. Meanwhile, a holy relic in Rome is inexplicably defaced. As Cash and Colcord investigate, they discover not only a connection between the two, but also have to deal with more murders, intrusive press, violent protesters for and against the "Neanders," UFO/UAP researchers, and a fanatical secret society. It's another fast-moving and thought-provoking page-turner, consistently Preston.
This was one of those books that I discovered through a Facebook ad, and it seemed interesting. It's 1897, and August Simms, an old man who has lived an adventurous life of exploration, returns to Rhome, Texas to die. Fifteen years earlier in Rhome, Simms had experienced two great personal tragedies, events that have haunted Simms ever since. He's also drawn back to Rhome by newspaper reports of mysterious flying machine sightings in the area, and he's always up for a mystery. As he collects eyewitness accounts of the UFOs, he discovers that tensions are still roiling just under the surface, both tensions going back to that 1882 lynching and more current tensions arising from the rapidly evolving economic, social, and technological climate of the turn of the 20th century. The book has lots of very strong reviews, but it didn't quite live up to that mark for me. I would give it 3 or 3.5 stars out of 5, but maybe my rating is marred by the fact that I listened to the audiobook version and found the narration to be extremely poor. It was so poor that I thought that it was maybe the author reading, and I was shocked to find that it is done by a professional narrator and actor. He was so numbingly monotone that it made me think that even I could have a career in narration.
Author Talk
Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors From Augustus to Constantine. Barry Strauss. Simon & Schuster, 2019. 432 pages. Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the review copy.
Barry Strauss has written a history of the Roman Empire, nearly four centuries, told through the lives of ten emperors: Augustus, Tiberius, Nero, Vespasian, Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Diocletian and Constantine. A while back, social media informed us that men think of ancient Rome constantly, and it must be true because social media said so. I am not one of those men. Nevertheless, this book is an easily accessible general history of the Roman Empire and an examination of its legacy still felt today.
1945. Robert Conroy. Random House, 2007. 432 pages.
Hours before Japanese Emperor Hirohito made the announcement of Japan's surrender to end World War II, a group of military officers staged a failed coup, intending to kidnap the Emperor and to prevent the surrender. They wanted to follow the way of the bushido, fighting until either victory or death; surrender for them was never an option. Fortunately, the coup collapsed rather quickly, but what if it had succeeded? That's the premise of Robert Conroy's alternate history, 1945, and it allows him to explore a lot of very interesting questions. Would the US have used more atomic bombs? How many more American and Japanese casualties would have occurred and how long would it have taken to conquer Japan? How would the American public respond to the continued death and devastation and what would be the effects on the home front? What would happen to the relationship among the Big Three Allies? What would the new post-war world look like? Here, Conroy creates a comprehensive novel addressing all of these questions, using a number of characters, both fictional and historical. The real life characters and events are portrayed in a manner that reveal thorough research, and the speculation is sound. It all makes a great story. This was my first discovery of Robert Conroy's work which seems to be mostly alternate history. It reminds me of Herman Wouk and Ken Follett, two of my all-time favorite historical fiction authors, and I will definitely explore more of his work.
2002 Movie Trailer
The Quiet American. Graham Greene. William Heinemann, 1955. 208 pages.
Another classic read, and there are many parallels between this book and another classic, The Great Gatsby. Both are popular and critically acclaimed short novels that masterfully capture the zeitgeist of their decades, the 1920s and the 1950s - the decadence and the turmoil. Both stories are told by jaded and cynical narrators and revolve around idealistic men who are secretly leading double lives, and there's a love triangle in each book. Both books offer commentaries on the American psyche, particularly the "American Dream" and the idea of American exceptionalism. Both books remain incredibly fresh and modern decades after their publication. In The Quiet American, the narrator is British reporter Thomas Fowler, in Vietnam to cover the futile French effort to restore colonial control, and the idealistic young American leading the double life is Alden Pyle, a US Aid representative/CIA agent who is secretly coordinating with unsavory characters to carry out his own agenda, resulting in even more death and destruction. Their personal conflict arises because they both love - or is it desire to own? - the same young Vietnamese woman named Phuong. When Pyle is murdered, French colonial police lackadaisically investigate, and Fowler relates the story of their relationship against the violent backdrop of the Vietnamese war for independence, with daily explosions in Saigon and other cities and pitched battles in the countryside. Beyond the human story, this is most definitely an anti-war and anti-imperialism novel, and its message is incredibly relevant today. Published in 1955, it's amazing how insightful and prescient a British novelist was about America's upcoming war in Vietnam. And yes, both books reflect the sexism and racism of their time, perhaps making them problematic for some sensitive readers.
The Kaiser's Web. Steve Berry. Minotaur Books, 2021. 432 pages. Book 16 of 20 in Cotton Malone series.
This is another entry in the Cotton Malone history thriller series by Steve Berry. Retired Justice Department Special Agent Malone and his lover Cassiopeia Vitt are back in action, solving a historical mystery and preventing a world shattering tragedy, this time at the behest of former US President Danny Daniels who enlists them to assist his friend, the German Chancellor, as she attempts to thwart a takeover by a right-wing extremist. The twist: is the said extremist possibly the son of escaped Nazi war criminal Martin Bormann or even the son of Hitler himself? Everything is typical Berry, lots of action, twists, turns, and betrayals. With only one or two exceptions, each Malone adventure is pretty consistently entertaining.
Podcast interview
American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed. Isaac Fitzgerald. Knopf, 2026. 352 pages.
I'm only just realizing that "white trash memoir" is a literary subgenre. I'm aware of many of the titles and authors associated with it, but I haven't really read any of the big ones. When I chose this book, I wasn't really aware that it is an example. I was intrigued by the subject matter, the search for the man behind the Johnny Appleseed myth, and the "tracing his footsteps across contemporary America" format. I might not have picked it up had I known more about Fitzgerald. He had a rough childhood, including long homeless stretches and emotional, if not physical, violence. His parents had psychological issues. He is/was a heavy drinker and drug user. At almost 40 years old, he had never owned a car or signed a lease, spending his life sleeping out in the open or on somebody's couch or floor. He freely admits that he has no compunction whatsoever about accepting handouts. And he's not the brightest bulb. For example, he actually planned to float down the Allegheny River on a cheap inflatable raft from Walmart, and, in one episode, he spent half of a baseball game rooting for the wrong team. I wouldn't necessarily want to hang out with him, but that's just me. I'm not typically drawn to Jack Kerouac types. All that being said, I actually enjoyed the book. The meat of the story, of course the myth of Johnny Appleseed, real name John Chapman. In the minds of many, Appleseed is an American legend like Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill, the subject of many fantastic tall tales, but he was very much a real man with an incredible real life. Unfortunately, the myth has become greater than the man, clouding his place in American history. Fitzgerald dispels those myths and does a good job of developing a picture of the real man. Along the way he has great interactions with average Americans and offers great insights into the American psyche. Of the three genres attempted here - history, memoir, and travelogue - history is maybe the least successful, but I did learn a bit more about Appleseed and discovered a few people connected to his story that I want to learn more about, and Fitzgerald's thoughts and ruminations on the subject of history and legend and the often very fine differences between the two are interesting.
Author interview
The Hooligans of Kandahar: Not All War Stories Are Heroic. Joseph Kassabian. TCK Publishing, 2022. 257 pages.
There's a long list of books that document the insanity of war, too long to list here. And yet humans have always done it and, it seems, will always continue to do it. We've all heard the famous quote "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results." (Incorrectly attributed to Albert Einstein, the quote is actually much more recent.) This book documents an Afghanistan deployment of a squad of soldiers who took their nickname "The Hooligans" to heart and forged the bonds that only soldiers experiencing combat together can forge, forever sharing the life and death moments of their deployment and the lifelong damages that they will carry after deployment. Joseph Kassabian was a 21 year old team leader in that squad; he had joined the army at 17. He and his squad are deployed to Kandahar, the birthplace and stronghold of the Taliban, tasked with training and supporting the corrupt and often Taliban-sympathetic Afghan police who are just as likely to torture and execute their neighbors as Taliban fighters are. Think "Animal House" meets "MASH," but hard "R' or even "NC-17" rated, the book is funny, sad, and infuriating all at once, an honest and unflinching look at the horrors of war that is a great addition to the shelves of war stories. It made for a very fitting Memorial Day weekend read.
Author Interview
The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel: Romanovs, Revolutionaries, and the Forgotten Titan Who Fueled the World. Douglas Brunt. Atria Books, 2026. 368 pages.
Most people know of the Nobel prizes awarded each autumn in various fields of human achievement. Some know a little about Alfred Nobel, the inventor and industrialist who funded the awards in his will at least partly to assuage his guilt over profiting from manufacturing explosives. However, very few people are aware that the Nobels were a dominant, perhaps the most dominant, industrialist family in Europe, on par with, and often going head to head against the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds. The real driving force behind the Nobel wealth and power was actually Alfred's nephew Emanuel. He also is most responsible for the ensuring that the Nobel prizes exist. As the executor of his uncle's will, he was pressured by Alfred's heirs, and even the King of Sweden, to disregard the prizes, but Emanuel stood firm and created and served as the chief steward of the Nobel Prize and his uncle's legacy for the rest of his life. Emanuel was a visionary who built the largest oil industry in Russia and in Europe and amassed a huge fortune, while making powerful connections within the Russian bureaucracy and royal family, but he was not a "robber baron" in the American mold. Workers in Nobel industries were among the happiest, most loyal, and best taken care of in the world. Of course, all of that changed with World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the ensuing civil war. When it was all over, Emanuel was no longer an industrial titan, and he was relegated to being even less than a footnote in history. This excellent biography is extremely interesting and informative, and it offers at least some of the illumination that Nobel deserves.
