Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, by Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik

Today I'm looking at a biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has become a popular figure in recent years and the subject of countless internet memes. The amount of adulation around Justice Ginsburg can be somewhat surprising, considering other popular figures are usually movie stars, musicians, and other entertainers. Most people would not expect and octogenarian jurist to become the subject of internet fame on t-shirts, hats, and other popular media. But this biography proves that RBG, as she's referred to throughout the book, is well-deserving of the adulation and remains an vital figure in American civic and legal life.

This biography is fairly short, coming in at about 240 pages, so it's not an incredibly in-depth and fairly easy to read, but it leaves us with a very powerful portrait of a woman who has refused to let anything to stand in her way. RBG was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn in 1933 and encountered many barriers as she attempted to enter the legal profession after World War II. As a married woman, a mother, and a Jew, RBG faced discrimination on multiple fronts and found it difficult or impossible to find a job. But RBG did not let any of this stop her and through determination, buckets of hard work, and a little help.

For years RBG worked tirelessly on behalf of the Women's Rights Project with the ACLU and argued several cases before the Supreme Court on the issue of women's rights. Carmon and Knizhnik show how RBG was extremely strategic in her fights for women's rights, planning gradual steps that would chip away at the edifice of patriarchy and gradually undermine the entire structure. Although large, sweeping decisions are dramatic and emotionally satisfying, they also provoke significant reactionary backlash. RBG firmly believed that a gradual approach would wash away the resistance of conservative, male judges until they finally came around to her way of thinking. RBG was also very strategic in some of her cases that she argued, using examples of how patriarchy harmed men through assumptions of gender roles. RBG believed, quite rightly, that using cases that affected men would resonate better with male justices.

Supporting RBG in her decades-long career was her husband Marty Ginsburg, who not only supported his wife pursuing a legal career, but helped take on chores at home. Most famously Marty took on the duties of cooking after an infamous incident involving a tuna casserole. Marty took great joy in becoming a world-class chef while RBG continued to work on the highest court of the land. Carmon and Knizhnik include a small sampling of the notes between the couple over the years and reveals a deep and abiding friendship and love built on mutual respect. It reveals a deeply personal side of RBG's life that is immensely touching.

The biggest change we've seen from RBG over the past decade was RBG's increasing willingness to voice her dissent and speak up. For years RBG developed a reputation as someone who didn't rock the boat and worked to create compromise. However the court has taken a hard shift to the right in recent years and begun to challenge many of the freedoms that she had fought for before the Supreme Court. As a result RBG has begun speaking out more and as the senior-most liberal has led the other three liberal justices, occasionally winning a critical fifth or sixth vote. Because of her championship for progressive causes, RBG has become an icon to many young people who believe in the same causes. Today many continue to hope that RBG will hold on at the Supreme Court and continue to fight for the rest of us.

I would highly recommend this book to everyone. As short as it is, it's a very quick read and provides great insight into probably the most influential jurist of her generation. I knew basically nothing about RBG about this, and while I now only know a little bit more it's infinitely more than I knew before.

- Kalpar

The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, by Jeff Gunn

Today I'm looking at a pretty serious book which examines the life of Jim Jones and his infamous organization the Peoples Temple. Jim Jones began as a preacher in the 1950's, promoting Christian Socialism and railing against racial and economic injustice. However Jones has become inextricably linked with the mass suicide of him and some nine hundred followers, including three hundred children, in Guyana. How nine hundred people could be convinced to collectively commit suicide remains a distressing puzzle. The debate over Jim Jones for the past forty years has left many wondering where Jim Jones went bad but Guinn's book leaves us with the impression that there was always something not quite right with Jones, perhaps some form of sociopathy, the result is a very dark story that shows people can do the right thing, but very often for the wrong reasons.

The biggest thing that struck me about this biography was the history of Jim Jones from his early childhood. Guinn amasses a large amount of evidence, including Jones's fascination with Hitler, that Jones was always a little bit off. And keep in mind, this is back during World War II when everyone else is solidly behind the Allied cause, Jones has a strange fascination with Hitler and his followers. Perhaps it's only with the benefit of hindsight that we see the numerous red flags, but it creates a long and concerning pattern of behavior over decades.

Even in his work as a church, there is evidence that Jones was doing it not for the help of other people or for the glory of god, but for the glory of Jim Jones. Jones tackled issues such as poverty and racism, but even in the earliest days it seemed to be for his own benefit rather than the benefit of his culture. For example, Jones would frequently ''poach'' members of different congregations by lobbying on behalf of newcomers, writing letters to local government, the local power board, speaking with local shop owners and convincing them to integrate. Jones manages to do good, but it seems to me that his motivation to do good was because it promoted Jim Jones.

As time this got even worse and perhaps more blatant as Jones moved his congregation from Indiana to California. Cut off from friends and family, Jones extorted even larger sums of money from his followers and had them sign over personal possessions to be sold for the good of the Peoples Temple. True, some of this money went to a variety of programs including college tuition for children who were part of the Peoples Temple, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, traditional Christian charity. But millions of dollars disappeared into personal accounts, some of which the government has never been able to recover.

The result is a book that shows a series of gradual increases until a mass suicide becomes the logical conclusion for Jones and some of his most dedicated followers. Many resisted, some hid, some escaped, but the result was three hundred dead children, killed out of fear that they were about to be kidnapped by the CIA.

Guinn does extensive research and provides exhaustive evidence, but the story is hard to read, to say the least. It's a long story and with the inevitable conclusion it all takes a very dark and sinister turn. I'd only read this book if you were really interested, and I'd suggest interspersing it with something light as well.

- Kalpar

God, A Human History, by Reza Aslan

A long time ago, but not in a galaxy far far away, I was a college freshman taking comparative theology. Among the books we read was a history of Islam titled No god But God by Reza Aslan. I remembered rather liking the book and when I found another book from the same author, I thought it was worth taking the time to check it out. Rather than dealing solely with Islam, this book looks at the history of religion in a broader context going back into the stone age and ending with the monotheism of Islam. This book is rather short for tackling such a broad subject and I'm left wondering what other resources are available for additional research, but as an introductory book I think Aslan does a pretty good job.

The issue with debating the theology of stone age humans is that the work is mostly conjecture from the fragments of archaeological evidence that we've found. We know that there are cave paintings throughout the world including discs, handprints, and animals. We can make guesses as to the significance of those paintings and what they might have meant to stone age humans,why they made those paintings, and how they understood the world. But ultimately the best we can do is make educated guesses.

As Aslan manages to get to recorded history he moves onto firmer ground, although again because this book is so darn short I feel like there was a lot more subject matter that Aslan could have talked about but he provided such a short overview that it felt incomplete. Aslan also makes arguments that are so broad and vague that it's difficult to contradict them by their own generality. The stuff that I thought was most interesting though, was Aslan's revelation of theological research showing monotheism only developed in Judaism after the Babylonian exile. Aslan states that there is evidence that Judaism actually practiced a polytheistic system with at least two deities, Elohim and YHWH. It was only after the Babylonian exile that Elohim and YHWH were merged into a single deity, the only deity. Needless to say, multiple books can be written about this subject so for Aslan to talk about it in just one chapter feels a little inadequate.

Aslan also throws in a chapter about early Christian schisms, again another book-length subject, before finally getting to Islam. The result is a tantalizing glimpse at deeper theological subjects showing how difficult the concept of monotheism can be for people to accept. I'd actually be interested in a full-length book from Aslan about just that subject but for an introductory book I think Aslan does a pretty good job.

Overall I think this book is worth checking out. Specifically the information that I didn't know about Judaism and Christianity was tantalizing and I'd have appreciated resource to check out more. (There actually may be more in the physical book but as with most of my books at this point I listened to an audiobook.) But if you're interested in the history of theology in a very general sense this book is a good choice.

- Kalpar

White Trash: The 400 Year Untold History of Class in America, by Nancy Isenberg

Today I'm looking at the book White Trash, a book that talks about the history of class in the United States, specifically poor whites living in the American south from the early colonial era into the modern day. Throughout the centuries this underclass has has been called a number of things: waste people, clay eaters, crackers, white trash, hillbillies, and rednecks. This underclass has been consistently stereotyped as poor, lazy, sexually licentious, uneducated, and morally suspect. Isenberg illustrates that these stereotypes about poor whites, which have been extended to poor blacks as well, have been persistent through the centuries and Isenberg draws on multiple sources to make her point. Obviously covering four centuries makes this book more a broad overview than a detailed investigation but I think Isenberg does a very good job of making her points through the book.

When the United States was first colonized by England the major source of colonists, especially in regions such as Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, were what were considered ''waste peoples''. England had a not insignificant population of unemployed people who, due to the harsh poor and anti-vagrancy laws of the time period, were often in and out of prisons or forced to wander from location to location. In times of war this expendable underclass were pressed into service to fight in Britain's military and in time of peace they were expected to either find work or die through starvation or on the gallows. For colonies thousands of miles across the Atlantic and with high death tolls, an expendable population made ideal candidates to be dumped in the colonies. If they died, then they wouldn't be a burden on the home country. If they managed to learn how to work and thrive, perhaps they could become of economic benefit to the mother country. This stereotype of the poor as inherently lazy and needing to be forced to work is one of the most consistent and has perpetuated to the modern era.

As the South developed into a slave economy, the underclass of poor whites developed an important racial component, which has remained an important aspect of American class and racial relations into the modern era. African-Americans and other racial minorities have been the subject of systemic racial discrimination perpetuated by white elites. The real genius of this system is that so long as the poor whites have blacks to look down upon, they willingly perpetuate the system. Poor whites are often no better off than the poor blacks, but as long as there is the feeling of superiority to someone else, they are willing to participate in the system. This is best illustrated in the rebellion of 1861 in which poor whites were overwhelmingly conscripted into insurgent forces while the rich planter class, who began the rebellion, were exempted from military service including the exemption of all individuals owning more than twenty slaves. Poor whites were the muscle that perpetuated the slavery system.

The latest trend relating to poor whites is the almost voyeuristic pleasure that American culture has taken in looking at the lives of poor, mostly Southern, whites. Isenberg specifically mentions figures like Sarah Palin and Honey Boo Boo, although the growth of popularity in the blue collar comedy group including Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy is definitely in the same vein. The growth of the Tea Party and its ideology, although not mentioned by Isenberg, definitely feels like a continuation of the same ideas. Poor whites are manipulated by white elites into attacking (usually) racial others and acting against their own interests for the benefit of white elites. Based on Isenberg's evidence it appears that the issues we are dealing with today is only a continuation of a centuries-long tradition.

Overall I thought this book was pretty interesting if brief and fairly shallow in its investigation of race and class relations in the United States. However Isenberg makes a consistent argument that poor whites have consistently been seen as an expendable, degenerate breed for four hundred years, useful to white elites when fighting or helping oppress other groups, but largely exploited or ignored by elites when no longer useful. I think this is a book well worth reading to gain insight into both class and race relations in the United States that has shaped political debates to this day.

- Kalpar

The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors, by Dan Jones

Today I'm looking at another book from Dan Jones about the Knights Templar, one of the crusading orders of knights established in the years after the first Crusade. Although the Templars were not the only international crusading order they are far more well known than the Knights Hospitaller or the Teutonic Knights, and far beyond the smaller orders such as the Livonian Sword Brethren or the Order of Santiago. Jones speculates a little on the enduring popularity of the Templars as an order, but the majority of the book focuses on the history of the Knights Templar from their founding in 1119 to their spectacular downfall starting in 1307 and concluded by 1312.

In hindsight the most surprising thing about the First Crusade is that it succeeded at all considering how poorly organized the entire venture, and most later crusades were. The main advantage of the crusaders was the fact that Jerusalem and much of the Levant existed at the time in a border region between the Fatimid, Shia caliph's capital in Cairo and the Sunni Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. The division between Egypt and Mesopotamia allowed the crusader kingdoms to survive despite their weaknesses and it was largely when both flanks acted in concert that the crusader kingdoms were in most danger.

An inherent problem of the crusader kingdoms was a lack of resources, specifically money and manpower, the two most necessary resources for prosecuting a war. The original mission of the Knights Templar was to provide protection for Christian pilgrims visiting sites such as the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. This original mission quickly grew to the Knights Templar, as well as the Knights Hospitaller, being an elite military force. However the Templars and Hospitallers had significant advantages over the secular rulers of the crusader kingdoms. In their founding charter the papacy granted numerous rights to the holy order which gave them significant benefits. The Templars were made responsible only to the pope, immune from almost all taxation, and granted lucrative rights regarding religious ceremonies and rituals. Coupled with this were the numerous donations of land and resources made by pious Christians in Europe, the Templars became incredibly rich as an organization.

Because the Templars had access to such tremendous resources, they were able to arm and equip a dedicated fighting force of knights and sergeants. Soon the Templars were assigned the garrison of numerous strategic castles in the Levant and Templar contingents made a significant portion of any crusade army. For much of the book Jones focuses on the military history of the Templars and their battles in Egypt and the Levant. There are brief mentions to the more business-aligned aspects of the Templars, such as their involvement in the trade hub of Acre and their fleet of galleys used for both military and commercial uses. I actually would have liked to see more about that because Jones briefly makes the argument that the Templars in many ways were a medieval version of a corporation and NGO rolled into one. I would have appreciated more time on the more economic aspects of the Templar order, but I can see where for the most part their income came from being a major landowner which isn't terribly interesting.

The ultimate irony is that while their wealth enabled the Templars to field major armies against Muslim powers, it also made them a target among Christians at home, especially Philip IV of France. This became especially prominent after the collapse of the crusader kingdoms and the Latins had to fall back to the isle of Cyprus. While the military orders and eastern Latins tried to raise support for renewed Crusading efforts, the European leaders were largely more concerned with local affairs and dynastic struggles. This lack of enthusiasm for continued crusades left the Templars and other military orders at loose ends. While the Teutonic Knights had their own campaigns in the Baltic, the Templars and Hospitallers were faced with the prospect of being merged into a single military order.

Ultimately it was Philip IV of France who ended the Templars, which was fueled by his need for money to perpetuate his military campaigns at home. Jones illustrates that Philip had attacked other targets including churchmen and French Jews to not only cement his power but increase his personal wealth. Jones shows that Philip was initially alone in his persecution of the Templars, and several fellow monarchs were confused at his persecution of the Templar order. Even Edward II only began his persecution of the Templars when it was beneficial for his own personal ends. Most rulers were fairly lax in the persecution and suppression of the Templar order in their own lands when ordered to do so at behest of the pope, so the most significant persecution appears to have occurred solely in France, famously ending with Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Templar Order, and numerous other officials being burned as heretics. Jones argues that a significant part of the allure of the Templars is their dramatic end, compared to the Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights who still exist today albeit in a far smaller and limited form.

This does raise the question of why the Hospitallers, an equally wealthy and powerful organization, wasn't the target of suppression and most of the Templar resources were merged into the Hospitallers. What I've heard about the Teutonic Order is that they were able to play the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope off each other, ensuring their continued existence, but it leaves me wondering why the Hospitallers were able to survive. Maybe there's another source that will answer these questions but I think it's something Jones could have answered.

Overall I think this book is really interesting because of the history that it covers. Jones is a very dedicated medieval historian so you can really tell he's enjoying his subject matter and it really shows in the book There are some areas where I'd like to have seen more development and historical detail, but otherwise I think this book was pretty good.

- Kalpar

The Internationalists, by Oona Hathaway & Scott Shapiro

Today I'm looking at a history book that analyzes the Kellogg-Briand Pact, also known as the Paris Peace Pact, which was signed in October of 1928. The pact is seldom mentioned in history classes and if's mentioned at all it gets lumped in with other attempts of the inter-war era to prevent a second war such as the League of Nations and the London Naval Treaty of 1930. Theoretically, the signatories of the Paris Peace Pact formally renounced war as a tool of politics and declared war illegal. Although signed by the major powers the pact had no provisions for enforcement or punishment of people and states who violated the act. The fact that the pact was signed by nations such as Germany, Japan, and Italy, which later broke the pact and started World War II has resulted in many people dismissing the Kellogg-Briand Pact as a dismal failure. However, Hathaway and Shapiro amass considerable evidence in their arguments that the Kellog-Briand Pact fundamentally changed our perception of international relations and after the end of World War II created a more peaceful, although perhaps less stable, world.

Hathaway and Shapiro marshal literally centuries of evidence to make their arguments, which is necessary considering the size of the argument they're making. The fact that the deadliest of all wars in history happened after the nations involved chose to abolish war significantly undermines the idea that the Paris Peace Pact actually worked, but I think that Hathaway and Shapiro manage to construct a convincing argument that the treaty managed to change at least popular opinions on the legitimacy of war as a tool of political power.

 Hathaway and Shapiro divide history into the ''Old'' and ''New'' orders, dating the ''Old'' order back to the 1600s and the work of Hugo Grotius, the Dutch legal scholar credited with first codifying the ideas of international law. Most importantly Grotius developed the framework for just wars which influenced European diplomacy and how Europeans declared war for centuries. As European nations expanded and enforced their legal systems on the rest of the world, the framework that Grotius created spread with them, the most famous example they use being the rapid industrialization of Japan and their adoption of European legal systems to become a member of the club of Great Powers.

Hathaway and Shapiro argue that from 1928 to the beginning of war in 1939 international relations were in a transitional state, where war was outlawed but no effective means of punishing states such as Italy and Japan that invaded and conquered other countries existed. Economic sanctions were attempted but were weakly enforced at best and largely ineffective as a result. The only exception was the sanction on oil to Japan which completely cut of Japan's supply of oil and pushe dJapan to declaring war on the United States in 1941. To use war to punish those who waged aggressive wars was a contradiction that the other signatories to the Paris Peace Pact couldn't stomach and with no other enforcement mechanism the Pact, as well as the League of Nations, proved ineffective.

During World War II the Allied powers, and even before the United States was involved in the war, began organizing general war goals as expressed in the 1940 Atlantic charter. The United States, the United Kingdom, and later signatories declared that this would not be a war of conquest, that the victors would not seek new territory at the end of the war. Instead the Allied powers professed a commitment to the right of self-determination and protection of the sovereignty of independent nations. These ideals became part of the framework of the United Nations with a general admonition against war in general and wars of conquest in specific and Hathaway and Shapiro argue rather successfully that it worked.

Looking at data from 1816 to 2016, Hathaway and Shapiro not only counted the instances of war, but also the transfer of territory from one country to another as the result of war. From 1816 to 1928 the number of wars and the amount of territory transferred through conquest was incredibly high and on average a nation could expect to lose territory to conquest on average once every twenty years. But when you look at the data after 1928, the results are the reverse. While the nations occupied by the Axis powers represents large transfers of territory by conquest, the important thing is that these territories were returned to their previous owners at the end of the war and did not stick. Furthermore, there were additional large transfers of territory but this was through a largely peaceful process of decolonization rather than through wars of conquest. The number of military conflicts that actually resulted in a transfer of land has been infinitely smaller than in the previous century.

However, this has not been all to the good. Hathaway and Shapiro point out that while the likelihood of a state being attacked by its neighbors has become fairly low, the likelihood of a state being riven apart by civil war or other internal conflict has increased significantly. This has allowed terrorism, insurgency, and other forms of asymmetric warfare to flourish. While strong states can control and prosecute criminal violence through police forces and the justice system, weak states often do not have the capacity or ability to end these except through military force, further fueling internal conflict. However, despite the issues Hathaway and Shapiro argue, and I'm inclined to agree, that the decreased likelihood of military conflict between states is a net benefit and while we have problems now, it does not mean we can't work to solve them in the future.

Overall I thought this book was interesting because it looked at something so often ignored or dismissed in major history and makes a pretty strong argument that the Kellogg-Briand Pact was far more influential than we give it credit. If you're interested in legal or political history then this is definitely a book worth taking the time to check out.

- Kalpar

Sister Queens, by Julia Fox

If you live in the United States you might vaguely remember Ferdinand and Isabella as the monarchs who hired Christopher Columbus before he ''discovered'' the New World. However Ferdinand and Isabella had a much greater influence on European politics beyond sending an Italian who didn't know what the heck he was doing to murder some natives. Ferdinand and Isabella completed the centuries-long project of the reconquista and united the states of Castile and Aragon into modern Spain. And the marriages of their children would affect dynastic politics for generations to come. This book focuses on two of their children, Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile, often known as Juana the Mad.

Katherine of Aragon was familiar to me because she was the first of Henry VIII of England's six wives. Katherine's depiction varies from source to source, especially depending on the religion of the writer, but she has understandably received considerable coverage in English history and literature. So a lot of the material in this book was a refresher for me. I think Fox did a very good job of portraying Katherine as a whole and complex person rather than a cardboard cut-out.

The biggest thing I learned from this book was about Katherine's older sister, Juana of Castile. Juana was the third of Ferdinand and Isabella's children and was never expected to inherit. However once their brother Juan and older sister Isabella died, Juana was left to inherit the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon after already being married to Philip, Archduke of Burgundy, of the influential Hapsburg family. When Isabella died before Ferdinand in 1504, this meant that potentially whoever could control Juana very likely would control Castile as well. This launched a fight between Ferdinand, Philip, and on Philip's death in 1506, his son Charles who would become Emperor Charles V. Eventually Ferdinand and Charles would both imprison Juana under claims of her insanity and Juana would spend the majority of her life imprisoned.

The story that is mostly used to justify the claims of Juana's insanity was a story relating to her husband's body, which Fox manages to explain really well within the context of dynastic and religious politics of the sixteenth century. Juana sought to have her husband buried in the Alhambra located in Granada, the final conquest of her parents in 1492, and importantly where Isabella herself had been buried. By burying her husband with her mother, the former Queen of Castile, Juana sought to cement her position as queen in her own right. However both her father Ferdinand and later her son Charles were able to turn the royal progress of her husband's body into the actions of a madwoman to legitimize  their own usurpation of her power.

The ultimate irony of course is that despite being held prisoner for most of her life, Juana eventually influenced all of Europe through her children. The Hapsburgs married into the royal families of Europe and the Austrian branch of the family would rule as Holy Roman Emperors and later Emperors of Austria-Hungary until 1918. And Fox argues that since Juana's actions always seemed to be for the good of her dynasty, she would perhaps be satisfied with the final outcome.

Overall I thought this book was a really good reexamination of at least Juana, who I really only knew the one story about her alleged craziness that's been perpetuated for centuries. Katherine it feels very familiar but on a much deeper level than some of the more general Tudor histories that I've read or listened to. I did appreciate Fox going into the details of Katherine's struggles with Henry VII, definitely one of the more avaricious Kings of England. I think this is well worth the time to check out and give you better understanding of the dynastic politics of the sixteenth century.

- Kalpar

How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower, by Adrian Goldsworthy

Today I'm looking at a book which does exactly what it says on the tin, looks at how the Roman Empire fell. In the first century CE the Pax Romana had reached every corner of the Mediterranean and for centuries it seemed Rome could weather any challenge, face down any enemy. However by 476 the Western half of the Empire had been occupied by Goths, Franks, Vandals, and other Germanic tribes and Rome itself was sacked. Romulus Augustulus, the last Western Emperor, was deposed and nobody bothered to replace him. The Eastern Empire continued for another millennium, but the power of Rome in Western Europe and Africa had forever been curtailed.

Even as the Empire itself fell, people were debating what caused the Empire to collapse. In the classical era people tended to attribute it to the displeasure of the gods. Pagan writers said the old gods were displeased by the empire's conversion to Christianity while Christina writers blamed backsliding to pagan rituals losing Jesus's favor. Later writers, including Edward Gibbon, blamed the collapse on the Roman Empire on the invasion of Germanic barbarians. As Goldsworthy explains, the underlying assumption is that the institutions of the Roman Empire were fundamentally sound, but the external pressures were simply too much for the empire to bear. Goldsworthy argues that instead it was internal issues that sapped the strength of the Roman Empire and made it susceptible to invasion by the Germanic tribes.

Goldsworthy illustrates this problem through centuries of evidence, showing that through the third and fourth centuries CE the Roman Empire was plagued by civil wars and usurper emperors, as a result much of the empire's strength was spent fighting itself rather than its enemies. Over time the empire's institutions including its military and civil bureaucracy were reformed in an attempt to keep the emperor safe from usurpation or assassination, dividing authority and reducing the power that any one individual subordinate might hold. Ironically this did nothing to stop the civil wars and for most of those centuries strong, long-reigning emperors such as Diocletian, Constantine, or Theodosius, were the exception rather than the rule.

Ultimately Goldsworthy's argument is that the Roman Empire managed to survive through ontological inertia rather than because it was an efficient and united regime. The Empire was simply too big, too rich, and too powerful for it to fall overnight despite the rot within the structure. The Germanic tribes, and even the feared Huns, were able to raid and bloody the empire, but almost never had the numbers to truly overthrow or replace it for most of its history. The only closest rival in terms of strength and money was Sassanid Persia and due to geography they would not have been able to strike at the cores of the Roman Empire.

Goldsworthy's methodology is well thought out and he makes excellent use of the available sources to make an argument that internal, rather than external, pressures made the Roman Empire collapse. What bothers me, though, is when Goldsworthy makes the comparisons to other nations and the inevitable comparison to the United States. As he explains, the United States has been comparing itself to Rome (albeit the Roman Republic) since 1776, so the comparison to the Roman Empire is equally apt. However, Goldsworthy argues first that the United States, much like Rome, had no serious challengers. When this was written in 2008 that was clearly not the case as our ongoing ''war on terror'' continues to quagmire in the Middle East with no real goal or end in sight. While the nature of asymmetric warfare means it's unlikely a terrorist army could invade Washington, D.C., the challenges that they pose are no less frustrating. And even in 2008 the rise of China and ambitions of Putin were plainly obvious as future security concerns.

Goldsworthy also, albeit not by name, makes a reference to the Roman Empire being ''too big to fail''. Although definitely not being tossed around at the time he finished writing (well before the publication date of 2008) the words ''too big to fail'' have come back to haunt us in a serious way. To members of the left wing, myself included, the notion itself that a financial institution can become so large that its collapse can threaten the world economy suggests that something has become seriously wrong with the system and is in desperate need of reform. And it does raise the question, if Rome was too big to fail and still failed, what does that mean about the banks?

Despite these concerns about Goldsworthy's attempts to compare Rome to the modern era (a difficult proposition even in the best of times), I think this book is well worth taking the time to check out. Goldsworthy makes a compelling argument that in the end, Rome's greatest enemy was itself.

- Kalpar

Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy, by Ian W. Toll

Today I'm looking at a history of the United States Navy in its earliest era from its founding during George Washington's administration through the War of 1812. For much of this period the existence of the navy was very much in doubt. The early United States had a strong distaste for standing military forces, and this included naval forces. In addition to the great expense involved in maintaining a naval force, many Americans believed a navy would only lead to further conflicts with European powers. Some Americans much preferred the use of privateers, much like the American militia system, to meet America's security needs than a large standing army.

The need for an American navy became apparent, however, due to conflict with the Barbary States and the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in Europe. The conflict with the Barbary states is gone into much greater detail in another book I read, Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates. While this book spends at least a decent portion talking about the Barbary States since it's an examination of the Navy as a whole it also explores the Quasi-war and the War of 1812 which further emphasized the need for a navy.

From the beginning the leaders of the United States realized that a large navy with ships of the line modeled along European lines would not be sustainable with the resources that the United States possessed. The initial plan in 1794 called for six frigates, four heavy and two light, constructed at six different shipyards through the United States. The main designer Joshua Humphreys, planned the frigates on designs that would make them heavier, stronger, and better-armed than British and French frigates, but also make them fast enough to still evade ships of the line against which the frigate would be hopelessly outmatched. The result, proved eventually in the War of 1812, was that the American frigates could go toe-to-toe (or more accurately yardarm-to-yardarm) with British frigates and in many cases still win.

The amazing thing is that the Navy managed to survive despite almost being dissolved numerous times. It seems to be a consistent policy that when war is looming, the United States went through a flurry of trying to get ships together and ready to fight, but once a treaty has been made and peace declared the United States decides to mothball its frigates and furlough its officers, squandering valuable institutional experience in the interim. Only to have to bring the ships back up to fighting trim when the next round of hostilities opened. In some ways it's amazing that the navy managed to survive until the War of 1812.

If the War of 1812 did anything, it proved that the navy was a necessary element for national defense and that the United States could, and would, stand up against British naval power and win. Compared to the debacles of the various attempted invasions of Canada and the disgrace of Washington D. C. being burned by redcoats, the multiple victories at sea against the best navy in the world dramatically boosted American morale. Naval commanders such as Stephen Decatur and Oliver Hazard Perry became household names and lithographs of the nation's frigates became popular decorations. After the war ended, support and funding for the navy remained strong and the United States navy continued to grow.

Overall I thought this book was interesting, if fairly brief. It's at best a brief overview of the history of the U.S. navy for its first twenty years of its existence. Because I did a report on the Battle of Lake Erie in seventh grade, I did a ton of research on the early navy so I vaguely remembered quite a few of the events described in this book. But if you're looking for a brief history this is definitely a good choice and worth the effort.

- Kalpar

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Today I'm looking at a history book by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz that seeks to redress the problem of Native Americans, (alternately called American Indians, the First Peoples, or Indigenous Peoples), who are largely written out of standard American history and when they are included at all it is an entirely inadequate representation of the peoples and cultures. This book is not an exhaustive exploration of the indigenous people who lived in the United States. That would be a difficult if not impossible task for a number of reasons including a scarcity of surviving written and archaeological records, often wantonly destroyed by European colonialists, and because the sheer number of Indigenous nations that populated the modern United States. This book focuses largely, instead, on the policy of the Anglo-American settlers starting with the colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth going into the twenty-first century. Dunbar-Ortiz makes a compelling argument that the United States has, and continues to pursue, a policy of genocide against American Indians through a variety of methods and provides suggestions on how to remedy this state of affairs.

Throughout this book Dunbar-Ortiz utilizes the definitions of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as her rubric for defining genocide. Although most people usually associate genocide with the wholesale killing of members of an ethnic group or religion, such as in the Holocaust, the UN Convention includes within its definition the forced transfer of children out of an ethnic group, preventing births within the group, and imposing conditions of hardship on groups calculated to bring about their destruction. Although she uses the term retroactively from its creation, by the modern definition the actions of European colonials from their first contact with American Indians matches the textbook definition of genocide.

Dunbar-Ortiz catalogues the methods utilized by European colonists from the overt to the more insidious as a series of tools utilized through five centuries to wage an ongoing genocide against indigenous peoples. Regular warfare, smallpox, liquor, and the practices of head-hunting and scalping factor heavily in the early years of European contact with American Indians. The only point of concern I actually had at this point was Dunbar-Ortiz's assertion that smallpox could not have killed 90% of the population of the Americas. The current historical consensus is that the total population for the Americas was as high as 100 million people, but around 90% of those died of diseases carried by Europeans that American Indians had no resistance to. Smallpox is often pointed to as the biggest, but blame is also assigned to diseases such as measles, typhoid, diptheria, and pertussis which could have had equally high mortality rates. Dunbar-Ortiz argues it's highly improbable that diseases could have wiped out such a great chunk of the population, but admits that they had their effect. Obviously the evidence available to historians is highly fragmentary so a definitive answer is unlikely.

Aside from the obvious methods utilized by Europeans, Dunbar-Ortiz explores some of the less overt but equally deadly methods Anglo-Americans used to try and wipe out indigenous nations. She places a good deal of emphasis on trade, where natives could provide goods (usually pelts) to whites, and whites would offer food, tools, clothing, firearms, and most dangerously liquor in exchange. By replacing traditional crafts with European-manufactured goods, whites made native communities dependent on trade for their continued survival, providing a powerful lever against native communities. This became even more overt with the American reservation system where many natives were dependent on government supplies to provide food, clothing, and other basic necessities just to survive.

Another horrific practice was the means of ''educating'' native peoples ranging from the Spanish mission system to the infamous Indian Academies of the United States, typified by Carlisle. In these cases young children were ripped away from their families and sent to live in distant boarding schools. Their hair was cut, they were forbidden from speaking in their native tongue or practicing their own religions, and severely beaten for any infractions. This was a concentrated effort by Europeans to force natives to adapt to the dominant Anglo-American culture and did untold damage to the life of native communities in the United States.

Even as recently as the mid-twentieth centuries there have been attempts by the American government to renege on agreements with Native American nations, many of whom had sovereign status recognized in treaties signed with the United States government. Native communities have resisted such efforts to strip them of their rights, but obviously with mixed results. Even issues as recent as the Dakota Access Pipeline underscore the struggle Indian communities still face when dealing with the federal and state governments. However, because there are only around five million American Indians in the United States (making approximately 1.6% of the population), it is unlikely they alone will be able to force change. Dunbar-Ortiz says that it will require African-Americans, Hispanics, and Euro-Americans to cooperate as allies for American Indian communities and allow native voices to be heard. American Indians will speak for themselves, but it's the rest of us that have to be willing to listen.

On a final note, I thought it was interesting in how Dunbar-Ortiz talks about the American Army and how it owes its existence to the need of the American Government to kill Indians and make room for European colonization. The oldest units of the American Army can trace their origins to units in the Regular Army whose ''peacetime'' purpose was to expand the frontier and kill and control Indians. Dunbar-Ortiz even illustrates how the American colonial project, the expansion and domination of the North American continent, made use of colonial troops in the guise of the Buffalo Soldiers, African-Americans enlisted in the regular army and deployed in the Western Frontier to fight Indians. To this day, the American Army refers to territory behind enemy lines as ''Indian Country'', part of the Army's institutional heritage fighting native nations.

I definitely think this book is worth a read because of how Dunbar-Ortiz shifts the perspective and provides an in-depth explanation of how American colonialism continues to affect native communities.

- Kalpar

The Wars of the Roosevelts, by William Mann

Today I'm looking at a biography of not one Roosevelt in particular, but more about the Roosevelt family in general. Like anyone who has any familiarity with the Roosevelt family, you're probably aware of the history of mental illness within the Roosevelt family, with several members succumbing to alcoholism. More specifically several members including Eleanor and Theodore show signs of depression or bipolar disorder. The Wars of the Roosevelts is a delve into the ''dirty laundry'' of the Roosevelt family and the revelation of the deep emotional issues that plagued multiple members of the family.

Because I've read so much about Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor a lot of the subject matter was familiar to me. Because the book focused more on Eleanor's father (and Theodore's brother) Elliot, as well as Theodore's children there was more information than what I knew before. Mann specifically talks about the son Elliot had with Katy Mann, Elliott Roosevelt Mann, an illegitimate child and one of the dirty secrets of the Roosevelt family. Mann talks about Elliot's rise as a banker and eventually enter the ranks of the middle class. Despite his success, Elliot Roosevelt Mann never got acknowledgement from his more prestigious relatives. However at the 1991 Roosevelt family reunion the Manns were finally accepted into the fold.

Personally I think it's hardly surprising that the Roosevelt family, like so many families, had its share of internal division and strife. There are plenty of happy families, but there are just as many dysfunctional ones as well. Considering the high amount of pressure put on the Roosevelt family to succeed and the ambitions for political power it's hardly surprising that so many of them struggled emotionally. Throw in a family history of alcoholism, depression, and bipolar disorder and it's a recipe for emotional molotov cocktails.

From the description of this book on the library's website Mann implied that the struggles among the Roosevelts would reach the level of warfare or bloodsport. I will admit that the struggles between the Hyde Park and Oyster Bay branches of the Roosevelt families during Franklin's election runs certainly reached the level of warfare, but that at least makes sense considering the partisan and occasional ideological divisions between the two branches. Within the respective branches of the Roosevelt families, I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it outright war. Let me try to explain.

Mann talks a lot about the non-conformists of the Roosevelt families, people who refused to follow the paths and expectations set by their relatives, usually Groton, Harvard, and then some sort of career in business or politics and a drive to succeed. Specifically Mann points to Elliot Roosevelt, Kermit Roosevelt (one of Theodore's sons), and James ''Tadd'' Roosevelt Jr (Franklin's nephew and son of his much older half-brother Rosey). Elliott and Kermit both struggled with alcoholism and were engaged in extramarital affairs. (Although they were far from the only Roosevelts to do so.) Elliott was eventually forced to separate from his family under pressure of his brother Theodore who threatened multiple times to have him incarcerated in an insane asylum. Elliott died at the age of thirty-four after a suicide attempt. Kermit, Theodore's second son, did not receive the same pressure to succeed as his older brother Ted, their father's namesake and crown prince to the dynasty. Kermit always seemed unsure of what he wanted to do in life and also fell prey to alcohol and publicly flaunted his mistress, leading to additional shunning by his own family. Much like his uncle, Kermit eventually committed suicide while serving in Alaska during World War II. Really the only non-conforming Roosevelt who did fairly well was Tadd who, thanks to being an heir to a slice of the Astor fortune through his mother's side, was financially independent enough to ignore his family after he married a common factory girl. Tadd's marriage eventually soured and he spent the rest of his days living in Florida.

The thing you have to understand is that mental illness was highly stigmatized in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In fact to this day organizations such as NAMI are still fighting to end social stigma associated with mental illness. For a socially prominent family such as the Roosevelts, it's hardly surprising that they would shun or attempt to hide members of their families who showed signs of mental illness and failed to meet the high expectations of the family. I wouldn't call it a war within the family so much as a family of high-achievers reacting like many people in the same time and place would react to family members that failed to meet expectations.

Overall in spite of a good portion of this book being review for me, I still thought it was interesting and worth checking out. This definitely goes into the lives of the less prominent figures such as Elliott, Kermit, Theodore Jr., and Alice whose lives are overshadowed by the giants of Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor. If anything, it shows that the Roosevelt family was much like any other, dirty secrets and all.

- Kalpar

Princesses Behaving Badly by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie

Today I'm looking at a book that provides brief biographies of a variety of royal women throughout history who became famous for a variety of reasons. Rodriguez McRobbie divides the the book into a variety of categories including women who were military leaders, women who seized power in their own right, and women who simply loved to party. Because the historical record doesn't favor women, it's often difficult to get information about these women and in some cases, as Rodriguez McRobbie admits most of what she has to go on is hearsay at best. However this book provides a good starting ground.

Instead of providing detailed biographies about every woman in this book, Rodriguez McRobbie provides vignettes of each woman, briefly covering main events of her life. I will admit that it is a little frustrating to see the lives of influential people summarized to a few pages or sometimes just a few paragraphs, especially when the author herself admits that the figures merit their own full-length biography. However, I choose to look at this book as a starting point rather than a be-all-end-all. Rodriguez McRobbie provides lists for additional reading in the back of the book so I think if a particular individual sounds interesting to you, there are resources available to read more about them.

Ultimately there's not a whole lot I can say about the book beyond that. There are some figures where Rodriguez McRobbie allows conjecture to overtake historical fact but in those cases there are usually too few existing facts for us to say much beyond mere conjecture anyway. Hopefully for people who read these books they'll be able to find information about historical figures who have otherwise often been ignored and do their own research. I'd say it's definitely worth the effort to check out.

- Kalpar

Dead Wake, by Erik Larson

Today I'm looking at a book titled Dead Wake which came out about a couple of years ago. As it says on the cover this book is about the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 and I didn't know how interesting a read it would be so I left it on hold for a while. However, this book was part of an extensive advertising campaign on Smithsonian's website, and I kept seeing this book at the library and in bookstores so I broke down and decided that it was finally time to check this book out. The book goes into quite a lot of detail on a variety of subjects so I thought it was worth the effort.

As you might remember from high school history, the sinking of the Lusitania is one of the events that caused the United States to enter the First World War. If you know a little bit more about the event you might know that the Lusitania sunk within twenty minutes, which meant a significant number of passengers could not get to the lifeboats in time. There has been some debate among historians about why the Lusitania sank as quickly as it did. And the author does a really good job of explaining why preexisting theories were incorrect and providing evidence for his own theory.

First, a noticeable secondary explosion meant that many survivors, including the captain, assumed that the Lusitania was hit by two torpedoes from the attacking U-20. However U-20's logs and communications with German Navy command, as well as intercepts by British Intelligence, revealed that only one torpedo had been launched, which raised the question what caused the secondary explosion. Later disclosures of the manifest revealed that the Lusitania actually was carrying American-made ammunition for the British so it was believed that a cargo of munitions may have caused a secondary explosion. However the quantity of munitions loaded on the Lusitania were insufficient to cause a damaging explosion.

The explanation Larson provides lays in the structural design of the Lusitania itself. The Lusitania was originally part of a Royal Navy project to design large, fast ships and both the Lusitania and its sister ship the Mauritania were originally naval auxiliary ships. Although built and owned by Cunard lines, both the Lusitania and the Mauritania could be converted to cruisers in wartime. Although the navy decided to keep the Lusitania in civilian service, its military origins had significant effects on its design. Specifically the Lusitania had longitudinal coal bunkers. This meant that it had two large coal bunkers running along the entire length of the ship while most civilian ships had multiple small coal bunkers running across the beam of the ship. The idea behind this design was that the coal would serve as additional armor for the ship against enemy projectiles. Unfortunately, it appears longitudinal coal bunkers were actually a liability to ships hit by torpedoes. Because the watertight compartments within the coal bunkers weren't sealed, it basically provided a giant basin for water to enter the ship from a torpedo strike.

This explains why the Lusitania sank so quickly, especially considering the ship listed severely to the side on which it was struck, to the point it was difficult to get lifeboats launched from either side of the ship. As the water cascaded into the bowels of the ship, it is very likely the cold sea water caused some part of the steam machinery to explode. Larson points to a steam pipe, which may explain loss of control of the ship into the crisis, although a boiler or other apparatus is just as likely. The simplicity of the explanation as well as the evidence supporting this hypothesis provides a much better explanation for why the Lusitania may have sunk as quickly as it did.

Overall I think this book was well researched. Larson provides a lot of background detail which debunks the hypothesis that a secret cache of munitions on board caused the secondary explosion. As demonstrated with previous strikes on ships with longitudinal coal bunkers, a hit by a torpedo into the coal bunker caused the ship to sink in an astoundingly short period of time. It is probably safe to say the same occurred with the Lusitania.

Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly

Today I'm looking at Hidden Figures, a book you may remember coming out way back in 2016. I was recently able to borrow it from the library and because I had heard good things I decided it was worth reading about. Hidden Figures talks about the history of the black female computers who worked first for the aeronautical research laboratories at Langley Field and later for NASA during the height of the space race. These women, who literally did nothing but math for a living, have been overlooked in official and even unofficial histories of NASA. Shetterly began investigations because her father was a black engineer for NASA and knew many of the computers who lived in their neighborhood. As she continued her research Shetterly discovered that at least fifty black women worked for the Langley aeronautical research labs and/or NASA, and it's possibly a much greater number. This is to say nothing of the white women who worked in the exact same jobs but have gotten only slightly more recognition. Even Shetterly admits that her book only scratches the surface of the history of NASA's black women computers, but it's an important first step so further research can be done.

Today when we hear computer we think immediately of an inanimate object so ubiquitous it hardly bears thinking about. I am writing this blog post on a computer. You are reading it on a different computer. You probably use a computer at work, and so do I. But seventy years ago electronic computers were little better than theory, and complex mathematics had to be done at best with the aid of slide rules and mechanical adding machines. Because this was seen as drudge work, scientists and engineers were happy to pass the difficult task of actually doing the math to female computers.

During World War II, America's quest for air supremacy meant that massive amounts of money were spent on the research and development of new and better airplanes, and the aeronautic studies required massive amounts of calculations. Whether it was refining the SBD Dauntless, speeding up the P-51 Mustang, or getting a little more lift from the B-29, thousands of calculations had to be done to ensure American planes would win the war. But due to wartime shortages in labor, the War Department was looking for anyone with mathematical aptitude to work for their research labs. Thanks to this and an executive order from FDR prohibiting racial discrimination for federal jobs, an entire new set of opportunities were open not only to African-Americans in general, but specifically African-American women. Although they had to struggle with segregation within the laboratories, the black computers confined to a separate computing pool and relegated to a single table in the cafeteria, the ladies of Computing West were undeterred by their circumstances and gave it their all. And like many of their white counterparts, these female computers managed to earn the respect and admiration of their white male colleagues.

Perhaps most astoundingly, what was supposed to be a temporary war-time job, soon developed into a career for many of these women as the arms race and space race of the Cold War continued to feed demand for mathematical know-how. Some women even went on to learn how to program and operate the electronic computers that began replacing the biological kinds in the 1960's.

It is not overall surprising that black women have been overlooked by more traditional histories. Non-whites and women have had a hard time going beyond more than mere token status. But I think this book is an important step into revealing the complex nature of NASA even in the 1950's and 60's and how women of color have been involved since the beginning. As I said, hopefully more research will follow on Shetterly's book and we can learn more about the computers of NASA.

- Kalpar

Spain in Our Hearts, by Adam Hochschild

Today I'm looking at a history of the Spanish Civil War which specifically looks through the perspective of various American reporters and volunteers, as well as a handful of Brits. Ernest Hemmingway's dispatches from Spain are probably the most famous of these dispatches, with George Orwell's writings definitely in the same weight class. However, Hochschild utilizes the letters and diaries of ordinary volunteers, some of whom never managed to make it back home.

The Spanish Civil War was prompted by the election of a left-leaning coalition government of liberals, socialists, and communists. For years the ordinary people of Spain had struggled under the social and economic domination of the land-holding elites. In addition to the ever-popular topic of land reform, the republican government promoted a series of social and economic reforms that would improve the lot of common Spaniards and reduce the power of the big landowners and the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, a coalition of generals, eventually lead by Francisco Franco, led a military revolt against the Republican government and sought to reassert the power of the elites, the monarchy, and the Church. The following war lasted three bitter years, leaving thousands of people dead not only through combat but through disease, starvation, and political executions on both the Republican and Nationalist sides.

Aside from the toll it took on the Spanish people, the Spanish Civil War is important because of the international attention it received. Most importantly Mussolini and Hitler, eager to test new airplanes, tanks, and tactics, allied with Franco and dispatched troops and material to aid him. As a result the fascist powers gained experience that would prove extremely valuable in the early days of the Second World War, only a few months after the Spanish Civil War finally ended.

While Franco received aid from nations abroad and even the approbation of Pope Pius XII, the Republican government found themselves largely bereft. The western democracies of Britain, France, and the United States were unwilling to aid Republican Spain and often hampered or forbade the sale of arms and ammunition. In fact, the only country that provided aid in any significant quantities of the Soviet Union, and the communists would utilize this control on the purse strings to exert additional political control and launch their own purges within the Republican government. As a result the Spanish Civil War has become one of the great ''what if'' scenarios of the twentieth century. What if FDR had lifted the embargo on the sale of weapons to Republican Spain? What if the French had sent a few divisions across the Pyrenees to aid an ailing fellow Republic? The answer is, of course, unknowable, but it represents a great moment of when things should have been done in history.

Which makes the romance of the International Brigades all the greater. Composed of young men, some anarchists, some socialists, some communists, the International Brigades were forces of volunteers who often made their own way to Spain to fight for a cause they believed was vital. Undertrained and woefully underequipped, the International Brigades were thrown into the worst fighting of the Spanish Civil War and as a result saw the highest casualties out of any Republican units. Despite their doomed cause, the International Brigades represented the willingness of ordinary people to give their lives for their beliefs, even when they could have stayed home very comfortably and probably not be affected one way or the other.

Overall I thought this book was interesting. I knew very little about the Spanish Civil War so this was a useful introduction to this period of history for me. I also appreciate that we got to see perspectives beyond the most famous observers such as Hemmingway and Orwell. I definitely think this book is worth the time to check it out and learn about something American audiences might not know much about.

- Kalpar

Destiny of the Republic, by Candice Millard

Today I'm looking at a book that's part biography, part larger history, and focuses around the events of the assassination of President James Garfield just a handful of months into his term in 1881. Despite initially surviving the bullet and clinging to life for several weeks, Garfield eventually died of massive internal infection leaving Chester A. Arthur, a man nobody had expected to be president, in the White House. In addition to talking about Garfield, this book focuses on the life of his assassin, Charles Giteau, who was not a sane individual by any stretch of the imagination. The aftereffects of this assassination are also important to American history both in what happened and what didn't happen as a result.

James Garfield was a politician from Ohio who did not expect to be nominated for president in 1880. To the very end, Garfield remained loyal to Senator John Sherman of Ohio who he had pledged his vote. The 1880 Republican convention was seeking a new candidate, after the ignominy of Rutherford B. Hayes's electoral victory in 1876 and was divided between three candidates. Ulysses S. Grant, although having already served two terms, was supported by the machine politicians but was opposed by James G. Blaine who was favored by those who supported reform. Finally John Sherman brought up the rear for those dissatisfied with either candidate. Eventually Garfield was selected as a compromise candidate, despite his loud protestations that he did not desire the candidacy. Reluctantly Garfield found himself the nominee, and eventually elected as president of the United States.

According to Millard and her sources, Garfield was a highly respected member of the Republican party at the time, even when he was only a junior congressman from Ohio his oratory skills were lauded by his colleagues. Garfield presents a wonderful opportunity of what could have been because of his political skill, his personality, and his desire for government reform and racial equality. Had Garfield been able to serve even just one full presidential term he might be remembered as far more than a presidential footnote.

Guiteau, by contrast, did not lead a very successful life and considering his mental illness this is not much of a surprise. And based on what Millard described, Guiteau definitely qualifies for some sort of personality disorder, although since I'm not a psychologist I can't define it with any precision. Guiteau spent much of his life wandering from place to place, unable to hold down a job, and trying to avoid creditors. Guiteau spent much of his life borrowing money from acquaintances, promising to pay it back once he got a check that was due to him any day now and purchasing many items for a down payment and failing to pay the remainder of the bill, as well as fleeing from boarding houses in the middle of the night. Most importantly, Guiteau suffered from persistent delusions. Guiteau believed that god had designated him for some special purpose and that a speech Guiteau had written (and had never delivered) was critical to getting Garfield elected. As a result, Guiteau assumed that a duly grateful Garfield would appoint him to some high office, first a consulate in Vienna and later as the general consul in Paris.

Garfield and his staff, receiving the letters and visits from a man who they deemed no more than an eccentric and persistent nuisance of an office seeker, simply stalled him until Blaine, now secretary of state, finally grew tired of Guiteau's inquiries and told him to stop asking about the Paris consulate. Guiteau, taken aback by these remarks, turned on Garfield and his administration and came to believe that god had told him to kill Garfield, ensuring a change in administration for which he would be duly rewarded. Finally, on July 2nd of 1881, Guiteau succeeded in shooting Garfield in the back at the Baltimore and Potomac train station.

The most tragic irony of all of this is that Garfield probably would have survived this assassination attempt and, if he had lived in the modern era, he'd probably be up and walking after a few days in the hospital. Although the bullet had shattered ribs and nicked an artery, it came safely to a rest behind Garfield's pancreas and even without the bullet being removed he probably would have survived. However, due to the unsanitary medical practices of the time, Garfield ended up with a terminal case of internal gangrene and quite literally rotted from the inside out.

Immediately after he was shot, Garfield was carried upstairs in the train station and several doctors probed the president's wound. Some utilized their bare hands, and some utilized a variety of probes, but none of these objects were sterilized before being inserted into the president. Germ theory and the process of sterilization had been relatively new developments to medical science and largely considered false by Americans. The idea that tiny, invisible creatures could make people sick and just by washing your hands and instruments in carbolic acid could prevent this seemed fairly suspicious to them at the time. After Garfield's agonizing death, and the revelation that he had died not from the bullet, but rather from sepsis, American medical science quickly began to accept that maybe there was something to this germ theory after all. However it would take the assassination of William McKinley for the American public to begin to think that maybe the president needed some protection and not just anyone could walk right into the White House.

Overall I thought this book was really interesting. There are a lot of different tangents to this book, such as Alexander Graham Bell (who I hadn't mentioned in the review) who developed a metal detector in an attempt to find the bullet and help save Garfield's life. However, I think they all manage to work together quite well and the result is a satisfactory book. It is interesting to learn about a president that isn't frequently talked about because of the short time he spent in office and Guiteau makes an interesting character by himself. If you're interested in nineteenth century America and learning more about one of the ''placeholder'' presidents or medical science at the time, this book is definitely worth checking out.

- Kalpar

The Black Count, by Tom Reiss

Today I'm looking at a biography of Alex Dumas, father of the famous novelist Alexandre Dumas and grandfather to the playwright of the same name. Alexandre Dumas the writer is by far the most famous of this trio, famous for his novels The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, but that does not mean he was the only larger than life character in his family. In fact, his father looms equally as large in history, albeit in the field of warfare as a general for Republican France rather than a writer. However, the legacy of the first Alex Dumas has largely been forgotten partly because of his conflict with Napoleon, but largely because of his ethnicity. In this biography Reiss explores not only the life of Alex Dumas but the world surrounding him that enabled Dumas to rise to such spectacular heights before falling again into obscurity. There are a couple of issues that I have with this book, but I'll outline them later.

Alex Dumas was born a slave on the island of Haiti, then still the largest sugar-producing colony of France, as well as the world. Dumas's mother was a slave but his father was the feckless Marquis de la Pailleterie, who spent many years in hiding in Haiti but was remarkably proud of his son Alex. When de la Pailleterie returned to France, he brought Dumas with him, initially as a slave but later as his own natural son. Dumas enjoyed all the benefits of being a noble son in the waning days of the Bourbon monarchy, learning horseback riding, fencing, and dancing among many other skills. After a falling out with his father, Dumas joined the regiment of the Queen's Dragoons as a common private. This proved to be to Dumas's advantage when the revolution began in 1789 and very quickly Dumas found himself rising through the ranks of the revolutionary army. Furthermore, Dumas was a firm republican, devoted to the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity and adopted the principles of the French Republic whole-heartedly.

Dumas was further aided by the, at the time, extremely radical attitude of racial equality that the French Republic adopted. The French Republic not only abolished slavery, itself a radical concept at the time and only beginning to gain traction in Britain, but granted full citizenship rights including the right to vote and the right to hold office to all citizens regardless of color. This was a significant boon to the large population of black and mixed-race people who had come to France from its colonies. Thanks to this policy of equality as well as his ability and boundless courage, Dumas was able to rise through the ranks and eventually became the equivalent of a four-star general. Unfortunately Dumas's disagreements with Napoleon, as well as his imprisonment by the government of Naples, led to his decline. Finally Napoleon, never a believer in racial equality, reestablished slavery and relegated people of color firmly to a second-class citizen status. As a result, Dumas was barely remembered in the official histories of France during the Revolution.

Unfortunately there are a couple of issues I have with this book, the biggest one being the sources. In the prologue Reiss goes into an extended account about how he believed there was a cache of lost Dumas family papers in a museum. Before Reiss could arrive the keeper of the papers died and she took the combination of the safe in which they were kept with her. After wrangling with an assistant mayor, Reiss finally bribed the government official to let him break open the safe and take photographs of the documents before the police collected the documents and stored them ''who knows where''. There is something a little too fantastic about this story which makes it sound like bad methodology. After some very cursory searches I don't have reason to believe that Reiss made anything up. I'm sure something would have come out by now if he had. But it is the tiniest bit concerning to me that source he claims to have consulted are not otherwise available. It is at the very least bad methodology and I would have rested easier if I'd known his primary sources were available for other people to check.

Another thing that bugs me about this book is how Reiss tries to play up that the reasons for Dumas's imprisonment were forever a mystery to Dumas and he never understood what role he played in a larger struggle. This is patently false. Dumas may have had some confusion as to why he languished in prison for two years before being ransomed by France, but he certainly understood why he'd been imprisoned. On his return from the poorly-planned Egypt expedition led by Napoleon, Dumas's ship landed in southern Italy, then part of the Kingdom of Naples which was at war with France. Since he was still a high-ranking general in the French Army, Dumas was considered a valuable prisoner and was kept captive by the Neapolitans as a bargaining chip and prisoner of war. Dumas certainly would not have been confused by why he was in prison. As for why he remained there for two years, the answer is simply Napoleon. On a variety of levels Dumas and Napoleon did not get along and it was simply Dumas's ill fortune that he was captured by the Neapolitans while Napoleon launched a coup and established himself as First Consul of a reorganized French Republic. Between his focus on other details and lack of love for Dumas, it is hardly surprising that Napoleon and his subordinates did not overburden themselves with the task of freeing Dumas. In addition, Dumas's republican sentiments might have been a liability considering Napoleon's aims at absolute power and reestablishment of slavery. Perhaps Dumas made these conclusions before he died, but I don't think he was utterly bewildered by his predicament.

Finally Reiss does play into the short man myth of Napoleon as an explanation for why he had such conflict with Dumas. As has been explained in countless other places, Napoleon was actually 5'7" tall (or 170 cm for you people who use rational units). (Interestingly that makes Napoleon a whole two inches or five centimeters taller than me.) For a man of the late eighteenth century this was actually average height. The myth only originated because 1. French inches were larger than English inches so when the English found out Napoleon's height (in French inches) was 5'2", they just took that and ran with it in all their propaganda and 2. (Kalpar's theory) Napoleon was surrounded by his grenadier guards who had to be at least six feet tall to be grenadiers, and also had giant hats that made them look even taller. Seriously. Look at those hats. No wonder he looked short, he was surrounded by freaking tall people with their giant-ass hats all the time. The point of this diversion is that Reiss explains some of the friction between Dumas and Napoleon down to Dumas being 6'1" tall, incredibly well muscled, and basically looking like some sort of eighteenth century version of Keith Hamilton Cobb.  Personally I think it's more likely Napoleon was a racist jerk and also didn't like anybody being more important than himself which was the cause of friction, rather than any ''Napoleon complex''.

Overall I think this was an interesting book. As I said, my biggest concern was the cache of documents Reiss claims he found by breaking into a safe, which may or may not be available. Otherwise, this is a really good book and shows a fascinating life of a man largely forgotten because of the color of his skin.

- Kalpar

Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady, by Susan Quinn

Today I'm looking at a biography about Eleanor Roosevelt and her friend Lorena Hickok, although based on their correspondence it is possible that Eleanor and Hick were far more than just friends. This book covers their lives, albeit only very briefly. (And in a life as full and complex as the lives of Eleanor Roosevelt or Lroena Hickock, it's very difficult to talk about either one fully in just one book.) Most of the focus of this book seems to be in the New Deal years, when Eleanor and Hick's relationship was at its closest, especially after Hick left her job with the Associated Press to work for the Roosevelt administration and later the Democratic Party. After they separated the two ladies remained in contact and Quinn also talks about other romantic connections in Eleanor's life which add depth to an already fascinating person.

Lorena Hickok died in 1968 and willed her surviving correspondence with Eleanor Roosevelt to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, on the condition that they be sealed for a decade after her death. When the letters were first examined in 1978 the depths of the romantic attachment between the two ladies was revealed for the first time, but this being the seventies the possibility of Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the most respected women of the twentieth century, being involved in a homosexual relationship was deemed impossible and dismissed. However, as times and mores have changed, a reexamination of the correspondence between Eleanor and Lorena is well worth going into. And Quinn makes a convincing argument that the two women were definitely involve romantically based on the available evidence.

First and foremost there is the depth of emotion and expression in their letters, especially the ones written by Eleanor. Eleanor herself was a very emotionally reserved person due to her childhood and had particular difficulty expressing emotions with her own family. Yes, Eleanor had an easier time expressing emotions with friends but the depth of emotion with Lorena was on quite another level. Second we know for a fact that Lorena was a lesbian so that makes the possibility of a homoromantic relationship between the two all the more possible. Third, Eleanor herself had lesbian friends some of whom she went into business with in the Val-Kill furniture shop so Eleanor was not unaware of the possibility either. (Although where Eleanor fell on the spectrum both romantically and sexually is a question ultimately unanswerable.) Finally, we know that Eleanor was trapped in an unsatisfying marriage after the discovery of Franklin's affair with Lucy Mercer in 1918. Unable to divorce because of Franklin's political ambitions, but equally unable to go to Franklin for emotional support because of his betrayal, it is perfectly rational that Eleanor might search elsewhere for romantic and emotional companionship outside her marriage, much like how Franklin did.

The question of whether Eleanor and Lorena were ever physically intimate is unanswerable. Any letters that may have answered that question have been destroyed so the matter is left purely to speculation, but I think the subject's largely irrelevant. We have a large body of evidence suggesting a deep emotional and romantic relationship between the two women, however they chose to express it within the limited roles available to them in the 1940's. And quite frankly I think it's an inspiring message to people across the gender and sexuality spectrums that even people like Eleanor Roosevelt didn't fit into neatly defined categories. People are ultimately people, regardless of time and place; messy, complicated, unsure of themselves, loaded with emotional baggage, and all manner of other issues.

A lot of the rest of the information in the book, at least about Eleanor, was a repeat of things I was already familiar with thanks to resources such as the Ken Burns Documentary and the book Eleanor and Franklin. As I said, this book specifically seems to focus on the New Deal/1930's era when Eleanor and Hick were closest in their relationship. But regardless I think this book is definitely worth checking out.

- Kalpar

The Oil Kings, by Andrew Scott Cooper

The seventies were a very bad time for America. Vietnam, Richard Nixon, ugly cars, ugly clothes, and the only colors you could get furniture in were avocado green, blaze orange, and harvest gold. On top of all of this there were the problems of a recession, double digit inflation, and a rapid increase in oil prices. In fact the increase in oil prices rocked the global economy, almost causing a financial panic in Europe and leading to unemployment as high as 8% in the United States. But what caused this dramatic increase in oil prices? At least part of the cause can be explained by the odd relationship between the United States and the Shah of Iran.

After World War II, and especially after Operation Ajax, Iran became an important client state for the United States. Its shared border with the Soviet Union made it an ideal location for CIA bases, and it also controlled one side of the strategic mouth of the Persian Gulf, an important waterway for the transport of oil from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Iraq to Europe and Japan. A blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the mouth of the Persian Gulf, could strangle the western powers by cutting off their oil. Having Iran as a strong, friendly power in the region was vital to U.S. global security.

As the Vietnam War dragged on, Nixon began pursuing a policy of localization. This policy, known as the Nixon Doctrine, would arm and equip local powers with hardware provided by America and other Western powers so they could handle local security threats and fend off the encroachment of the Soviet Union and other communist powers. Mohammad Reza Shah had always sought newer and better technology for his military, but American policy had put strict limits on what Iran could buy so the Shah didn't wreck his nation's economy on a military spending spree. With the Nixon Doctrine, Nixon and Henry Kissinger chose to let the Shah buy however much military hardware he wanted, including everything but the atomic bomb. This led the Shah to go on a spending spree, buying planes and hardware he simply didn't have the people or infrastructure to maintain, much less use, such as orders for dozens of F-14 fighters. (F-14s incidentally are carrier-based aircraft. Iran had no aircraft carriers at the time so there was no advantage to using F-14s over other aircraft.)

In order to pay for these military toys the Shah had to get revenue from somewhere, which is where another agreement with Nixon and Kissinger became important. The Shah asked Nixon if, with the cooperation of OPEC, he could raise oil prices. Nixon and Kissinger gave their assent, assuming the Shah only meant to raise the price of oil by only a small amount. The Shah, however, meant to raise oil prices to a point where alternate energy methods, such as shale oil and the gasification of coal, became competitive with crude oil, bringing in significantly increased revenues for Iran. On top of his military spending, the Shah intended to launch a massive industrialization program for Iran, turning it into a modern economy. The end result was the price of OPEC oil went up by 400% in the course of one year.

Needless to say, when a basic commodity which is necessary for fuel, as well as dozens if not hundreds of other derivative products, increases by that much in a year there are going to be aftereffects. Especially when Europe, Japan, and the United States relied on oil imported from OPEC. Recession, financial panic, inflation, shifts in international balances of payment, loss of consumer confidence, all this and more threatened to topple the governments of western Europe and the global economy. The situation was only exacerbated when the United States, to help stem the tide of dollars flowing into Iran, increased the prices of its military equipment. This only spawned a spiral of increased oil prices to pay for the more expensive equipment.

Attempts by the United States to get the Shah to stop or at least slow down the oil increases proved unsuccessful and so a gap began growing between the United States and its client state. Eventually the United States shifted its Persian Gulf strategy from Iran to Saudi Arabia, especially after the Saudis broke an OPEC price hike in 1976. Dramatic decreases in Iran's oil revenue meant that the Shah had to drastically cut back not only on his military spending but on his civil spending as well, which in turn caused Iran's own economy to falter. By 1979 the economic troubles in Iran had toppled the Shah and ushered in a new Islamic republic.

I have really only summarized this book, and very poorly at that, because it goes into so much detail and makes use of so many sources, such as transcripts from the Nixon white house, Henry Kissinger's own meetings and phone calls, cables from the Iran embassy, state department papers, treasury department papers, and information from foreign governments as well. Cooper does an excellent job of researching this text and provides a vivid economic picture of the 1970's and U.S. relations with Iran, providing additional explanation as to why the Shah's government was overthrown in 1979 and the tension between the United States and Iran to this day.

If you're interested in Middle Eastern history, twentieth century history, economics, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, or getting a better understanding of Iran this book is definitely a must read. Cooper does make some allusions to the 2007 crisis which saw a spike in oil prices as well, but the comparison gets vaguely mentioned at best so I consider it hardly a major topic for the book. But as history of where economics meets politics this is an excellent read.

- Kalpar

The Sun and the Moon, by Matthew Goodman

Today I'm looking at a history of one of the most famous newspaper hoaxes of the nineteenth century, when Richard Adams Locke wrote a series of articles purportedly about discoveries made by Sir John Herschel with a new type of telescope that discovered the existence of life, including sentient life, on the moon. When the story it was widely circulated and reprinted in newspapers across the United States and later the world, with many people arguing over its veracity. However, this book talks about quite a few other subjects beyond the moon story, putting it within historical context.

The early nineteenth century saw developments in printing technology, which had remained fairly unchanged since the fifteenth century. Printing presses could previously only produce about two hundred and fifty copies an hour, but the invention of cylindrical presses and application of steam power meant thousands of copies could be produced cheaply and quickly. By the 1830's the United States saw the development of the penny press, daily newspapers that cost only a penny making them affordable to far more people than the six cent papers at the time. The penny press exploded newspaper readership in the United States and also dramatically changed the content of newspapers. Previously focused towards the upper classes interested in financial and international news, penny papers focused on local news, sports, true crime stories, and the introduction of humorous and not always true anecdotes.

Goodman goes into considerable detail talking about the nineteenth century institution of ''humbugs'', stories or objects that might be real or might not be, the foundation of P.T. Barnum's career. (A biography of Barnum makes up a significant part of this book as well.) And I'm pretty sure society hasn't changed much considering the popularity of urban legends and other stories that may not be true, but have just enough verisimilitude to make their veracity plausible. The thrill then, as of now, is debating whether the story actually is true and so humbugs, both in Barnum's museum and on the pages of newspapers, made endless entertainment fodder for the nineteenth century.

I have a couple of criticisms about this book, but they're fairly minor. The first is that I feel like this book kind of lacked focus. Goodman jumped between talking about Benjamin Day and his creation of The Sun, New York's first successful penny press, talking about Richard Adam Locke's life and career, P.T. Barnum's life and career, and even the life and career of Edgar Allan Poe. Granted, all these subjects are interrelated. It's difficult to talk about Locke's moon story without first talking about the newspaper it was published in. Barnum is a great example of how hoaxes were popular entertainment and how newspapers helped spread them. And Poe himself wrote a story about a voyage to the moon shortly before Locke wrote his own story. The problem is it feels like Goodman had two or three different topics he wanted to write about but he didn't have enough material to make any one of them into a book by itself so he melded them together. So yes, they're connected, but it still feels disjointed to me.

The other issue I had, and this is purely because I'm a trained historian, is that Goodman goes into purple prose territory at times, making grand, literary statements. Really the only reason I take issue with this is because I personally don't think it's proper historical writing, but that's really a personal bugbear of mine. If you're a casual reader of history it probably won't bother you too much.

Finally Goodman tries to argue towards the end of his book that Locke's moon writings were supposed to be from the beginning, as Locke claimed much later, an elaborate satire of religious astronomy. During the early nineteenth century astronomy was the science most in concord with religion and many religious figures argued that other worlds must be inhabited by beings to further increase the glory of God. Some would go on to say that these beings from other worlds would be in a state of natural grace, having never fallen to sin like humanity did, so their worlds would be paradises. The problem I have with this argument is Goodman doesn't devote considerably much time to it in his book. The inclusion of P.T. Barnum and other examples of humbugs, hoaxes, and diddles certainly undermines Goodman's assertion that Locke's work was meant to be a satire and he devotes considerably less time talking about it than the hoaxes.

Overall, I thought this book was interesting. It feels disjointed because it talks about a lot of different things which are related, but it gives a good view of the culture of nineteenth century New York. If any of the topics listed in the (fairly long) title interest you, I think this book is worth taking the time to check out.

- Kalpar