Lessons From History Biographies

  Reason and science are vital to humanity’s advancement in politics and society. One of the common questions I get from students whenever we’re learning about the American Revolution is who my favorite Founding Father is. It’s a difficult question to answer that’s fraught with perils, as all the Founding Fathers had major blind spots and failures by modern moral standards, and some of their flaws were truly unforgivable (with all the modern debates over what is and isn’t “woke education,” try to explain with a straight face to a young person of color that they’re supposed to worship Thomas Jefferson as a hero). However, one choice I’ve found myself leaning toward a lot in recent years is Benjamin Franklin, a man who was in some ways very much of his times, and yet was also quite self-aware of that fact and constantly strove to learn and be better. While so many Founders come off today as old, dead, unknowable figures, Franklin’s bright and bouncy personality still shines through t...

Your strength can quickly become your weakness, if you cannot pivot to changing circumstances. Nigel Hamilton’s Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents is an intriguing and at times frustrating book, especially if you’re well familiar with the Lincoln presidency and its major outline. The book sells itself as a study of the two leaders’ approaches to war leadership, yet it focuses almost exclusively on the first two years of the war (1860-1862), i.e. the time period when Lincoln often looked like a commander-in-chief who was totally in over his head, while Davis looked like he might very well successfully lead the Confederate States of America in a successful bid for independence. The book is a great read, but also frustrating in how limited its focus is; that said, Hamilton does a superb job in setting up the book’s heel turn in its final section, when Lincoln suddenly pivoted into greatness while Davis floundered his new “country” into oblivion, and that was in how Lincoln rec...

  In a great crisis, flexibility and being able to accept reality are everything.             In our tech-oriented world where people believe whatever story has been liked and shared the most, there seems to be a growing belief that reality really can be whatever we wish it to be. This is a dangerous ignoring of the longstanding historical record, which suggests that eventually actual reality will always come crashing in around you, often in a sudden and destructive fashion. The most spectacular global crisis in history was full of such examples, and these are chronicled in Phillips O’Brien’s excellent new book The Strategists , which chronicles the background and military strategies of World War II’s titans—FDR, Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini. All of these men, to one degree or another, were shaped by the trauma of World War I, and all took away very different lessons from their experiences—some of which helped the...

  Being overly certain of your own morality is a recipe for disaster.     One historical figure I have long been curious to learn more about is Nat Turner, the famous slave who in 1831 launched a bloody rebellion against the white slave-owners in rural Virginia, a failed rebellion that had seismic consequences in the politics and worldview of the South. Nat Turner--Black Prophet is a curious book in a variety of ways. It was begun by Professor Anthony Kaye back in the 2010's, and in the wake of his death it was finished years later by Professor Gregory Downs (of my own U.C. Davis). It's a book that reads like a standard History book when discussing Nat's origins and legacy, as well as the culture in which he lived. But when discussing Nat's own personal beliefs and visions, it dives deep into Biblical analysis, so much so that it often reads much more like a Religious Studies text. The authors argue that approach is vital for truly understanding Nat's motivations, a...

  Humility is needed for a successful democracy.   One subject who will undoubtedly come up repeatedly over the course of my blog is Abraham Lincoln, and I already took a lesson away from him in a previous entry (when Michael Burlingame’s excellent Lincoln biography examined his fairly humble origins). I partly will always return to Lincoln because he will forever be my favorite president (and thus I tend to snap up every book about him I can find), but also because he was a unique American leader in our history who is still admired on a global scale. Author Allen Guelzo apparently shares my fascination with Lincoln and has written numerous studies about his presidency—his most recent Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment is a relatively fast-paced read (clocking in at under 200 pages), and it specifically focuses on Lincoln’s various political and economic theories that have often received less attention compared to the titanic Civ il War-relat...

Nostalgia be damned—life was MUCH harder in the past, especially for women.   Abigail Adams is perhaps the single most famous woman of the generation of America’s Founding, and as such she has long been the subject of much fascination and study amongst American historians. Interest in her especially piqued in the wake of modern feminist movements, as people gravitated toward an outspoken and clearly powerful woman in an era where such things were very often frowned upon. In John Smith’s highly readable biography of her, he demonstrates how a major reason for her success was in how perfectly she navigated what people saw as her “proper place,” while also pushing back against it at every opportunity. However, one thing that struck me reading about her life was how brutal and short life could be for pre-modern women, even for the most privileged and powerful. 18 th century people suffered from loss on a level it would be hard for us to conceive of today, and we have forgotten all th...