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A lesson learned from THE STRATEGISTS, by Phillips O'Brien

  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...

A lesson learned from NAT TURNER--BLACK PROPHET, by Anthony Kaye and Gregory Downs

  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...

A lesson learned from OUR ANCIENT FAITH: LINCOLN, DEMOCRACY, AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT, by Alan Guelzo

  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...

A lesson learned from THE UNEXPECTED ABIGAIL ADAMS, by John Smith

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...

A lesson learned from AMERICAN VISIONS, by Edward Ayers

  Humanity never changes, only our historical circumstances do.           Sometimes the History books I read chronical fascinating historical characters and eras, and have lessons from the past that our modern society really needs to take to heart. Then there are times that I just read good, informative books that don’t really fit the format of my blog well, as it’s hard to take any such wrenching lessons away from them, and that’s the case with Edward Ayers’ American Visions . It’s a very well-written and readable book which is also very much a casual synopsis of the world of Antebellum America, and it jumps between dozens of different figures. As such, this is going to be a shorter post than my usual one, but there was one intriguing theme I stumbled on across the book—how much the debates that consumed 19 th century Americans weren’t all that different than the ones we have today, if you squint just enough.    ...

A lesson learned from TROTSKY, by Robert Service

  Cling to your ideas in defiance of reality at your own peril.   Most of the time, I find great new books when browsing my local bookstores, much to the chagrin of my monthly budget. But every now and then, I randomly stumble across a gem, as was the case with Robert Service’s 2009 Trotsky biography, which I happened to find in good condition for $2 at a local garage sale . I’ve read up a lot in my life on the infamous Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and somewhat less on his ideological predecessor Vladimir Lenin, but until now I knew tragically little about the Communist Rev olution’s third-most famous member Leon Trotsky, the most prominent Soviet founder whom Stalin murdered in an effort to claim the revolution for his own. Trotsky’s an unlikable historical figure who still suffered a tragic fall in the classic Greek sense of the word, a man who so desperately wanted to believe in the revolution he led that he was blind to the real-world horrors he had unleashed on the wor...