Lessons From History Biographies

  Your personal demons and disappointments do not need to define you. Many stories have been told of how important the process of going through failure can be for learning lessons and setting people on a more successful life path. I thought about my own story as I read John Reeves’ latest biography of Ulysses Grant Soldier of Destiny , which focuses on the years from Grant’s embarrassing tenure as a California soldier in the 1850’s, to his ultimate triumphs in the American Civil War. For seven years, my goal in life was to become a full-time History instructor at the community college level, and I kept telling myself that if I stuck to it and kept working hard, I would eventually achieve my dream (all evidence that those jobs are virtually impossible for Social Science instructors to find at community colleges notwithstanding). One day, I was called into an interview for a school I had long worked at, and I drove away from it convinced I had gotten the job and had to start planni...

  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...