by Richard Subber | Sep 5, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, History, World history
more than one Christianity…
Book review:
Christendom:
The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300-1300
by Peter Heather (b1960
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2022
704 pages
Christendom is not a cheerleading book written by a true believer.
Heather makes it plain that Christianity never had an unchallenged inside track to be the dominant religion in the Western world, although it has predominated for centuries.
There was more than one variety of Christianity from the beginning, and papal leadership was not established until the 11th century.
Christian leadership is a largely manmade circumstance.
The reader has the opportunity to learn much about the Christian church and Christendom that was unacknowledged until historians started to dig deeper in the modern era.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: Seven Gothic Tales
by Isak Dinesen,
lush and memorable stories…
–
Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Aug 31, 2023 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Revolutionary War
a primary mover
Book review:
The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
by Stacy Schiff (b1961)
New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2022
422 pages
If this is your first encounter with Stacy Schiff, you can guess it won’t be your last.
She writes powerful prose that makes you want to linger over the words, to learn more deeply, and to experience her transformation of history into something believable and real.
Samuel Adams was a primary mover of the American revolution.
The British loyalists on this side of the pond and the king and Parliament on the other side recognized his vital role in bringing the colonial Americans around to their ultimate decision to cut the ties that bound them to England and its king.
Samuel Adams tells a whole lot more about the story of the man than you learned before.
Take some time to read it.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: Hag-Seed
by Margaret Atwood…it ain’t Shakespeare
–
Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Aug 24, 2023 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Human Nature
you can’t change your socks…
Book review:
With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
by Eugene B. Sledge (1923-2001)
New York: Oxford University Press, 1981
326 pages
Marine Cpl. Eugene B. Sledge (his Marine buddies called him “Sledgehammer”) knew there is no glory in combat. There is fear, comradeship, pain, duty, hunger, honesty, sadness, loyalty, and death.
With the Old Breed is a shockingly restrained and horribly candid account of Sledge’s experiences in the attacks on Peleliu and Okinawa by the 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment, of the 1st Marine Division in the last year of World War II.
Read it, and you can mumble their prayers as you share the troubled joy of combat soldiers who survive the fighting in which their friends die.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
“Inner child”…a haiku poem
Remember how the merry-go-round
was a real challenge, the first time?
–
My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Aug 20, 2023 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Politics, Power and inequality
before there were “managers”…
Book review:
The Visible Hand:
The Managerial Revolution in American Business
by Alfred D. Chandler Jr. (1918-2007)
Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977
608 pages
A densely researched and densely written history of the evolving American environment for various forms of capitalism and the appearance in the middle of the 19th century of “managers” who didn’t own the business or do the work.
You’ll learn some stuff about commercial, entrepreneurial, financial, and managerial capitalism.
This is an academic treatment of the good, the bad, and the ugly in the history of American corporate structure and performance. Chandler rarely refers to the political and moral aspects of the good works, the charlatanry, and the grossly criminal actions of the movers and shakers in the 19th century and early 20th century business world.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: Saint Joan
by George Bernard Shaw
–
In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Aug 8, 2023 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, History, Politics, Power and inequality
we need love, and we need trust…
Book review:
The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism
by Martin Wolf
New York: Penguin, 2023
474 pages
Wolf examines the problem in plain language: the imperatives and the expectations of democratic government both complement and conflict with the pursuit of personal and corporate success in a capitalist world.
His arguments and considerations are a lot more nuanced than that. You can learn to think in new ways about the despairing failures that put our society at risk.
The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism emphasizes one key point: in both the democratic and capitalist frames of reference, we need to be able to trust our leaders and the folks whose personal interests are at variance with those of the rest of the members of our society.
Aye, there’s the rub.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: An Empire Divided
King George and his ministers
wanted the Caribbean sugar islands
more than they wanted the 13 colonies…
by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy
–
As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Aug 3, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading
a storytelling style…
Book review:
A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles (b1964)\
New York: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House, Inc., 2016
462 pages
A Gentleman in Moscow has an almost simplistic plot line: a nobleman is condemned to perpetual house arrest, living in an attic room in a fine hotel in Moscow in the 1920s.
What Towles brings to the party is an almost casual storytelling style embedded in a fecundity of warmly engaging words and people.
It’s simply true that I was drawn to continue reading about Count Alexander Rostov and Nina.
You can imagine how the story ends. I could.
Caveat: Towles didn’t need 462 pages to tell this story in the best way.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
“Boil up” and other good manners…
The “Hobo Ethical Code” is worth a quick read.
–
As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
