by Richard Subber | Oct 5, 2022 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Politics
a casual look at Civil War history
Book review:
A History of the People of the United States
During Lincoln’s Administration
by John Bach McMaster
New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1927
693 pp.
This is an intriguing historical excursion into American history from the vantage point of 1927.
McMaster’s style is notably less than academic—his very casual quotation style is a distraction.
Basically, he offers a sometimes superficial political perspective on the origins, conduct, and denouement of the American Civil War.
A well-informed reader can skim A History without undue loss.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Old Friends (book review)
Tracy Kidder tells truth about old age…
–
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 | Sep 28, 2022 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, History
…they just walked away…
Book review:
Ends of War:
The Unfinished Fight of Lee’s Army
after Appomattox
by Caroline E. Janney
Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2021
331 pp.
I thought I know a lot about the American Civil War. Janney’s book, Ends of War, is a good reminder that there’s lots more to learn.
Lee surrendered his army to Grant on April 9, 1865. Of course it’s pretty well known that other Confederate Army units were still fighting for several months after that event.
Janney confirms this stark point: for tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers, the war didn’t end then. They just stopped actively fighting the Union forces.
Close to half of Lee’s men never actually surrendered at Appomattox, and this unappreciated reality was part of the foundation of the dangerous Southern mythology of the “Lost Cause.”
Lee had a bit less than 50,000 men under his command when he signed the surrender document in Wilmer McLean’s house. Less than 30,000 of Lee’s men were officially but very haphazardly “paroled” in the days following the surrender.
At least 20,000 men in dirty gray uniforms walked or rode away from Appomattox without officially surrendering, most of them hoping to head for home. Many of them remained devoted to “the cause.”
It seems that Grant and Lincoln and the Union forces desperately wanted to end the fighting, but there was no real Northern plan to deal with the peace that was the presumptive goal, and to end the Southern insurrection, and to realistically bring the people of the rebel states back into the Union.
For my taste, the book is too long. I’m sure Janney could have established her argument, made her case, and proved her point in fewer pages.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Cradle Place
by Thomas Lux
just poems wrapped in a wet rag…
–
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 | Sep 19, 2022 | Book reviews, Books, History, Human Nature, Politics, Power and inequality, World history
swords, but no ploughshares…
Book review:
The Great Game:
The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia
by Peter Hopkirk
New York: Kodansha International, Ltd., 1992
564 pp
This was almost entirely new history to me. I guess I’m a typical Westerner—I don’t know much about Asia.
It’s not enough that the indigenous peoples of Asia have been squabbling and fighting with each other for centuries. The British and other Europeans and the Russians decided to get involved in the “Great Game” of trying to control and expropriate the riches of the East.
The Great Game tells it all.
It hasn’t turned out well at all.
Endless warfare is not the way to go about it. It don’t work.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review:
The American Revolution: A History
The “Founders” were afraid of “democracy”…
by Gordon S. Wood
–
Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 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 | Sep 5, 2022 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Human Nature, Politics, Power and inequality, Revolutionary War
umm, they forgot about “patriotism”…
Book review:
The Political Depravity of the Founding Fathers:
Studies in the History of The United States
by John Bach McMaster
New York: Noonday Press, division of Farrar, Straus & Company, 1964
Originally published as With The Fathers in 1896
McMaster writes with the perspective of 125 years ago, and it’s all too obvious. However, this is not a fatal problem.
The Political Depravity of the Founding Fathers is a largely chronological elaboration of the many political and self-interested motivations that were the controlling factors in the creation of the Constitution, the Monroe Doctrine, George Washington’s presidency, and a broad scope of public concerns during the 19th century.
McMaster has not written anything like “love ya” biographies of the so-called Founding Fathers.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Sea Runners
…it informs, it does not soar…
by Ivan Doig
–
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, 2022 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading, Theater and play reviews
the movies ignore the real story…
Movie review:
The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
Published 1850
I watched three films based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s iconic story, The Scarlet Letter. My small sample (there are at least nine movies based on the story) confirms that Hollywood really can’t stand the story as Hawthorne wrote it.
Read my review of Hawthorne’s book, click here.
In 1934 Colleen Moore played Hester Prynne and Hardie Albright played Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale in the tale about Puritan condemnation of adultery and children born out of wedlock. Hester is sentenced to wear an embroidered scarlet letter “A” on her bosom, and Dimmesdale endlessly rationalizes his decision to conceal his role as the mysterious father of little Pearl. The movie reflects the production limitations and typical dramatic direction in the 1930s—there’s a lot of staring into the camera, and crowded action scenes.
Meg Foster played Hester and John Heard played Dimmesdale in the 1979 TV miniseries about The Scarlet Letter. There are recognizable scenes from the book. The script is nondescript. It’s a ponderous distillation of Hawthorne’s words.
The 1996 version with Demi Moore as Hester and Gary Oldman as Dimmesdale apparently is the latest in the unsatisfying series of film versions of The Scarlet Letter. It is an almost lurid mal-adaptation of the book. The hot scenes featuring Hester and Dimmesdale attracted to each other are a complete invention—Hawthorne eschews any explicit reference or description of physical intimacy between his principal characters. Demi and Gary get it on, but it ain’t Hawthorne.
In all three films, the role of little Pearl is deliberately underplayed. The child is a principal factor in the story—her feelings, her joie de vivre, her contemplations, her maturation are fully explored in the book, and ignored in the movies.
The mental and emotional quagmires that are explored and endured by Hester and Dimmesdale are generally ignored in the movies. None of the movies uses the ending that fulfills the book.
In short, for my taste, if you want to claim that you are familiar with the themes, plot, and denouement of The Scarlet Letter, you have to read the book.
The movies are scandalously thin and false charades of the powerful drama of Hawthorne’s story that was published very successfully in 1850.
If you think you remember reading it a long time ago, try it again.
* * * * * *
Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shantung Compound
They didn’t care much
about each other…
by Langdon Gilkey
–
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 19, 2022 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History
Henry Adams was there…
Book review:
The United States in 1800
by Henry Adams
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1955, 1966
132 pages
Henry Adams wrote a colossal History of the United States of America during the First Administration of Thomas Jefferson (1889).
This slim volume is the first six chapters of that history, and it’s doggone interesting reading even for the casual student of history. Adams offers a somewhat disconnected, but nevertheless insightful, potpourri of facts and personal observations about the people of the very young United States.
For example, he reports that in 1800 the organization and operation of Harvard College was not exactly what you would guess: the college had a president, a professor of theology, a professor of mathematics, a professor of Hebrew, and four tutors, and “the method of instruction [was] suited to children fourteen years of age; the instruction itself was poor, and the discipline was indifferent.” So much for a college education in 1800.
The United States in 1800 offers an apparently realistic and sometimes deprecating panorama of the people and culture of the United States in the early 19th century.
There’s no particular reason to think Adams didn’t really know what he was talking about.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review: All The President’s Men
About the men and women
who crave power…
by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
–
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”
* * * * * *
