by Richard Subber | Oct 3, 2023 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, World history
a nightmare in slow motion
Book review:
Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War
by William Manchester (1922-2004)
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980
401 pages
Manchester’s quietly passionate memories of being a young Marine fighting in the Pacific theater in World War II are terrible to behold.
In Goodbye, Darkness he tells all of his story: the good, the bad, and the really hard to read parts.
Reading Goodbye, Darkness means watching another man’s nightmare in slow motion.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: An Empire on the Edge
by Nick Bunker
Of course the British really wanted to win
the Revolutionary War,
but they had good reasons
for not trying too hard…
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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”
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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.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: Seven Gothic Tales
by Isak Dinesen,
these are lush and memorable stories…
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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”
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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.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
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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”
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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.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: Saint Joan
by George Bernard Shaw
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Jul 6, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading
find your groove…
Book review:
The Element:
How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything
by Ken Robinson, with Lou Aronica
New York: Viking, Penguin Group, 2009
274 pages
The theme of The Element is an exciting concept to think about.
I love his telling of this story: the six-year-old girl is hunched over her drawing, and she tells her teacher that she’s “drawing a picture of God,” and the teacher says “nobody knows what God looks like,” and the girl replies: “They will in a minute.”
Robinson tackles his inspirational advice: find your own distinctive talents and passions, and, when you recognize them, you’ll know you’re in the Zone, and you’ll love it.
Here’s what hinders us from finding our own Elements: we don’t fully understand the range of our capacities, how these salient capacities relate to each other, and how much potential we have to get better at stuff that makes us feel really good. (p. 9)
“The Element is the meeting point between natural aptitude and personal passion.” (p. 21)
“The highest form of intelligence is thinking creatively.” (p. 56)
“You can think of creativity as applied imagination.” (p. 67)
I think the first few chapters of The Element are enough to open your eyes and your mind to the wonderful challenge of tracking down and embracing your personal Element, if you haven’t done it already.
The rest of the book suggests that Robinson’s Element does not cover the talent for ending a book after you’ve said all that needs to be said. He wanders, and you might get bored.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
The “dime novels” in the Civil War
Think “blood-and-thunder”…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | May 28, 2023 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Human Nature
self-serving lies, and dreams…
Book review:
The Self-Made Man in America:
The Myth of Rags to Riches
by Irvin G. Wyllie (1920-1974)
New York, The Free Press, 1954
210 pages
The Self-Made Man in America is a historian’s delight.
Wyllie offers the multiple meanings of “the self-made man” throughout American history, connecting historical elements of the American dream and the self-serving promotion of the concept by titans of industry and their bankers.
There is a panoply of quotations from key decision-makers throughout the decades that aid the reader in understanding how Americans at all ranks in the socioeconomic spectrum advocated, criticized, and embodied the siren song of “the self-made man.”
To be sure, Wyllie plainly states his verdict: “Throughout all our history the self-made man was the exception not the rule…success has been for the few, not the many….Men who occupy the lowest places in our society have known the facts for a long time…but…men on the bottom need dreams.” (p. 174)
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review:
Moral Tribes by Joshua Greene
he’s sincere, but off the mark…
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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”
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