by Richard Subber | Mar 31, 2026 | American history, Books, History, Human Nature, Politics, Power and inequality, World history
guns and germs…
Book review:
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
by Charles Mann
New York: Vintage Books, 2011
553 pages
Everything you never knew about civilized people in the Americas before the Europeans arrived and killed most of them (OK, many died in battle, but it was European diseases, mostly). Maybe close to 100 million “native” people died within 100 years or so of the “discovery” by Columbus…but hold on, this book is not about Wounded Knee-type criticism or ex post facto self-flagellation.
In 1491, Mann beautifully describes the marvelous sophistication of cultures, cities, agriculture, arts and science that blossomed in North America, Central America, and South America thousands of years ago, in many cases predating achievements and growth and civilization in Europe. Yes, the Incas never used the wheel except for children’s toys. And yes, the Mississippian city of Cahokia was a bustling port and a trading center with population equal to Paris in France—and that was 500 years before Columbus sailed.
And yes, there were grand cities (e.g., Cahokia) in the Americas before there was pyramid-building in Egypt. And yes, the Olmec culture in what is now Mexico invented the zero whole centuries before mathematicians in India did the same.
My recollection of schoolboy learning about the history of the Americas is that the dates and events were tied to discovery and conquest and colonization by Europeans. The implication was that, before the white men with guns, germs, and steel arrived, nothing much was going on in whole continents characterized more by “virgin land” and “endless wilderness” than by people who had agriculture, city life, art, trade, commerce, religion, science, kings, and philosophers.
Mann offers 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. For me, the joy of reading this book is learning about the multiplicity of cultures that flourished in the Americas, and learning how they tamed and managed and very greenly conserved their environment…and for me, the sad revelation of this book is understanding that the peoples of the Americas were human beings whose achievements were noble and notable, and yet, lamentably, their cultural legacies are largely lost and the losses are barely mourned.
In 1533 Pizarro and his conquistadors at Cuzco precipitated the decline of the 300-year-old Inca empire in Peru. Fifty years later, the Spanish colonial administrators in Peru ordered the burning of all the Incan “khipu” knotted string records because they were “idolatrous objects.” Khipu were the Incas’ only form of writing. The smoke from the burning of their books gets in your eyes, forever and ever.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shantung Compound
They didn’t care much
about each other…
by Langdon Gilkey
–
Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 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 | Mar 24, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry, Politics
our old friend Martin
Questions
Did you see the man we can call
“our old friend Martin”?
It seems the good they die young,
but we can remember
the goodness that he preached,
and the goodness that he lived,
and we can murmur his name
as we do a good thing today,
and do the same tomorrow.
The man called Martin
pointed the way
and he asked many questions.
He recalled the Good Samaritan who asked:
“If I do not stop to help this man,
what will happen to him?”
The man called Martin said:
“The question is, ‘If I do not stop
to help the sanitation workers,
what will happen to them?’
That’s the question.”
Martin said “I have been to the mountaintop.”
The mountaintop is far,
maybe a lifetime journey away,
and few of us may make it
to the mountaintop,
but we can murmur Martin’s name
as we do a good thing today
and do the same tomorrow.
Will you do a good thing today?
That’s the question.
January 2, 2026
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Comanche Empire
the other story of the American West…
–
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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Mar 19, 2026 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Politics, Power and inequality
it’s about money, not journalism
Book review:
Newspapers and Democracy:
International Essays on a Changing Medium
Anthony Smith, ed.
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1980
Newspapers and Democracy may be of most interest to informed readers who understand the basics of the history and the modern business model of newspapers, and want more historical context.
The essays were published in 1980. There is no mention of the internet or Google or social media or any of the digital manifestations that have crowded the traditional newspaper audience into a small corner.
There is no substantial or convincing assessment of the putative public service mission of “the press” that has been blatantly claimed by newspaper owners and journalists for at least more than 60 years.
Newspapers and Democracy is a museum piece, not an explanation of the alleged “power” of the alleged “free press.”
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
–
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 | Feb 26, 2026 | Democracy, Human Nature, Other, Power and inequality, Tidbits
tyranny, face up to it
The wisdom of James Madison:
“If men were angels,
no government would be necessary….
Is there no virtue among us?—
If there be not, we are in a wretched situation.
No theoretical checks—
no form of government, can render us secure.”
James Madison was a potent voice in the political wrangling and public debate that preceded the ratification of the U. S. Constitution in June 1788.
He was an articulate supporter of the Constitution and a leader among the Federalists who favored creation of a national government with a broad range of federal powers that constrained the powers of the states.
Madison shared the fear of his educated elite contemporaries that the “tyranny of the majority” was a notably possible flaw in a system of government based on elected representatives of the people.
If Madison were alive today he might say something like:
“Forsooth, we never imagined it might turn out this bad. We must rally the true friends of the Republic.”
Source:
To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders
Bernard Bailyn, New York: Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, Inc., c2003, repr. 2004, 34.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: Tales from Shakespeare
summaries by Charles and Mary Lamb…
–
many waters: more poems with 53 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 | Jan 24, 2026 | Human Nature, Politics, Tidbits
it’s underprotection…
“…these two trends—
overprotection in the real world
and underprotection in the virtual world—
are the major reasons why children born after 1995
became the anxious generation.”
from The Anxious Generation
by Jonathan Haidt (b1963)
New York: Penguin Press, 2024
385 pages
p. 9
* * * * * *
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: Sketches by Boz
…the Miss Willises are a scream…
by Charles Dickens
–
Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 74 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 | Dec 21, 2025 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, History, Politics, Power and inequality
“nationalism” is an obstacle
Book review:
This America: The Case for the Nation
by Jill Lepore
New York: Liveright Publishing Corp., 2019
150 pages
The United States has been a recognizable entity barely—barely—long enough to be a nation.
Today we barely acknowledge our American Indian heritages, which could be part of our nationhood if we thought about it once or twice.
Jill Lepore offers what she is so good at offering: a sensible and informed discussion of what “nation” means, and why “nationalism” is an obstacle to the good life, and why “liberalism” should be what we like to talk about.
Read This America to get her details. Read it and talk about it.
Of course, her book is a political discourse, but it is not rabidly partisan. It’s something to think about.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Old Friends (book review)
Tracy Kidder tells truth about old age…
–
Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 74 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”
* * * * * *
