Current Reading: November 2023

I finished The Good Fight, Shirley Chisholm's campaign memoir about her run for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1972. It was fascinating and well written, indeed, though it doesn't provide much personal information about Chisholm, the person. Chisholm the politician and activist is quite interesting enough and the book tells of a pivotal time in American history. You can find a longer review on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Wrapped up Art and the Second World War, which besides providing a survey of the topic (particularly official art), makes the argument that these works need to start being treated as art, and not just documents.

From the library: Elizabeth Stuart: Queen of Hearts byNadine Akkerman
Biography of Elizabeth Stuart, only daughter of James VI and I and Anne of Denmark of England and Scotland. She was an important figure in 17th century European politics. Illustrated plates and archival images in color and black and white included throughout the book.

Done with Beaverland, in which if it deals with beavers, the author managed to get the topic into the book. On the whole, Philip is a better journalist than a historian. The portions dealing with the rise and fall of the American fur trade had a "canned" quality to them; I don't think Philip rose above her sources in providing a synthesis.

I've recently finished Sappers in the Wire: The Life and Death of Firebase Mary Ann by Keith William Nolan. Sappers in the Wire is a detailed historical account of an American military debacle during the Vietnam War. It was late in the war, the spring of 1971, and the U.S. was gradually disengaging. The moral of the soldiers still on the ground was understandably low. Belief that there was any real purpose to what they were doing was scarce, and nobody wanted to die in a purposeless war. Drug use had grown, resentment of officers was often strong, and racial divisions affected the soldiers, as well. Firebase Mary Ann was a fortified encampment on the top of a hill in the jungle in the northern part of South Vietnam, put there to allow the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces to try to disrupt North Vietnamese supply lines into the country. The solders were still going on dangerous patrols in the surrounding jungle, inflicting and receiving casualties. But up on their firebase refuge, they felt safe, and between this feeling of safety and the enlisted soldiers' low morale, it became very difficult for the officers to impose security protocol standards. One night, after a confusion-inducing mortar attack, Viet Cong soldiers snuck past the camp's guards and ran through the camp tossing grenades into bunkers and shooting soldiers who tried to escape the explosions. Thirty U.S. soldiers were killed and 82 were seriously wounded.

The battle, especially when word of the lax security came out, became a scandal within and without of the Army. The Army conducted a thorough investigation of the battle (which Nolan describes in the book's final chapters) and the failings that led up to it, interviewing every surviving soldier in depth, and Nolan was able to access these testimonies. He also conducted phone interviews with dozens of soldiers willing to talk to him. Between the official testimonies and these interviews, Nolan was able to construct a minute-by-minute account of the terrifying action, and he does so, extremely effectively. He also does a very good job of putting the event in context.

Done with Streamliner, which is essentially a life and times of Raymond Loewy. I had been meaning to read this book pretty much since it came out, but it drew so little attention that I was wondering whether it was a throwaway pot-boiler (though the Johns Hopkins University Press is usually above pushing out slop). Wall does a good job of reading between the lines of Loewy's self-promotional abilities to tease out the substance of the man.

Matilda II: the Forgotten Queen by Joanna Arman
Biography of Edith/Matilda, an early 12th century English Queen.

Finished a decent Bayonet to Barrage: Weaponry on the Victorian Battlefield by Stephen Manning. Well researched but marred by a few small errors and in need of some proofreading. However, overall worth the time to read.

Knocked off November's Fury, a gripping account of how the so-called "white hurricane" of 1913 cut a swathe of disaster across North America's "Great Lakes." Schumacher does a good job of telling the story he wants to tell, but I now want to find a recounting of how government authorities and business responded to having birthed a "black swan."

>9 Shrike58: Why do you put Great Lakes in quotes? And my understanding is that a black swan is a rare event. So how did government authorities and business create this rare event?

>10 jjwilson61: "Great Lakes" is a colloquialism that might mean nothing to someone not from North America. As for your second point, sloppy oversight by the US and Canadian authorities of the shipping companies, and cutting corners by said shipping companies, helped make what would have always been a bad situation into a disaster. The book I'd really like to read about this is what the insurance companies made of the claims resulting from the onslaught, and whether they found culpability.

The Great Lakes is actually what they are called as a group and are listed as such in Wikipedia if that means anything.

The name is sufficiently well known stablished that we were taught the Swedish translation in elementary school. I’d thought it no more colloquial than, say, “Pacific Ocean” (and if less known for only because they’re rather less significant in the grand scheme of things).

Finished The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages by Jean Gimpel. Rather more interesting than I expected as it went well beyond the usual medieval machinery, mining and farming. I learned quite a bit from it which is my criteria for an enjoyable book.