Current Reading - March 2024

Finished The Last Ships from Hamburg, which is basically about the great wave of immigration to the United States before World War I, and how it made men like the shipping magnate Albert Ballin. While I liked Ujifusa's book, I have to admit that I like his other work better; the whole exercise seemed a bit on the slight side, and I just can't quite put my finger on why. That the title is kind of misleading sort of annoys me.

Completed The Last Outlaws: The Desperate Final Days of the Dalton Gang by Tom Clavin. A reasonably good book in the narrative style that Clavin has demonstrated in previous books. As in the other books, the main event, the botched robbery of two banks in Coffeyville KS, occupies only a small part of the book. The rest is the background of the Daltons and those associated with them, the lawmen who pursued them and what happened afterwards. Rather light however on any overall look at their times. Recommended if you like Clavin's other books.

Finished Hitler's U-Boat Bases by Jack P. Mallmann Showell. This is a look at the planning, construction and operation of the U-boat bases during WW2, primarily focused on the bunkers rather than the personnel and materials accommodation, although that is discussed as well. It is not a technical history as there aren't blueprints or the like, but there are many photographs from WW2 as well as modern ones, as many of the bunkers still exist, some more damaged than others. The author has sections describing each U-boat base from initial conception through building and then their post-war situation. If the book can be faulted it is that it is somewhat uneven in the content outside of the base descriptions.

From the library
Finished: Hunting the Falcon by John Guy and Julia Fox (2023)
Note: the cover for the US edition is the same as the UK one--the only difference is there's no arrow in the bird.

Started: The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi (2020)

Wrapped up The Normans, a new study where Green apparently wants to dismantle the mystique of the Normans, but doesn't have much to replace the mystique with. I'm as enthusiastic an iconoclast as the next person but I expected something a little more forceful.

Finished an excellent A Tidy Little War: The British Invasion of Egypt 1882 by William Wright. As the author notes, there has been little written about this short but very important war. The book is not only a military history of the war, but also spends a considerable number of pages early on explaining the causes of the war in a clear and thorough manner. Overall the narrative is well written although the lack of maps is unfortunately. Highly recommended.

Finished A Revolution in Color, a life and times of the artist John Singleton Copley. I liked Kamensky's biography of the speculator and businessman Andrew Dexter, and I liked this work too. Prof. Kamensky now just has to find another Bostonian "character" to write about to have herself a trilogy!

Completed an outstanding Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion That Opened the West by William Hogeland. I learned quite a lot from this book about the Indians of the American frontier from the end of the French & Indian War through the Revolution and into the 1790s. The book was also very interesting regarding the rather mixed ideas of the early Republic regarding expansion into the old Northwest. No one on the American side, from Washington on down, comes off looking very saintly but I feel that the author did attempt to be fair in his assessments. Overall I found the book to be an excellent narrative history and quite fascinating.

Finished Agincourt by Christopher Hibbert. While this is a rather short history of the battle of Agincourt and the associated campaign, it is particularly well done. There are descriptions of the background to the campaign, the preparations and the landing in France. The siege of Harfleur is well described followed by the march across northern France shadowed by the French forces, then the battle and the aftermath. Additionally there is a rather interesting discussion of how the money was raised for the campaign and who got what. And several good appendices as well, including one listing Henry's retinue, which included such notables as the Clerk of the Stable and the Clerk of the Poultry!

A few years ago (well, maybe more than that) I started collecting and reading books about the Victorian era military, battles, campaigns and personalities. I have the expected books on the Crimean War, Zulu War, the various campaigns in Egypt and the Sudan and of course the 2nd Anglo-Boer War (I also have a couple of books on the first war too). And so I have been searching further afield for books on lesser known conflicts.

This brings me to the latest book I just completed, John Company's Last War by Barbara English. This short book covers the The Anglo-Persian War of 1856-57 but with that certain style of narrative that I so often find in British writers who can relate a good story. The war itself was rather short yet the author manages to make it an interesting tale. There are shenanigans in the Cabinet, an ass of a mission secretary, a mysterious woman, umbrage taken by most everyone, naval bombardments, thrilling land battles and at least two unexpected suicides. Well worth the read.

I completed my partial reading of Nebraska A Guide to the Cornhusker State, part of American Guide Series. This one is only an average read.

The other book I completed during this period was The Travels of William Bartram.

The son of John Bartram, the earliest if not the first American botanist, retraced a trip he took with his father ten years prior to this book. He covered the period from about 1773 to 1778. He traveled primarily alone while writing his notes and making samples and herbarium specimins which he shipped home. A great deal of his time was spent with various indian tribes in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Probably one of the more interesting discoveries was a late flowering shrub that was named after Benjamin Franklin: "Franklinia Alatamaha"

"First published in Philadelphia in 1791, the Dover Publications reprint edition dates from the period before Dover was nearly exclusively a paperback publishing concern; their hardback editions are uncommon especially with the dustjacket.

"This is the First Edition edited by Mark Van Doren."

It is truly a unique 18th century book of botanical research and other interests of the original author.