Category Archives: Non-Fiction

10.28.24
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MAKING THE PRESIDENCY/CHERVINSKY

Lindsay M. Chervinski’s book MAKING THE PRESIDENCY/ John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic is a must read for its relevance to the historical perspective of the Electoral College and the precedent of the election of John Adams as its relates to the controversies of 2020 and 2024.

Chervinski has produced a great academic yet entertaining work in understanding the historic perspective of our electoral process through the lens of John Adams and the hotly contested election of first Adams himself succeeding George Washington and then his loss to Thomas Jefferson in his bid for a second term.

The author elevates the contributions of John Adams to our democracy and in his defining of the early powers of the presidency. It is a case study of the implications of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the establishment of highly partisan political parties in the election process and the fascinating intrigue and plotting of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Both unlikely bedfellows in the bitter Jefferson-Adams electoral contest.

” History repeats itself ” can become a cliche. After reading MAKING THE PRESIDENCY you will quickly see how history can fast forward.

For those in Massachusetts or nearby, Revolutionary Spaces is hosting a discussion with Lindsay Chervinsky on Thursday, November 21 at 1PM at Old South Meeting House in Boston. For reservations go to revolutionary spaces.org There is no charge for admission.

09.26.24
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WORKING/ROBERT A. CARO

If you are like anxiously waiting for the next installment of Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson, WORKING by the author himself will help with your understanding of why patience is necessary. In this book Caro describedsin depth his approach to research and writing. His fundamental research ethos is Turn Every Page, a discipline dating back to his early days as a newspaper reporter.

If you are a follower of Caro’s work this book is an essential read that is most enlightening of Caro and also the enormous contributions made by his wife Ina.

With regard to the release date of the final Lyndon Johnson book the code word is patience knowing that the master is WORKING!

06.18.24
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JUNETEENTH/TWO IMPORTANT TITLES

John Swanson Jacobs, son of Harriet Jacobs both of whom escaped slavery, is now available in a rediscovered narrative titled A TRUE STORY OF SLAVERY THE UNITED STATES GOVERNED BY SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND DESPOTS.

The book goes far beyond Jacob’s bondage and escape there from to crystallize his views on the very government and the US Constitution that allowed the institution to continue and thrive through the end of the Civil War. Jacob’s SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND DESPOTS are clearly defined by his narrative as the white American oligarchy that that allowed and supported slavery’s existence. In his own words, Jacobs holds all American citizens, North and South accountable for writing -absolute rule over an unfree people- into the democratic charter. Jacob’s narrative is one of the very few first hand accounts of slavery that survive, including his mother’s Harriet Jacob’s INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL and also the NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, AN AMErICAN SLAVE. Before leaving America for Australia and then a life at sea he briefly joined the lecture circuit with Frederick Douglas. The book also includes a biography of Jacobs by Jonathan Schroeder titled NO LONGER YOURS.

Another important Juneteenth volume is Matthew Stewart’s AN EMANCIPATION OF THE MIND RADICAL PHILOSOPHY, THE WAR OVER SLAVERY, AND THE REFOUNDING OF AMERICA.

This volume is a highly charged analysis of how government, the white oligarchy, American’s prominent religious denominations and the economics of the plantation/cotton economy forced and kept four million human beings in bondage. In the effort to dominate the national political system the slaveholders were able to count on the antidemocratic aspects of the US Constitution: The overrepresentation of the small states in the Senate and the Electoral College; the growing power of the unelected judiciary: and the absence on meaningful checks on the corruption of state governments.

Of great interest to this reader was the influence of German revolutionaries, progressives and intellectuals upon the American abolitionist movement. They called themselves the 48ERS, having been among the some 10,000 Germans emigrating to America during that period. They included Friedrich Knapp, Ludwig Feuerbach, journalist Ottilie Assign, August Willich, Carl Schurz and many others. There were some 10,000 German immigrants living in the Ohio Valley by the start of the Civil War whose abolitionist views were made well known to President Lincoln.

Two volumes written over 250 years apart, one by an escaped slave the other by a modern day historian zero in on the same underlying issues that allowed slavery to exist and in some cases remain a threat to American democracy to this very day. I can think of two more timely reads.

05.29.24
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SKIES OF THUNDER/CAROLINE ALEXANDER

Gordons Goodreads along with countless books, movies and streaming documentaries have delved deeply into the European and Pacific Theaters of The Second World War. Caroline Alexander’s new work of non-fiction SKIES OF THUNDER takes the reader to a relatively lesser known WWII Theater, the BURMA HUMP.

During WWII one of the most deadly missions of the war flew hundreds of tons of supplies from India to China over the treacherous airoute above the Himalayas and the northern deep jungles of of Burma. (Now Myanmar). FDR was determined to supply the Nationalist Chinese Army to prevent a Japanese takeover of China. China’s Nationalist leader was none other than Chiang-Kai-shek. With the old Burma Road not accessible, the only supply access was by air. The flying conditions brought about by weather including the annual Monsoons, high altitude icing and the dangerous Himalayan peaks made for nearly impossible flying conditions. But fly they must and hundreds lost their lives.

Alexander’s writing and research has no mercy for the military commanders in charge. Vinegar Joe Stilwell’s and Claire Lee Chennault’s ( Flying Tigers fame) reputations are left in tatters. Chiang-Kai-shek’s strongest supporter was perhaps FDR himself. The project became rife with a black market of American supplies. Through it all hundreds of brave pilots gave their lives, many bodies never recovered from snow covered mountain slopes and deep unexplored jungle.

Exactly what did the Hump accomplish? It demonstrated conclusively that a vast quantity of cargo could be delivered by air even under the most unfavorable circumstances if leadership was willing to pay the price in men and money. A Japanese takeover of China was prevented and millions of Japanese troops were diverted from the Pacific Theater to China. However, following the war, Chiang Ki-shek’s Nationalist Government ultimately fell to the Communists leaving the United States with Formosa which is now Taiwan.

05.23.24
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AN UNFINISHED LOVE STORY/DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN

Anderson Cooper gave the perfect description of Doris Kearns Goodwin when he called her a national treasure. His quote appears on the dust cover of Kearns Goodwin’s new book AN UNFINISHED LOVE STORY, A PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE 1960S.

Richard Goodwin while in his twenties and early thirties was a speechwriter and inner circle advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and then later to Robert F. Kennedy. For years, all of Goodwin’s personal papers of the era sat collected in some thirty boxes stored in the Kearns Goodwin home at Concord, Massachusetts. In their later years after over 40 years of marriage Richard in his 80s and Kearns in her seventies decided it was time to open the boxes and write his personal history. By this time Kearns had established herself as among the most prestigious of presidential Pulitzer Prize winning historians. ( Search Gordons GoodReads).

What is remarkable about this book is the insiders look behind the scenes of the personalities and the inner workings of the campaigns and administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Added to the narrative is the disruptive force of Robert Kennedy and how Richard Goodwin navigated his mixed loyalties. Those loyalties of course spilled over into the Kearns/Goodwin love story, she being an ardent loyalist of Johnson and Richard having left the Johnson inner circle for Bobby Kennedy’s ill fated primary campaign against LBJ.

The reader learns of the beginnings of the Peace Corps ( an off the cuff-JFK speech in Michigan), the LBJ Great Society the inside strategy of the Voting Rights Act, The Civil Rights Act and LBJ’s famous joint session of Congress speech in which Goodwin co-opted Martin Luther King’s We shall overcome. Insight into the transition from the Kennedy to the Johnson administration after JFK’s death evoke a combination of anger and empathy. The Robert Kennedy personality for all of its strength and weaknesses is on abundant display.

A remarkable aspect of AN UNFINISHED LOVE STORY is the lesson learned of how great writers and politicians learn how complicated and controversial legislation can be properly packaged and themed to insure success. Kennedy, Goodwin and LBJ were a brilliant combination in fulfilling this task.

As readers of Gordons Good Reads surely know I too elevate Doris Kearns Goodwin as a National Treasure. AN UNFINISHED LOVE STORY IS a must read for those interested in American political history of the 1960S.

05.16.24
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THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB

Richard Rhodes‘ THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB, first copyright 1986, is an extraordinary deeply scientific examination of the development of atomic energy. This work is so unique that this non-scientific reader( me), fascinated with the subject, found the narrative accessible, engrossing and understandable. This book is of far greater scientific depth than American Prometheus. (see Gordons Good Reads).

If a layman seeks an understanding of nuclear fission, the splitting of the atom, atomic chain reaction and the creation of a weapon of mass destruction THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB brings together the history of the discovery of the atom, the groundbreaking scientists involved ( you will meet many more than Oppenheimer), the building of the atomic bomb itself and the resulting moral controversy over, how and when, and if ever it should be used.

Francis William Ashton ( Circa 1936): There are those who say that such research should be stopped by law, alleging that man’s destructive powers are already large enough. Personally I think that subatomic energy is all around us and that one day man will release and control its almost infinite power. We cannot prevent him from doing so and can only hope that he will not use it exclusively in blowing up his next door neighbor.

Rhodes expert, understandable and readable nuclear development research fast forwards to the ethical controversy of using atomic weapons and delves deeply into the decision making process prior to the deployment of Big Boy over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rhodes offers a substantial overview of the political and military strategy leading up to the decision that ended World War II.

Could the enemy not be warned in advance or a demonstration arranged? We feared that if the Japanese were told that the bomb would be used on a given locality they might bring our boys who were prisoners of war to that area.

The detail in Rhodes writing equals and in scientific terms( formulas, equations, graphs, charts, maps) exceeds what an educated reader expects from and author like Robert Caro.

THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB together with AMERICAN PROMETHEUS are a giant step in understanding the scientific and ethical development of atomic energy. Both books are worth the effort.


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04.28.24
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THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SECOND AMERICAN REPUBLIC/MANISHA SINHA

The title is exactly what this academic work entails. What became of Lincoln’s vision of a unified American Republic following the initial Republic’s dismemberment during the Civil War? The years are 1860-1920. A very broad survey of a period when the philosophy of today’s political parties were reversed.

Manisha Sinha, Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut has written a scholarly detailed description of how Lincoln’s dream of Reconstruction was eviscerated in a cascading series of events that returned the defeated South into a post-war era of subservision of any and all rights gained by the Slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation and the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Sinha also places the Abolitionist movement in the North under a microscope and delves into the conflicts that developed between Abolitionists and Suffragettes as to who should be granted the right to vote.

From the day he took the Oath of Office following Lincoln’s assassination, President Andrew Johnson began a step by step premeditated campaign to restore The Lost Clause in the American South. For a brief period there was hope. The right to vote by black majorities in many regions saw former slaves elected to local and state offices. However this success, unprotected by the eventual withdrawal of federal troops and the political destruction of the Freedmen’s Bureau led to lawless revenge by the former plantation aristocracy. Sinha’s narrative details the horrors of the Black Codes, Lynchings, Poll Taxes, Jim Crow, and inmate leased labor that prevailed throughout the south.

The Rise and Fall is more than a deep review of Reconstruction. The narrative carries forward to Manifest Destiny and the Westward Expansion which led to the devastating impact upon Native Americans in the in the new territories. It is a general survey of politics, self interests, the Lost Cause, the impact upon labor during the industrial revolution, failed policies and racism in America from 1860-1920, long before the modern day Civil Rights Movement began. It is the perfect prelude to that forthcoming era.

This is an extremely complicated era in American History and Manisha Sinha does a brilliant job in enlightening the reader. An important addition to one’s library of American History.

03.02.24
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WAYS AND MEANS/ROGER LOWENSTEIN

Roger Lowenstein has researched and written an excellent analysis of an often overlooked battlefield of the Civil War. ” Money” This in depth academic work explores in great detail the complexity and drama of exactly how both the Confederacy and the Union financed the war. In Lowenstein’s account, the battle for financing may have equaled and even surpassed the importance of outcomes from the horrendous military clashes.

Taking a page from Doris Kern Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, Lowenstein places Salmon P. Chase’s selection by President Lincoln as Treasury Secretary at the very center of finding the money to finance the prolonged conflict, rightfully called America’s Second Revolution. In the north money for the war effort was a daily struggle but in the Confederate south the impossibility and mismanagement of securing funding became the most significant factor in the Confederacy’s final defeat.

Often overlooked during the passions of the war in 1862 the Republican 37th Congress, following succession by the Democratic southern states, enacted some of the most progressive legislation in the nation’s history. The Homestead Act, the Land Grant College Act, the Transcontinental Railroad, creation of the Agriculture Department, the Legal Tender Act, making paper money legal tender for all debts public and private. The same congress established the nation’s first Graduated Income Tax to provide critical financing for the war effort.

Lowenstein’s narrative ties together how the critical role the divergent approaches to financing the war were a determining factor in the final outcome at Appomattox. Additionally, the book is a study of the expansion of the power of the federal government acting as a nation.

02.01.24
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THE REBELS/DEMOCRACY AWAKENING

Two recent books are great reads providing insight and understanding into the 2024 election year. DEMOCRACY AWAKENING by Heather Cox Richardson is an insightful narrative into the political rise of Donald Trump dating back to the beginning of Republican conservatism following FDR’s New Deal.Her concise narrative makes abundantly clear as to how and why Trump has taken over the Republican Party. A history that looks back to a mythologized past as the country’s perfect time is a key tool of authoritarians.

THE REBELS- Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the Struggle for a New American Politics by Joshua Green is a another must for the political observer. Green’s historical perspective does not miss one major player in this political drama.

Warren, Sanders, and Ocasio-Cortez, as detailed by Green, pulled the Democratic Party back to its working class roots. He speculates, We don’t know yet whether history will remember them as harbingers of a new Democratic age or as insurgents who ultimately didn’t change the party as they’d hoped.

Two books, perfect companion reads.

11.10.23
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GOING INFINITE/ MICHAEL LEWIS

Was Effective Altruism a creed to do good or a cover for personal greed? Does anyone understand the Crypto marketplace? Will you understand Crypto and Bitcoin exchanges and millisecond trading after immersing yourself in the pages of Michael Lewis’s new book GOING INFINITE? Maybe, but it will be a struggle.

What I can say is that you will get a good look at the persona, ethos and tactics of Sam Brinkman-Fried and exactly how he momentarily became the richest person in the world under 30 years of age. Brinkman’s rise and fall and the monetary and human wreckage he left behind is an astonishing story as told in Lewis’s unique style.

With Lewis’s book you need not have been in the courtroom to predict what would be a guilty on all counts verdict. You will understand why and may decide never to become a Crypto investor.