Category Archives: Non-Fiction

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.

11.09.23
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ELON MUSK/WALTER ISAACSON

Like all of Isaacson’s biographies you will come away with an intimate knowledge of the subject. Elon Musk is trademark Walter Isaacson excellence.

I choose to peak your interest in this very large volume by selecting quotes from throughout the book that I feel are particularly relevant to Musk and his formula for success. Some may even hint at his personal idiosyncrasies.

Move fast, blow things up, repeat. It’s not how well you avoid problems it’s how fast you figure out what the problem is and fix it.

Nobody is going to pay for something that looks like crap. The way to get a car company started was to build a high priced car first and then move to a mass-market model.

Every part, every process and every specification needs to have a person’s name attached to it to personalize blame when something goes wrong.

I think the best defense against the misuse of AI is to empower as many people as possible to have AI.

Musk made a rule to be wary of anyone whose confidence was greater than their competence.

And finally:

Is being unfiltered and untethered integral to who is is? Could you get the rockets to orbit or the transition to electric vehicles without accepting all aspects of him, hinged and unhinged.” Sometimes great innovators are risk-seeking man-children who resist potty training. They can be reckless, cringeworthy, sometimes even toxic. They can also be crazy. Crazy enough to think they can change the world. Walter Isaacson.

Just like his biographies of Franklin, Jobs, Einstein, and da Vinci Elon Musk is a six hundred fifteen page read that is part of our nation’s history.

Go for it.

10.05.23
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ASTOR/ANDERSON COOPER

The perfect author for a book on the Astors. Anderson Cooper is a journalist and he understands the culture because he is a Vanderbilt. Don’t discount the collaboration of Katherine Howe in the research and writing of ASTOR. She is brilliant in her own right as a novelist and historian.

This writer can not think of a better collaboration for the book. ASTOR has the organization, narrative and storytelling that comes from two excellent authors. In the book’s 279 concise pages you will learn of the Astor family and fortune and also receive a continuing glimpse into the vast American income inequality of then and now.

So much to learn of THE RISE AND FALL OF AN AMERICAN FORTUNE in a most rewarding several hours. ASTOR is worth every minute.

ENJOY!

08.24.23
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BATTLE OF INK AND ICE/DARRELL HARTMAN

You’ll explore as much about the New York City competitive newspaper environment at the turn of the 20th Century as you will about the discovery of the North Pole by either Robert Peary Frederick Cook! Darrell Hartman’s book is a fascinating enlightenment of the parallel stories, each with its own surprising turns. BATTLE OF INK AND ICE reads like a historical novel making all of the facts easily digestible.

Who got to the North Pole, Cook or Peary? Better yet, the book raises the prospect that neither of the men may have accomplished the feat.

The personalities of Cook and Peary are fascinating but the in sight into Adolph Ochs of the New York Times, James Gordon Bennett of the Herald, William Randolph Hearst of the Journal reveals the competitive environment of the period amongst the New York media barrons.

Who first reached the North Pole, which newspaper got the story right? You will be the judge.

08.05.23
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AMERICAN PROMETHEUS/J.ROBERT OPPENHEIMER

Without hesitation, this superb work by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin is among the very best biographies I have read in recent years. I place the writing and research on a level with Robert Caro and Jon Meacham.

The wonder of this book is the understanding of Oppenheimer and his time and place in American History. The story of the Atomic Bomb is well known to many. However, the complexity and passages of Oppenheimer himself amid the social and political atmosphere in which he lived and worked is a revelation. The beauty of Bird’s and Sherwin’s writing is that you need not be a physicist to wrap yourself around the life and story of this complex scientist, intellectual and iconic American figure. The dimension of the book is enormous, foremost in its content, but also in size!

I am confident that reading THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY of J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER is a plus before seeing OPPENHEIMER the movie.