The Fall of the House of Dixie (Bruce Levine, 2013)

I seldom pick Civil War-era books, in part because I think I already picked up a fair amount of information about the topic.  Incorrectly.  Levine pulls together all sorts of primary source material to create a highly interesting discussion of what was going on in the South - social and political stuff, not so much from the oft-reported battlefields. I liked it a great deal.

And it wasn't just another consciousness-raising exercise about the awfulness of slavery (not to downplay its awfulness, but that topic has been done quite a few times).  The author gives lots of context around the various social classes in the South, their sometimes-overlapping and sometimes-diverging outlooks, etc.  Very helpful.

Philosophical underpinnings of slavery - how blacks were better off enslaved - did anyone really believe this (or just profess it for convenience sake)?

The power of the Southern states from Revolutionary War era on through the run-up to the Civil War - strong representation in all branches of government.

Complex politics of the Republican Party - the belief that slavery would die a natural death if prevented from spreading to new territories (thus Lincoln's aversion to outright prohibition in existing states).  Southerners believed this as well, leading to border wars and fights over opening up new states and territories to slavery.

Didn't realize that both sides desperately needed the manpower represented by blacks.  Confederacy refused to use them (other than the most menial of labor-support tasks) for pretty obvious reasons:  can you trust armed slaves?; how can you make them a soldier if you believe they are dimwitted, docile and incapable of independent action?; implicit equality with white fellow soldiers is a big problem in this belief system; etc.  North record not the greatest, but some blacks were given the opportunity to fight and took full advantage of it.

The very different uses of (and attitudes toward) slavery within the South.  Plantation society in just a few areas.  Lots of upland whites with no real investment in slavery - their enthusiasm for the war dimmed much more quickly.

Slave owners willingly sending their own sons to war, but refusing to release slaves for support activities.

How Northern attitudes (including Lincoln's) changed over the years - to unabashedly pushing for abolition.  Realized the middle ground didn't exist.

Democrats undermining Republican efforts.  On-the-ground challenges in the South - how to ensure that the war wasn't lost after the South surrendered?  This didn't work out so well (not the topic of this book, though there is another new book out on the topic of Reconstruction).

Touching stories of blacks being freed; families reunited after separation via slave sales; etc.

The South - burdened with, but dependent upon, an indefensible institution - with no choice but to defend it.

Titus Andronicus (William Shakespeare, between 1588 and 1593)

[read in October 2013, summary to come]
[didn't much like this]

King Richard III (William Shakespeare, 1592)

[finished in August 2013, description to come]

“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”

Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare, 1599)

[read in April 2013, summary to come]

[quite wonderful; astonishing number of quotations in constant use (per list below)] [which is one of several reasons reading Shakespeare is basic for reading so much else of Western literature][and succeeding at Jeopardy]
____________________________

The live-long day. (1.1.42)

Beware the ides of March. (1.2.13)

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus . . .

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings. (1.2.135)

Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. (1.2.192)

But, for my own part, it was Greek to me. (1.2.283)

Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.

But I am constant as the northern star,

Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar! (3.1.77)

Cry, 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war. (3.1.268)

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. (4.3.218)

This was the most unkindest cut of all;

The Great Influenza - The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History (John M. Barry, 2004)

The editor could (and should) have done a bit of chopping here and there (starting with the title:  does he really need "great," "epic," and "deadliest"?), but overall this is very much worth reading.  The author focuses on the intersection of two story lines:  (1) the bringing of "modern" (or "German," if you will) medicine to the U.S. in the decades leading up to WWI; and (2) the incredible influenza outbreak in the dying days of WWI, along with related efforts to fight it.

I wish I had read Sinclair Lewis's Arrowsmith just after this book (rather than just before).  Lewis's novel would have had a lot more meaning.  This author explains how Lewis built the novel around contemporary events, including a cigarette relating to researcher Paul Lewis.  Amazing overlaps.  Including issues like anxious-to-publish institute leadership in conflict with go-slow, meticulous researchers.

Some thoughts about story line one:

1.  U.S. med schools were in the dark ages well into second half of 19th century (and, in many cases, early 20th century).  John Hopkins University as an unlikely pioneering institution in Baltimore.  Rockefeller Institute in NYC develops.  And others.

2.  Prior to the new standards - med school professors earn fees by tuition - which means pandering to (rather than challenging) students.  No or few autopsies.  No research or labs in almost all cases.  Generally no requirement for an undergraduate degree as a condition of admission.  Graduates often saw their first patients after graduation.  1910 Flexnor Report is catalyst for change.

3.  Author devotes a lot of time to mini-biographies of key players.  Not entirely sure why - no one came up with a "cure" for this influenza, it just had to play itself out - ongoing mutations regress virulence to the mean, or something.

As to the flu itself:

1.  Appeared to commence in at army setting in Kansas.  Overcrowded barracks and constant transfers enabled the spread in a way that wouldn't have happened in peacetime.

2.  Astonishing worldwide spread - especially with the far more virulent phase 2.  20 million deaths in India alone?

3.  Interesting discussions of the way these diseases mutate and flow within and among different population centers - quite reminiscent of this book.  Isolated populations get wrecked - limited antibody development.

4.  Killed young, healthy folks (flu normally attacks the young and old) - antibody system went into overdrive.

5.  Staggering death tolls, staggering effect on cities.  Oxygen deprivation created a deep blueness in corpses that caused folks to call this a recurrence of the black death.  And there were horse-drawn carts in US cities with calls to "bring out your dead" - amazing in 20th century.

6.  Disaster in Philadelphia.

7.  176 of 300 "Eskimos" dead in Nome when a relief ship arrived.  85%+ death tolls in surrounding villages.  Grisly scenes where half-wild dogs devoured corpses when the few surviving natives were too weak to fight them off.  (As I understand it, this had nothing to do with the 1925 Balto serum run - that involved a later diphtheria outbreak.)

8.  The amazing-ness of flu and why outbreaks will continue.  How it doesn't need continuous access to a large human population - can nestle in bird or pig or whatever populations and then jump to humans in new forms.

Another thing:  this story brought home the pervasiveness of the repressive environment during WWI - Wilson wanted, and got, a total war environment.  Sedition Act - amazing.  Buy war bonds - or else.  Shut up - or else.  The frightening know-it-all-ness of Wilson and the Progressive movement - hooray for experts and top-down control! (Unfortunately, that part doesn't seem to change much.)

The flu became known as the "Spanish Flu" because Spanish newspapers - printed in a neutral country - actually reported on the disease.  It had been rampant elsewhere for a long time, but censors in combatant countries suppressed the news.

Author thinks Wilson was affected by this flu during critical portions of Versailles negotiations during which Wilson seemed to fold on long-held principles;others have attributed to Wilson's weakening to some other disease.  In any event he never was very healthy thereafter.  (#1 adviser Colonel House already was out of commission prior to Versailles via the flu.)

A Season in Hell - My 130 Days in the Sahara with Al Qaeda (Robert Fowler, 2011)

K picked this as selection #2 for the little book club that we (mostly NOC as driver) are initiating.  Will update this post with a few thoughts sometime after the big BC session.

The Guns at Last Light (Rick Atkinson, 2013)

Atkinson has a real gift for taking an overwhelming mass of facts - many of them already well-known to any reader who would bother to pick up a book like this - and turning them into a surprisingly fresh, coherent story line complete with compelling characters.  This is the third of his WWII trilogy.  I had confidence I'd like it based on how much I enjoyed book #2 (discussed here) - though I was a bit, and entirely unnecessarily as it turned out, concerned that my mildly greater familiarity with the Normandy-VE Day material covered in this third book might make this one less interesting.

Not so (and it turns out I wasn't familiar with much of anything anyway).

Now I need to go back and read the first volume of the trilogy.

Stuff I found interesting:

1.  Does a good job of making the reader feel like you know something about the key political leaders and the top military guys.  Without losing sight of the lower officer ranks and the regular soldiers - plenty of personal stories about them as well.  The biographical elements are useful.

2.  Eisenhower's quote about Montgomery seems spot on:  "a good man to serve under, a difficult man to serve with, and an impossible man to serve over."

3.  Never knew anything about Yalta other than a vague sense of the agreements reached, FDR looked awful, and the conference was held somewhere in the Crimea.  So the descriptions were interesting (including czarist origins of the meeting place, logistical difficulties, etc.).

4.  I didn't know much about the Western Front beyond D-Day, Market Garden, Battle of the Bulge, race through Germany.  Sure it was no eastern front in terms of carnage and scale of battle - but it seems the Germans fought much harder and longer in the west than I realized.  Lots of nasty battles.

5.  I had this vision of the U.S. as an inexhaustible well of manpower - but not so.  At least in terms of shortages of men for some of the key fighting positions.  Interesting discussion of the loosening of physical (and psychological) standards as manpower needs accelerated.

6.  The book gives a glimpse of the incredible overload that so many GIs must have experienced - no doubt worse for those who served longest, but bad for all.  I lose sight that for some of the GIs, things started in Africa, slogged through Italy, then onto Normandy and into Germany - a parade of "normal" war awfulness, made worse by atrocities against soldiers, wrecked towns, wrecked civilians (often reduced to un-civil behavior), fatigue, awful weather, food problems, etc.  Then as they move into Germany and the end nears - the unhappy reality of the swarms of DPs relentlessly on the move, often hopeless.  When it's hard to imagine what else they might run into - now they start to encounter the concentration camps - worst of the worst.  Just amazing.  How did so many of these guys come back and thrive?

7.  Related - the book hints at a sense of the apprehension - in the background but so-real - relating to the Pacific War.  For anyone that survived the list in the previous paragraph - a very real possibility of success in Europe being followed immediately by a quick trip to hell in the Pacific.  No respite in sight.  Not discussed in this book, but I'm thinking that this factor is another piece of the puzzle in understanding why the A-bomb was dropped on Japanese cities.  Could anyone really ask America-writ-large, after all this, to take massive GI casualties in a conventional invasion?

8.  Military logistics are unfathomable to me in general, and the European invasion must have been the most unfathomable of all.  It took a while to take control of Antwerp - with it, provisioning was next to impossible.  Without it - the invasion could hardly have succeeded at scale.  Nazis were great wreckers of sites they scuttled, but failed to wreck Antwerp (though it became a V-2 target).

9.  I don't think I ever had read a word about the landing at Marseilles and the push up from the south of France.  Interesting story throughout.

Gift from PJr and Nedda, quite delightful.

Arrowsmith (Sinclair Lewis, 1925)

I don't think I much care for this kind of work.  It was a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1925.  The dust jacket lauds Sinclair Lewis "at the peak of his powers as satirist and social chronicler, vigorously unmasking the pretenses and hypocrisies of American middle-class life."

But why is this such a great thing to do?  The fact that we humans are laden with absurdities can hardly be news to anyone.  The novelists I prefer do plenty of "unmasking" - but with gentleness and humor, and with a recognition that typically there is lots of good enmeshed with the absurd (examples, in my opinion = Proust, Dostoevsky).

This work reminded me of this famous, much-lauded work by Sherwood Anderson - which I also didn't much care for.

In this one, Arrowsmith is a Midwesterner who ends up in med school.  Lengthy passages about his days in school - his frat, the classes, the climbers, Dr. Gottlieb (his hero), his girlfriend (who he throws over to marry Leora).  Lengthy passages about his initial medical practice - in small-town North Dakota.  Next he works as a public health official in an Iowa town - lab work being his preferred work.  Next he works for a year in a clinic in Chicago with one of his med school compadres.  Next gets invited to work with Dr. Gottlieb in a research institute in New York City.

There is a plague in the Caribbean; his research comes into play.  Lots of angst about research and medicine as commerce.  The descriptions from each of his work settings were interesting - various aspects of medicine in early 20th-century - supposedly Lewis worked very closely with a doctor or doctors to make this reasonably realistic.

Easy reading, not sure it was worth 470 pages.  This Library of America edition also includes Elmer Gantry and Dodsworth, each of which I shall skip.

The Honorary Consul (Graham Greene, 1973)

I like Greene's books, and will continue to work through them.

Protagonist is a doctor (Plarr) who moved south from Paraguay with his mother when a child - leaving behind his politically dubious father (in a country where that always seems to be a big problem).  Now he lives in a small town near the Paraguayan border.  Half-English and half Paraguayan; identifies with the local English community (consisting of three members, including him).  The Honorary Consul (English) is an aging mediocrity with a new, young wife who Plarr finds interesting, let's say.

The Honorary Consul is mistakenly kidnapped and held for ransom with some desperate amateurs who were going after the U.S. ambassador.  The kidnappers are Paraguayans with information about Plarr's father; Plarr is mixed up in their activities.  Head of the kidnapper group is a former priest, which gives Greene some room to work in his Catholic themes.

Good, I liked it.

The Small House at Allington (Anthony Trollope, 1864)

I've been wanting to read Trollope, not quite sure why it's taken so long to pick up one of his books.

This was entertaining, but I won't prioritize reading more of his stuff.  Good, but didn't grab.  Easy reading.

The protagonist - Lily Dale - is supposed to be one of his best female characters - but I found her behavior after being jilted (pretty outrageously, by the "swell" Mr. Crosbie) to show somebody "in denial" and just plain naive - didn't strike me as "noble" at all.

Trollope can sketch characters and scenes extremely adeptly - this is enjoyable.  Though I don't think it required 650 pages to tell this particular story.

Johnny Eames grows up, with an assist via the earl and the bull.  Sub-plot involves him at the boarding house with Amelia Roper, the Lupex couple, "Cradell," etc.

De Courcy family - this was a very effective discussion of what life must have been like for nobility in decline; it was increasingly acceptable for these types to marry the right type of commoners, though not so wise if the commoner doesn't bring money into the marriage (as Crosbie didn't).

Lily's sister (Bell) and her mother; Dr. Crofts.

The squire - his nephew (Bernard).  The squire belatedly builds relationships with the Dales.

A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller, Jr., 1960) (take 3)

Book club selection (via PJr).

Re-read for "book club".  I like it better each time.

Earlier (and very brief) discussion can be found here.

Some related thoughts (from 1976) can be found here.

The Silent Angel (Heinrich Boll, written 1950, published 1992)

Protagonist is a veteran German soldier - Hans Schnitzler - a hardened cynic who made going AWOL and forging papers into something of an art form in the waning days of WWII.  Setting is Cologne - in the very final days of the war, and the very first days of the postwar era.

Schnitzler searches for the widow of a comrade; has problems with her wealthy guardian.  He also runs into a widow who has just lost a baby; tries to learn how to form a relationship with her.  Schnitzler's wife also had died.  Gloomy enough - probably meaning it was realistic - such that the book supposedly was suppressed in Germany for over 40 years.

Characters struggle to cope in a new world presented to them in a thoroughly devastated city.  Where simply finding food is an adventure.  Schnitzler becomes expert at stealing coal off moving trains as a way to pay for food.  Finds a form of re-connection with the Catholic church.

Short, worthwhile.

The Coasts of Bohemia - A Czech History (Derek Sayer, 1998)

Since my wife is 3/4 Bohemian or Czech - with obvious implications for my children - it seems like a pretty good idea to learn something about this part of the world.  (For example:  where, exactly, is Bohemia?  Also:  why is a "bohemian" lifestyle associated in the first instance with artistic types residing in Paris?)

This book was interesting, and useful.  Title is a play on a line in Shakespeare - thought to be intentionally confusing about a non-existent Bohemian coastline.

Turns out that was typically is referred to as "Bohemia" roughly corresponds with the current Czech Republic; the Slovak part (to the east, and much slower to develop) was "Moravia."

Here's how I'd summarize things:

1.  This area of Europe generally slower to develop than Western Europe (let alone Mediterranean or Middle/Near East places).

2.  Sort of on the cusp of being Slavic - but fully integrated into Western Europe over time.  Until the Iron Curtain was lowered.

3.  Country peaked as an independent state in the 14th century - king named Charles (for whom the modern Charles Bridge is named).

4.  Jan Hus a big hero - anticipated the Reformation by less than 100 years.  Used in various ways over the centuries by myth-makers with varying agendas.

5.  Defenestration of Prague triggers 30 Years War (1618-1648).

6.  Prague generally getting bossed around by other countries over the centuries - primarily Austria.

7.  Czech language mostly for peasants - cultured types use German.  Limited vocabulary.

8.  Post-Napoleon - same considerations here as in so much of Europe (and elsewhere) (as discussed very effectively in this book) - nationalism and self-determinism and all sorts of other new - and generally counterproductive - ideas come to the fore.  As in so much of Europe - Czechs try to invent a long-term history to support territorial aspirations.  Folks in the villages would have been very surprised to learn how their very local customs were appropriated in support of defining (really, inventing) a national culture.

9.  Continuing Austrian/German domination.  Limited concessions to Czech-ness, whatever that meant.  Nazi abuse, quite nasty.  Richard Heydrich - we had recently seen a movie (Hangmen Also Die) in which Bertolt Brecht was involved (the only movie in which he was involved, we learned) - sadistic Nazi governor, incredible reprisals after Heydrich was assassinated.

10.  Ongoing efforts to develop Czech language, literature, etc.  Antipathy toward Germany; crescendos, not surprisingly, after WWII.

11.  The profound bizarreness of Communism.  Recent emergence.

Author discusses The Good Soldier Svejk.  And Kafka.

Before the Wall: Berlin Days (1946-1948) (George Clare, 1990)

A well-reviewed book, but I didn't find it very valuable.  At least it was a very quick read.  Author was a Viennese Jew whose parents were killed in the mayhem, thus with an interesting perspective on events in Berlin immediately following the end of WWII (he served as a translator and in various other capacities).

He addressed some of the practical problems with denazification - including the continuing need to run the country at a time when so much of the leadership could be viewed as tainted.  What a mess.

Also the shortages, and the politicking among the four occupying powers.  A pretty unique confluence of countries in a tight geography.

So the book was interesting, but not nearly as useful as this book, or this book, or especially this book.

Plagues and Peoples (William H. McNeill, 1976)

Relatively short, but quite interesting throughout.  I understand that McNeill's thinking was rather groundbreaking in the mid-70s; I've seen elements discussed in this recent (and useful) book.

His thesis:  that the role of disease has been under-appreciated when assessing historical trends.

Another main theme:  applying the notion that microscopic parasites - disease - optimize when achieving a sustainable balance with hosts.  A disease that kills off its hosts too vigorously isn't going to thrive.  When disease exposure occurs regularly among a sufficiently large population, the disease typically turns into a childhood disease - killing off some of the weak - while survivors are immune (good for microparasite and host alike).  Isolated populations are at great risk - when exposure to a new disease finally occurs, carnage among adults occurs - a much more grievous blow to the community.

It isn't so much that those themes are surprising (though that may have been the case to some extent when originally published) - the value is his application of the themes (admittedly speculative in plenty of cases) to various historical episodes.

The big example of course (also addressed at length in 1493) is the die-off in North America resulting from the Columbian Exchange.  But McNeill provides plenty of other interesting examples from around the world.

I like how he links the microparasites to what he refers to macroparasites - almost exclusively humans preying on other humans.  The same basic principle applies - if the conqueror is too savage - or demands too much in rent or taxes - the conquered population withers and isn't productive, to the conqueror's disadvantage.

Many times the macroparasites (armies) were the instrument via which microparasites were transmitted to isolated populations, to lethal effect.

More microparasites thrive in hot climates.

City-dwellers died off due to unsanitary conditions, but were less prone to die-off from diseases (large population, steady exposure to microparasites).

Shipping, caravans, armies spread diseases in olden times.  Widespread travel in 19th and 20th centuries results in fewer epidemics - most microparasites are distributed everywhere relatively quickly.

McNeill links illness-induced weakness to various conquests and power shifts.

Rise of modern medicine has put microparasites on the defensive and allowed unprecedent population surges (along with better agriculture, etc.)  McNeill expects the microparasites to keep adjusting.