Archive for the ‘History’ Category

	Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (April 25, 2005) Language: English ISBN-10: 0393327019 ISBN-13: 978-0393327014	Order from here:

Having grown up in WV, I’ve known Senator Byrd as a senator my entire life.   While much of his past is quite controversial, and many things I disagree with, one thing I do feel is true is his knowledge of the history of America.  This book was written in 2004 just as we were in the beginnings of our war with Iraq.  Senator Byrd looks at the events leading up to this war.  He also provides a lot of behind the scenes details on things that went on, and the people involved.

Senator Byrd admits to being quite impressed when President Bush 43 was first elected.   What concerns him was the reckless nature Bush showed himself to have.  President Clinton left us with a $2.5 trillion budget surplus.  Bush, according to this, quickly spent it.  The spending however wasn’t the problem Senator Byrd had, but how the money was spent.  He states that the Congress is responsible for controlling the purse strings.  This country in the last few years has begun on the dangerous path of allowing the President to overrule that control. 

With the Reagan tax cuts for example, Senator Byrd states that there was much debate among congress.  However, when Bush came along and made tax cuts, there was no debate.  But he doesn’t just blame Bush.  During the Clinton administration, he writes, there was the Line Item Veto act.  This act allowed the President to amend legislation after it became law.   Essentially this act, allowed the President to control Congress.  If you needed to pay for new roads in your district, and a law was passed allowing this, the President could veto this unless you did what he wanted  regarding a peace treaty.  This act was used 3 times by President Clinton before it was ruled unconstitutional. 

Other issues Senator Byrd had involved the Patriot Act.  Under that Act, a person could be denied bail for suspected terrorism.  He feels it went against our laws, because a man is “innocent until proven guilty”, but the Patriot Act made a man Guilty until proven otherwise.  He also goes briefly into the Valerie Plame Spygate affair. 

Now you might think, being a Democrat, that Senator Byrd is just biased.  However, I didn’t find this to be a biased view, but genunine concern.

He had this to say about former presidents:

• “John Kennedy knew his subject and appealed to reason gently.”
• “Johnson was the consummate tour de force, coy, sly, bullying if need be.”
• “Nixon was deadly serious and always well prepared.”
• “Jimmy Carter was a good listener with a facility for great detail”
• “Ronald Rean, a joke teller, a charmer, who read from three-by-five cards and usually turned the substance over to staffers.”
• “George Herbert Walker Bush, Serious, intent, well-informed.”
• “Bill Clinton, likable, jovial, and with a vast knowledge of policy on a wide array of topics which he liked to display.”
• “George W.  Bush – Ineptitude Supreme”.

I found the book very interesting.  I think regardless of your personal political persuasion that reading this would shed a lot of light on many of the things that went on.  In this day, where many people protest about how our country is being destroyed, this book seems to back that up with facts.  It wasn’t a bash of Republican or Democrat, but only about the problems that occurred 5 years ago, where he thought the resulting solutions would take us, and his concerns for our future.  I’d say pick this up, or go to your local library and check this book out.  Regardless of who you are, I think you might learn something from this elder statesman.

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	Hardcover: 768 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 1, 1995) Language: English ISBN-10: 0671642405 ISBN-13: 978-0684804484	Order from here:

Franklin Roosevelt was the only president in history to have served 4 terms.  This book, by Drois Kearns Goodwin covers the lives of  both Franklin and Eleanor, mostly from 1939-1945.  America was just recovering from the Depression. Roosevelt was often and still is criticized for many of his programs.

During his administration, African Americans were first fully allowed into the military. Up until this point, they were allowed in, but had the jobs of cooks, cleaning, laundry, etc. All amenities were separate. African Americans had separate quarters, separate mess halls, separate entertainment facilities, and some of these were often subpar. They were not allowed in most workplaces, except as janitors, and other menial tasks. At one point, it was ordered that African Americans be given the same rights to test for Conductor jobs on train lines in San Francisco. When 10 African Americans scored high enough on the test for the jobs, the old union decided to go out on strike. Federal employees were sent in to run the lines. Eventually with unions, strikers were told they could go to work, or they could go to war. Most chose to return to work.

Women, because of the war, began to move into the workplace. While men didn’t like it at the time, it was necessary to turn out all the materials required. Women actually began to find they liked being in the workplace, and although men expected them to return to being housewives at the end of the war, many didn’t.

There were also many mistakes made by the FDR administration. The Japanese Internment is the one known most often. Many bright, patriotic Japanse Americans were interned in camps. These Americans were doctors, lawyers, teachers, and many would’ve been willing soldiers. However, the paranoia led people to think they’d probably side with Japan. Eleanor Roosevelt observed that they made the best of the situation however, they built libraries, schools, etc. and continued on with their lives.

Another mistake was in turning back the St. Louis. The St. Louis set sail from Germany with 1,000 Jewish passengers headed to Cuba. Some of these passengers had been released from concentration camps in Germany. Cuba wouldn’t allow them to land without being paid $500 per person. With the U.S. not being able to meet an agreement with Cuba, the ship was turned around and returned to Germany.

This was not the only instance of this. At one point Eleanor had tried to get German/Jewish immigrants admitted into the U.S. FDR and members of his administration refused, under the belief that they couldn’t tell a German Nazi from a German Jew. Some Historians, not necessarily Ms. Goodwin, claim that if the U.S. and other countries had opened their policies, that the Holocaust may have never existed. The idea being that Hitler wanted to rid Germany of the Jewish population, whether it be death or sending somewhere else I don’t believe though, that he would’ve stopped there. He would’ve just came after us for harboring them.

A lot of this book concentrates on the relationship between Eleanor and Franklin as well. After his affair with Lucy Mercer, they never had a tight husband/wife relationship. From reading the book, I think part of it might have been latent feelings that Eleanor had towards other women. The author doesn’t seem to hide the fact that Eleanor had many lesbian friends, some of whom she considered to have a “marriage”. At times it seemed to suggest that she also had these relationships.

Eleanor had to deal with her feelings, the pain of Franklins affair, and his overbearing mother. It seems at times that she was shut completely out of his life. Sending her out to talk to people, being his eyes and ears, seemed to give her some feeling of importance.

Franklin had his own affairs of the heart. One such was with Missy Lehand. Missy was his aid, and acted as his right hand. She took interests in a lot of his hobbies that Eleanor had no desire to learn about. She was such a close part of their lives, that Franklin even had his will modified to give Missy a third of his Estate.

I saw many parallels though between FDR’s administration, and current events. There was a lot of talk about FDR’s Administration being Socialist. There was also a parallel between the African Americans in the military, and the current debate regarding Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Reading this book, I could see many ways in which it seemed like we were repeating the history of the 1940’s. I also saw many ways in which we handled things differently, for instance, the war, rationing, construction, then we have in recent war time situations.

This book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history for 1995.  In addition it won the Harold Washington Literary Award, the New England Bookseller Association Award, and the Ambassador Book Award.  It also spent 6 months on the New York Times bestseller list.

I’d highly recommend this book for anyone interested in reading about how a lot of the things (Civil Rights, Womens Rights, etc.) got their beginnings. It was very insightful look into the lives of two of the most recognized Americans of the 20th century, and Ms. Kearns manages to present the stories of both of them, without glossing over the bad, and only showing the good.

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	Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Schocken (January 13, 1970) Language: English ISBN-10: 0805202536 ISBN-13: 978-0805202533	Order from here:

This book came in pretty helpful in helping to understand Genesis in the Historical context.    First written in 1966, Mr. Sarna covers the whole creation story, filling in all the cracks that sometimes raises questions with people.   He begins with describing how the biblical stories differ from mytholies.  One reason is that in myths, there’s always a biography for the god, and a birth of the god.  This is contrasted with the Abrahamic God, where there is nothing regarding his birth or coming into being, he just is. 

He points out in the beginning that attempting to explain the bible with science, and science with the bible is a futile effort.   Biblical man did not use all the scientific methods we use, nor record things as we do.  Morals, history, etc. was passed down as stories, poetry, songs, etc.  Hebrew history was always a word of mouth tradition, passed on from person to person.  A lot of groups within our culture are the same.  If you remember Roots, Alex Haley met a man from his tribe who’s job it was to remember the entire history of the tribe from the beginning and recite it.  My own personal thought on that is that while civilizations can destroy the written history, as long as people survive from a culture and can pass those stories on to others verbally, the history will survive.

He covers every major occurrence in the book of Genesis from Creation, to the flood.   Everything though is shown in both a spiritual and historical sense.  For example, the tower of Babel was not necessarily a history of how language came about.  It was a story about man not obeying God.   The people of Israel after the flood had been told to go forth among the world, but in Babel they all began to congregate in one area, thereby disobeying God.  So they were punished and forced to go into separate areas of the world. 

I really liked this book.  For me it made the whole book of Genesis much more believable than it had been in the past.  I’d always struggled with the difference between the biblical stories, and with ancient mythologies.  This helped me settle a lot of those questions by putting things in a historical perspective.   Seeing how the Hebrews thought and about their culture during this time period, and then reading Genesis, it really seemed more alive to me.

I’d definitely recommend this book for anyone struggling to understand the older books of the Bible.  I think you need to keep an open mind while reading it, but if you do, that things will make much more sense.  Pick it up if you get the chance, and let me know what you think.

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	Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Crown (June 2, 2009) Language: English ISBN-10: 0307463125 ISBN-13: 978-0307463128	Order from here:

Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that the election of Barack Obama made history.  Richard Wolffe was given the opportunity to follow and record the behind the scenes events during this election.  Everything from deciding to run, up until the inauguration are covered here.  We get to see some of the emotions involved, and get to know so of the people around the President.   We’re there when his grandmother dies and he has to go onstage.  We get to see a little of  what he discussed with Hillary regarding VP.  We find out why he was hesitant to have her involved in his cabinet. 

I found it a very interesting book.  While the author tends to jump around in time, it seems to flow well, at least to me.  I found the behind the scenes stuff to be fascinating.  Having heard rumors here and there about stuff going on, it was nice to be able to see some of the truth (from a certain point of view) behind the stories.  We get to see the ups and downs of campaign life.  Even if you don’t like President Obama, or agree with his policies, I think you should pick this up and read it.  It gives you a very good view of the campaign process.  It also shows a lot of the emotional ups and downs resulting from the election.  I’d recommend this to anyone, especially those who want to get to know the President a little better, or just to find out what happened with Hillary.

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