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I just finished a history book - and it was GREAT! In The Garden of The Beasts, by Eric Larson
It tells the story of The US Ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937. These are the years that WW2 could actually have been prevented and covers the time of Night of The Long Knives in 1934 when Hitler murdered hundreds of the senior people who opposed his rule. It was sold as an attempted coup which he put down..... There is much, much more.
5 stars!
Check out Larsen's earlier book The Devil in the White City. It's the story of the Columbian Exposition of 1893, which remade the image of Chicago in ways we still see and feel today, and also of one of the very first documented serial killers, who used the cover of the fair to pick off his victims.
Another book I can recommend is Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford, which is exactly what it says it's about: the impact of one extraordinary man on world history.
Not a history book per se but I'm slogging my way through Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton biography. Wife bought it after watching the play and I picked it up just to browse a little. Currently on page 452 of 740.
Being a STEM person, history kind of interested me but was never a great passion. Reading this I've learned that politics was every bit as nasty in the 1790's as the 2020's and that Jefferson was a bit of a jerk. The discussion of the Yellow Fever could have been written today substituting COVID for the fever, including social distancing and 14 day quarantines after being in hot areas.
LOL...Jefferson was a bit of a jerk? Read Chernow's bio of Washington. It wasn't without reason that Washington stopped talking to him a few years before he died - cut off all contact. Martha Washington is reported by a visitor to have remarked that the second saddest day of her life was when Jefferson stopped to make a condolence call after Washington died - the most painful day of her life being when the General died. (Note, even after his death he was called the Gen. rather than the former president.)
If you are ever at Monticello, and want to get nasty looks from the guide, ask the guide why Jefferson was called the "Coward of Carter's Mountain." He never could live that down during his lifetime.
The women of the era are largely overlooked. We have a vision of Martha Washington as a grandmotherly type figure but she was tough as nails. Chernow gets Washington's mother wrong according to many scholars. For a bio of her:
The Widow Washington: The Life of Mary Washington by Martha Saxton. Saxton writes that it wasn't the easiest book to do; the subject is unsympathetic to us as a slave owner, but it gives insight into how people lived, the economic and social system with a bit of insight into growing up...who would have thought male children had to worry about sharing a wig with a brother whose head was bigger and thus the wig not fitting right and sliding off his head? Maybe this is why Washington as an adult never wore a wig.
LOL...Jefferson was a bit of a jerk? Read Chernow's bio of Washington. It wasn't without reason that Washington stopped talking to him a few years before he died - cut off all contact. Martha Washington is reported by a visitor to have remarked that the second saddest day of her life was when Jefferson stopped to make a condolence call after Washington died - the most painful day of her life being when the General died. (Note, even after his death he was called the Gen. rather than the former president.)
If you are ever at Monticello, and want to get nasty looks from the guide, ask the guide why Jefferson was called the "Coward of Carter's Mountain." He never could live that down during his lifetime.
The women of the era are largely overlooked. We have a vision of Martha Washington as a grandmotherly type figure but she was tough as nails. Chernow gets Washington's mother wrong according to many scholars. For a bio of her:
The Widow Washington: The Life of Mary Washington by Martha Saxton. Saxton writes that it wasn't the easiest book to do; the subject is unsympathetic to us as a slave owner, but it gives insight into how people lived, the economic and social system with a bit of insight into growing up...who would have thought male children had to worry about sharing a wig with a brother whose head was bigger and thus the wig not fitting right and sliding off his head? Maybe this is why Washington as an adult never wore a wig.
I'm planning on buying the Washington book by Chernow once I finish Alexander Hamilton. The author is definitely a user of the English language. If you know all the adjectives he uses you have a great vocabulary. Still a nice read - even if you don't know the words the context gives a big clue.
Check out Larsen's earlier book The Devil in the White City. It's the story of the Columbian Exposition of 1893, which remade the image of Chicago in ways we still see and feel today, and also of one of the very first documented serial killers, who used the cover of the fair to pick off his victims.
Another book I can recommend is Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford, which is exactly what it says it's about: the impact of one extraordinary man on world history.
Didn't read thru all the posts yet but have you read The Splendid and the Vile by Eric Larson.? It is astounding what the Brits thru and we have grown a** men and women complaining about wearing cloth masks. Churchill provided gas masks to every citizen in Britain right before the nightly bombing attacks by the Nazis.
Check out Larsen's earlier book The Devil in the White City. It's the story of the Columbian Exposition of 1893, which remade the image of Chicago in ways we still see and feel today, and also of one of the very first documented serial killers, who used the cover of the fair to pick off his victims.
Another book I can recommend is Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford, which is exactly what it says it's about: the impact of one extraordinary man on world history.
Also Larsen's Dead Wake, about the torpedoing of the Lusitania, including from the perspective of the U-boat commander who targeted it.
Rereading Mr. Speaker! The Life and Times of Thomas B. Reed - The Man Who Broke the Filibuster by James Grant (The House had a filibuster at one time.)
Reed is often said to be the most important American politician no one has heard of. His witticisms are still funny making fun of not only his political enemies but of himself. Of his official portrait he said:
“Well, my enemies have gotten their revenge.”
Of two of his fellow House members he said:
“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.”
Rereading Mr. Speaker! The Life and Times of Thomas B. Reed - The Man Who Broke the Filibuster by James Grant (The House had a filibuster at one time.)
Reed is often said to be the most important American politician no one has heard of. His witticisms are still funny making fun of not only his political enemies but of himself. Of his official portrait he said:
“Well, my enemies have gotten their revenge.”
Of two of his fellow House members he said:
“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.”
A grand coincidence. I'm reading The Proud Tower - A Portrait Of The World Before The War: 1890- 1914 by Barbara W. Tuchman and her chapter about the USA discusses Speaker Reed at length. She describes the actual happenings on the floor of the House as he worked towards breaking the filibuster (or as they called it the "disappearing quorum"). It's quite a read. She includes several of his epigrams and indeed, he does sound like he was very skilled at repartee. One struck me as so spot on perfect that I recently posted it here in the writing forum - "Having embedded that fly in the liquid amber of my remarks, I will proceed."
A few more -
"That was hardly enough time to ripen a strawberry."
"A statesman is a politician who is dead."
"The overpowering unimportance of this leaves me speechless."
"Theodore Roosevelt will never be president; he has no political background."
And - according to Tuchman - "the most memorable" - "If there is one thing more than any other for which I admire you, it is your original discovery of the Ten Commandments."
When asked if he thought his party might nominate him for president, he replied, "They could do worse and I think they will."
Here's a link to an article about him and a link to "Reed's Rules". He was called the Czar of the House.
I finished Ron Chernow's 950 page epic, Grant. It was a very detailed and fascinating portrait of a complex man in American history. Chernow's The House of Morgan is also really good, chronicling the history of the JP Morgan empire from the 1800s to the 1987 crash.
I'm currently reading CV Wedgewood's The Thirty Years War. Even though it was written in 1938, it still remains the single best narrative account of one of the most devastating wars in Western history. It was a period I knew very little about, but became interested in after reading the historical-sci fi Ring of Fire series.
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