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Showing posts with the label freedom

FOR LIBERTY and GLORY: WASHINGTON, LAFAYETTE, and THEIR REVOLUTIONS by James R. Gaines

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Published in 2007 by W.W. Norton and Company. First a bit of traditional blogging. I was going through some old receipts because I had plenty of time on my hands thanks to the Coronavirus lockdowns. This pile of receipts was 12 years old. It included some golden oldies like a Blockbuster receipt. I also found a receipt for this book. I had gotten a great deal on it - and it sat in my To-Be-Read pile for 12 years. I had no idea it was in that pile for that long. If you had asked me before I found the receipt, I would guess it had been 4 or 5 years at most. At that moment, this book moved to the top of my To-Be-Read pile. I should have read it long before now - it was an excellent read. Originally, I picked up this book because I simply didn't know much about Lafayette. I've read plenty of biographies of Washington and histories of the American Revolution. Lafayette always comes into the story somewhere in the middle. There's always a build up, with the Stamp Act, the Bos

THE WAR BEFORE the WAR: FUGITIVE SLAVES and the STRUGGLE for AMERICA'S SOUL from the REVOLUTION to the CIVIL WAR (audiobook) by Andrew Delbanco

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Published in 2018 by Penguin Audio. Read by Ari Fliakos. Duration: 13 hours, 40 minutes. Unabridged. Simply described, this book is an in-depth look at the slavery controversy in the United States from its very beginnings through the Civil War. I am an avid reader of books that explore American slavery and the Civil War. Anyone that denies that slavery wasn't THE issue that pushed America to Civil War is deluding themselves and simply has not read the statements that five of the seceding states (Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia) issued in 1860 and 1861. Slavery was the most discussed item in four of the five declarations (Virginia's brief declaration does not mention many specifics but does refer to "the oppression of Southern Slaveholding states"). As the reader goes through this book it is easy to see that slavery was always a difficult problem for every generation of Americans to deal with. The Founders wrestled with it and ultimately

JOSEPH ANTON: A MEMOIR (audiobook) by Salman Rushdie

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Published in 2012 by Random House Audio Duration: 26 hours, 59 minutes Read by Sam Dastor Unabridged For most people, Salman Rushdie is, and will always be, that author that the Iranians tried to have killed all of those years ago. I freely admit that this is an accurate description of me. Although I am an avid reader, this is the first Salman Rushdie book that I have even contemplated reading.  Salman Rushdie. Photo by Andrew Lih. Rushdie narrates this autobiography in the third person, which is a little weird and gave me the impression that he is trying to distance himself a bit from his own story. The biggest chunk of Joseph Anton tells about how Rushdie dealt with the fatwa , or ruling against him and his book The Satanic Verses by the leader of the Iranian Revolution himself, the Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini ruled that the author, the publishers and the editors of the book should die for blasphemy and that anyone who died in an attempt to kill them would be consid

A DISEASE in the PUBLIC MIND: A NEW UNDERSTANDING of WHY WE FOUGHT the CIVIL WAR (audiobook) by Thomas Fleming

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Published in 2013 by Blackstone Audio. Read by William Hughes Duration: 11 hours, 42 minutes. Unabridged Thomas Fleming readily admits that he mostly writes about the era of the American Revolution (such as his excellent book Liberty! The American Revolution ) but he felt compelled to make a long commentary on the origins of the Civil War by writing this book - a lengthy commentary that is interesting Fleming's take on the causes of the war are based on a comment from James Buchanan's that the furor over slavery was a "disease in the public mind." Fleming is quite confident that this disease was mostly caused by the North. Shelby Foote alludes to this, in a way, in the Ken Burns Civil War documentary when he notes that there was a war "because we failed to do the thing we really have a genius for, which is compromise...our whole government's founded on it and it failed." An exhibit at the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois. Photo by DWD

BY FREEDOM'S LIGHT by Elizabeth O'Maley

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Set in Eastern Indiana in 1842, this short novel does a great job of talking about slavery for a grades 4-6 audience. The Caldwell family has recently moved to Indiana from North Carolina. They are Quakers. Nowadays, Quakers are famous for their anti-slavery stand and participation in the Underground Railroad in the 1800s. But, in reality, the Quakers are split in two groups. All are anti-slavery but some believe that you should not break the law by helping runaway slaves. Others believe that helping people in need trumps the law. The Caldwell family embodies this split. Sarah, age 13, is anti-abolitionist and is quite sure her father is as well. However, her new young stepmother is certainly an abolitionist. She is close with Levi and Catharine Coffin, two of the most famous members of the Underground Railroad network who live in Newport, Indiana (now called Fountain City) and Sarah witnesses her helping a runaway slave. Sarah is sure that her father is anti-abolitionist and thr

A THOUSAND MILES to FREEDOM: MY ESCAPE from NORTH KOREA by Eunsun Kim with Sebastien Falleti. Translated by David Tian

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A Remarkable Tale To be published in the United States on July 21, 2015.  I received an "Advance Reading Copy"  Eunsun Kim's tale of her escape from North Korea, along with her mother and her older sister is remarkably easy to read, remarkable engrossing and just a remarkable tale in general. When Eunsun Kim was 11 years old her mother determined that they could no longer live in North Korea. Eunsun's grandparents were dead, her father was dead, almost everything in the house was sold for money to buy food but there was almost no food to be had because North Korea was in the middle of its Great Famine (1994-1998). Depending on whose statistics you use, the estimates range anywhere from 250,000 to 3,500,000 people starved to death or died from starvation-related causes. Of course, it is hard to say for sure because North Korea is such a closed off society. Eunsun Kim and her family lived in the northernmost part of North Korea and they decided to cross the Tu

THE LIBERTY AMENDMENTS: RESTORING the AMERICAN REPUBLIC (audiobook) by Mark R. Levin

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Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in August of 2013. Narrated by Jason Culp. Opening and closing chapters read by Mark R. Levin. Duration: 6 hours, 54 minutes. For the past several years Conservative commentator Mark R. Levin has been laying out his arguments that demonstrate the government is over-reaching its Constitutional limitations in a series of books. He has discussed the Supreme Court in Men in Black , the roots of statist politics in Liberty and Tyranny and pointed out the ongoing actions of statists in Ameritopia . Now, in The Liberty Amendments , Levin details how he would address the problem using a series of Constitutional amendments. Since it is unlikely that the current crop of Senators and Representatives would vote to amend the Constitution and limit their power, Levin urges the states to initiate the process by calling for a national convention. Mark R. Levin His proposed amendments include: -Term limits for Congress (12 years); -Repeal t

AMERICA'S PROPHET: MOSES and the AMERICAN STORY by Bruce Feiler

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Published in 2009 by William Morrow (HarperCollins) I love the premise of America's Prophet - that America has a special connection with the story of Moses beginning with the Puritans and going right up through Martin Luther King, Jr. He lays out the correlations with some skill but, in the end it just started to drag. This review (and the book, to a lesser extent) is helped by a basic knowledge of the story of Moses. Feiler provides the necessary background on Moses and then proceeds to make comparisons. For example, the Puritans saw themselves as fleeing a domineering power (England) and taking refuge in the wilderness (New England) like the Children of Israel fled the Pharaoh and went into the Sinai. The Puritans took comfort in the story of Moses because they believed that they would also be led by God. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the "March on Washington" A slight change in interpretation and Moses becomes an inspiring symbol for the Americans in the

Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves (audiobook) by Henry Wiencek

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Published by HighBridge Company in 2012 Read by Brian Holsopple Duration: 11 hours, 5 minutes. Unabridged I am a history teacher. My favorite area of study is the American Civil War but the American Revolution comes in at a close second. I cannot even count the number of books that I have read about the Revolutionary Era and I thought that I had a pretty solid handle on Jefferson - until I read this book. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) I had always pictured Jefferson as a Unitarian (who was willing to go "more" religious for political reasons) who wrote eloquently about freedom and tyranny but somehow compartmentalized this in his own life when it came to slavery. Or, was unable to free his slaves due to crushing debts incurred because he was a philosopher and not a businessman. The debts are always mentioned, usually in conjunction with the renovations to Monticello, reinforcing the impression that the philosopher was happily spending his way to oblivion for th

Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy by Rev. Robert Sirico

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Published by Regnery in 2012 When I told two of my Catholic friends (who do not know each other) that I was reading a book about economics written by a Catholic priest, both reacted with a hearty laugh. Then, both commented about the political leanings of the priest, assuming that the priest would be quite liberal. Sadly, they were very surprised when I described some of the Rev. Sirico's thoughts. Why sadly? It is sad that many people (not just Catholic priests) do not grasp the simple relationship between one's standing before God and one's rights - God has made you an individual and you are endowed with certain rights - as an individual. People are creative (as is the Creator), are intended for some sort of work and should have the freedom to find the work that pleases them and reap the benefit from what they have sown. Reverend Robert Sirico Sirico begins by telling his personal story - how he went from being a well-connected ultra-liberal to being a conser

Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in America by David K. Shipler

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Highly Recommended Published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2012 Last summer I read David K.Shipler's first book on this topic, The Rights of the People: How Our Search for Safety Invades Our Liberties (see my review by clicking here ) and I found it to be the most profound book I read that summer and maybe all year. I began my review of that book with this thought: "I always tell people that the traditional left-right continuum used to describe someone's politics is so inaccurate as to be useless. Really, what is the difference between an aging hippie living on a hill somewhere  raising some dope for personal use and telling the government to get out of his business and a Barry Goldwater-type conservative (like me) living by himself on a hill somewhere that tells the government to get its nose out of his business? Some dope. Otherwise, they are both determined advocates of civil liberties - keep out of my business if it is not hurting anyone else." When I read the f

Marked for Death: Islam's War Against the West and Me by Geert Wilders

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Published in May of 2012 by Regnery Publishing Geert Wilders is a member of the Dutch Parliament and the the leader of the third largest political party in the Netherlands, but he is forced to live his life under protection. Since 2004 he has to have armed protection every day, everywhere he goes because of multiple death threats from extremist Muslims. His crime? He dared to take the threats to Western freedom seriously when, in 2004, Muslims killed Theo Van Gogh (a filmmaker whose film Submission criticized the treatment of Muslim women. Van Gogh was stabbed multiple times and a note was stuck to his body with a knife explaining why Van Gogh was murdered) Muslims rioted over the famed Muhammad cartoons in 2005, when they threatened to kill politicians who question why there are "no-go" zones that have basically been ceded to Muslims. Wilders believes that Islam is more than a religion, it is a totalitarian political ideology that has no tolerance of dissent and is m

Black Like Me (audiobook) by John Howard Griffin

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Extraordinarily Powerful As An Audiobook Experience Published in December 2011 by AudioGO Read by Ray Childs Duration: approximately 7 hours. In 1959, John Howard Griffin (1920-1980), an author and journalist decided to go check out the serious rumblings of the Civil Rights movement for himself. Griffin was white and he decided to medically darken his skin (and smooth out the rough spots with dye and shave his head) and go as a black man. His plan was to see if things truly were different on the other side of the color line. The book is a novelization of his experiences (meaning things were edited and re-arranged to make the story work better) and it starts with him pitching his idea to a publisher and his family. Once he gets funding and permission from his family (after a lot of serious talk about how dangerous this could be) Griffin heads off to New Orleans for his medical treatments. He picks New Orleans because of its more liberal racial attitudes, figuring that it would

Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America (audiobook) by Mark R. Levin

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Much more intellectual than I expected Published in 2012 by Simon & Schuster Audio. Read by Adam Grupper and the author, Mark R. Levin. Duration: Approximately 8 hours. Over the years I have listened to Levin's radio show from time to time (he used to be carried in my city) and what I always remember from that show is Levin's frequent bombastic outbursts, a kind of manufactured rage that was meant to punctuate his points but lost their punch as I realized that he wasn't just getting angry over some particularly egregious issue, but he was angry over all of them. But, I have listened to three of his audiobooks and find them to be much better than his radio show. The first one I listened to ( Men in Black ) was just for a goof and I was surprised to find that it was pretty solid and the next one ( Liberty and Tyranny ) was even better. This one was an intellectually robust look at the major philosophers who have espoused tyrannical forms of governments disguised

Toward the Light of Liberty: The Struggles for Freedom and Rights That Made the Modern Western World by A.C. Grayling

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Strong, flawed, important work with a valuable, urgent message Published in 2007 by Walker and Company 288 pages.   I had to pick up this book as soon as I stumbled upon it. One of the themes in my history classes is the expansion of freedom in the West following the same general timeline that Grayling follows. Who doesn't like to have his own thoughts echoed by a major English philosopher? Strengths: I do recommend this book - it is a readable, admirable attempt at covering a vast, important topic. Grayling covers John Locke especially well (although he disposes with the views of Hobbes rather quickly by asserting that people are not necessarily nasty and brutal with one another). Grayling's most important message is quite simple: the rights that we have are the product of a lot of time and a lot of struggles and they should be cherished and well-guarded. When the reader has completed this book it should be quite clear that this inheritance is too valuab