THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES (The Great Courses) (audiobook) by Philip Daileader

Published in 2013 by The Great Courses.
Lectures delivered by the author, Philip Daileader.

Duration: 12 hours, 32 minutes.

Unabridged.

The idea behind The Great Courses is that anybody can have access to high quality college instructors who are truly experts in their fields. In this course the focus is the Early Middle Ages (roughly 300 CE to 1000 CE). 

Daileader starts with the start of the decline of the Roman Empire, somewhere around the year 300 CE. He looks at the trends of the late Roman Empire and how they led to the fall of the Roman Empire in the West (Rome, not Constantinople) and how those trends led to the political and economic systems that typify the time period we know as the Middle Ages.

There is a heavy focus on what is now France, which is well-deserved since Charlemagne is one of the biggest historical figures of this era. But, other areas get a fair amount of attention, like Ireland, Spain, and the Islamic world. The sudden appearance of the Vikings contributed a lot as well. The Byzantine Empire

Church doctrine and politics play a prominent role throughout.

I found this series of half hour lectures to be interesting, but not riveting. The section on the political machinations that eventually led to the rise of Charlemagne's empire was slow - necessary but tedious until it finally pays off and you just sit and wonder how it all worked out the way it did. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Early Middle Ages (The Great Courses) by Philip Daileader.  

AGE of REVOLUTIONS: PROGRESS and BACKLASH from 1600 to the PRESENT (audiobook) by Fareed Zakaria

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2024.

Read by the author, Fareed Zakaria
Duration: 13 hours, 2 minutes.
Unabridged.

Fareed Zakaria's Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present is exactly what the title says it is.

Zakaria writes about the beginnings of capitalism, multi-cultural societies, globalism, democracy, the industrial revolution, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, Fascism, the failed Arab Spring, LGBTQ+ rights, and the rise illiberal democracy and the return on authoritarianism and the forces that pushed back (or overturned) them.

The author

Zakaria has clearly done his research and writes in such a way that it flows from one topic to another almost as if they entire book was just one big story (which it is, if you look at it as the story of humanity, especially The West.)

If you find yourself wondering how we got here, this is a good place to start. Zakaria breaks down complex movements and ideas and makes them understandable.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present by Fareed Zakaria. 

YEARS THAT CHANGED HISTORY: 1215 (The Great Courses)(audiobook) by Dorsey Armstrong

Published in 2019 by The Great Courses.
Lectures by Dorsey Armstrong.
Duration: 12 hours, 29 minutes.
Unabridged.

The Great Courses offers a lecture series by college professors that the average person can listen to on their own time. 

In this case, Purdue University history professor Dorsey Armstrong is focusing on the year 1215 as a pivotal year. 

1215 is well-known to Americans as the year of the Magna Carta, but it is also the year of the Fourth Lateran Council of the Catholic Church. The rest of the lecture series is about general things that were going on around 1215. These include the crusades, a brief look at the Americas, a look at the Islamic world, Japan, and an extended look at Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire.

This is a lecture series that could have used a bit of editing. If two hours were removed, that would have been good. Three hours would have been great. This was especially true in the section about Genghis Khan. Armstrong admitted that she was excited about this topic and she really just laid on the details - way too many details for even this history teacher. It just got bogged down in the early details of his life and scooted through the height of the Mongol Empire and its eventual collapse.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. I don't really blame Armstrong for this - this series tends to like 20+ half hour lectures and I don't think this was a rich enough vein of information for her to mine.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: YEARS THAT CHANGED HISTORY: 1215 (The Great Courses) by Dorsey Armstrong.

FIGHTER PILOT: THE WORLD WAR II CAREER of ALEX VRACIU by Roy E. Boomhower

 

Published in 2010 by Indiana Historical Society Press.

Alex Vraciu (1918-2015) was a World War II flying ace, ranking fourth in the U.S. Navy in World War II. He destroyed 19 Japanese planes in the air and 21 on the ground. 

This short book is very approachable and tells the story of Vraciu's childhood during the Great Depression in Northwest Indiana (now commonly known as "The Region") and his college years at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. 

Vraciu took advantage of a U.S. government program that trained civilians to be pilots with the understanding that if the U.S. went to war those pilots would become military pilots. He trained in Muncie, Indiana and immediately joined the U.S. Navy after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Vraciu had a remarkable military career over the next 23 years. Besides destroying 40 Japanese planes, he lost multiple planes, including being shot down over the Philippines and leading a group of guerrilla fighters against the Japanese, he became a test pilot, he led squadrons after they navy transitioned to jets and scored the highest in the predecessor to the Navy's "Top Gun" training program in a jet 12 years after the end of World War II. 

The book is very readable and full of interesting photographs. It would be good for a well-read student of World War II or an interested newbie. I rate it 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: FIGHTER PILOT: THE WORLD WAR II CAREER of ALEX VRACIU by Roy E. Boomhower.

PATHOGENESIS: A HISTORY of the WORLD in EIGHT PLAGUES (audiobook) by Jonathan Kennedy

 

Published by Random House Audio in April of 2023.
Read by the author, Jonathan Kennedy.

Duration: 9 hours, 23 minutes.
Unabridged.

Kennedy presents a compelling argument that disease has had a profound impact on world history by just telling a history of Europe from the days of cavemen up until now.

The first 45 minutes or so of this audiobook seemed to be wandering around and not going anywhere, but Kennedy was laying a strong foundation for the rest of the book.

The book makes it painfully obvious that humanity has bounced from one biological disaster to another. Humanity has adapted (either by behavior - like building sanitation systems to deal with body waste to control cholera) or biologically by simply having a large body count until those with immunity can rebuild (the Black Plague is a prime example.)

Kennedy persuasively argues that infection and disease helped the rise of Christianity, the rise of Islam, the end of feudalism, the rise of capitalism, and the European conquest of the Americas. Infection and disease helped create the system of African slavery in the New World and also prevented the European colonization of African until the late 1800s.

This is a very good book. I rate it 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: PATHOGENESIS: A HISTORY of the WORLD in EIGHT PLAGUES by Jonathan Kennedy.

SOVIET-AFGHAN WAR: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END (The Cold War) (kindle) by Hourly History

 

Published in 2023 by Hourly History.

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in an effort to stabilize their neighbor. In theory, Afghanistan had a communist government and the USSR had a policy of not letting any communist government fall. 

Soviet troops leaving Afghanistan in 1989 via
a bridge that was special built for the purpose of
letting the USSR withdraw from Afghanistan
even quicker.

In 1989, the Soviet Union finished withdrawing its armed forces from Afghanistan. On paper they had negotiated a stable pro-Soviet government to lead Afghanistan after 10 years of frustrating fighting an elusive enemy that specialized in hitting the much better equipped Soviet army within guerilla hit-and-run tactics. 

Within 3 years both the government of Afghanistan and the government of the USSR had collapsed and Afghanistan became a haven for international Muslim terrorists like Osama bin Laden.

As I read about the difficulties that the Soviets had in fighting against the mujahedeen guerrilla fighters, it struck me that in many ways you could have removed the word Soviet and replaced it with the word American and have a fairly decent description of the American experience in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021.  

This series is designed to give the reader a solid grasp of a topic in about an hour's worth of reading. Some topics are really too big for this self-imposed limit, but I thought this was a pretty good length for this topic. 

I rate this short e-book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: SOVIET-AFGHAN WAR: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END (The Cold War) (kindle) by Hourly History.

MAGNA CARTA: THE BIRTH of LIBERTY (audiobook) by Dan Jones

 

Published in 2015 by Penguin Audio.
Read by the author, Dan Jones.
Duration: 7 hours, 12 minutes.
Unabridged.

The Magna Carta is commonly considered to be the founding document of Western Democracy. Many believe that there is a direct line goes from the Magna Carta to the Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries) to the Declaration of Independence (1776) to the Bill of Rights in the American Constitution (1791)  to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1791) to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

Jones believes that there is a whole lot of truth to this. but he spends a lot time explaining why the "direct line" is not as straight as many think.

King John (1166-1216) signing the Magna 
Carta in 1215. 

Jones does an excellent job of explaining the political situation in England that led to the Magna Carta in 1215 in reasonable, layman terms. Once the reader understands how the system was supposed to work, Jones demonstrates that King John abused the system to raise gobs and gobs of money to fund unpopular wars and, more importantly, to punish political enemies. In some cases, he completely bankrupted well-connected families - and that's when the noble families united to confront the king.

Jones also explains the provisions of the Magna Carta in modern English and how King John started successfully pushing back against its restrictions almost immediately. 

Jones is a believer that the Magna Carta is a predecessor to the documents like the Declaration of Independence and does spend time explaining the Magna Carta's influences on the modern world.

The author read this audiobook and did a good job with it. This was an enjoyable and educational audiobook. I rate it 5 stars out of 5. 

It can be found on Amazon.com here: MAGNA CARTA: THE BIRTH of LIBERTY (audiobook) by Dan Jones.

CHE: A REVOLUTIONARY LIFE (graphic novel) by Jon Lee Anderson (author) and Jose Hernandez (illustrator)

Originally published in 2016.

English translation published

in 2018 by Penguin Press.

Before reading this massive 421 page graphic novel, I knew relatively little about Che Guevara (1928-1967.) I knew that he was from South America, he was famous for his part in the Cuban Revolution and that he died trying to lead a revolution in Bolivia. And, of course, I knew him from the famous picture.

This graphic novel filled in a lot of blanks for me. It is a friendly biography of Che but doesn't glorify him. When I got to the end I was struck by how much of a failure Che actually was after he left Cuba. He tried to replicate the success of the Cuban Revolution but he could not. It's hard to tell if counter-revolutionary measures from the governments he was trying to overthrow (and the U.S.) were simply more successful than Batista had been in Cuba or if they were missing an additional spark like the Castro brothers had provided.

The graphic novel was put together well. It had no confusing arrangements of comic panels (this is more common of a problem than one might think) and the story was told in a straightforward linear manner. 

Well done.

I rate this graphic novel 5 stars out of 5. 

This can be found on Amazon.com here: CHE: A REVOLUTIONARY LIFE (graphic novel) by Jon Lee Anderson (author) and Jose Hernandez (illustrator).

GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

 

Published by Hourly History in December of 2022.

The short histories produced by Hourly History are designed to read in about an hour. In some cases the size limit makes for a very incomplete history. In this case, I thought that topic and the size limit matched up pretty well.

The Gallipoli Campaign was an unmitigated disaster during World War I. Winston Churchill (yes, the famous one from World War II) was the head of British navy and thought up a plan to do three things:

1) relieve the pressure on Russia from the Germans and the Ottomans;

2) possibly knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war;
3) encourage the Germans to divert more troops away from the French front to support the Ottoman Empire.

The plan Churchill came up with was to land thousands of soldiers from France, Britain, Australia and New Zealand on the Gallipoli Peninsula at the edge of the Aegean Sea in a quick and bold attack.

Troops from Australia and New Zealand landing at 
Gallipoli - April 25, 1915.

What actually happened was bold, but certainly not quick. The attack was disjointed and so poorly planned that the Ottomans were entirely prepared for the invasion...

Normally, I really don't care much for studying up on World War I - it was started for rather silly reasons in my opinion and the United States had little reason to get involved (Yes, I know that the Gallipoli campaign was before the U.S. got involved.) 

That being said, I was glad to learn more about the campaign that is always referred to in the histories I have read, but never explored in any sort of depth. This book gave me enough information to fill in this gap in my knowledge to my satisfaction.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History.

LIBERTY'S EXILES: AMERICAN LOYALISTS in the REVOLUTIONARY WORLD (audiobook) by Maya Jasanoff

Published by Recorded Books in 2012.
Read by L.J. Ganser.
Duration: 16 hours, 10 minutes.
Unabridged.

In 1783, at the end of the Revolutionary War, Loyalists (Americans who opposed the American Revolution and stayed loyal to Britain) had a choice to make - stay and ride out the anti-Loyalist bias in the United States or move somewhere else.

In the two years between the last major engagement (Yorktown) and the official end of the war and withdrawal of British troops the British decided to evacuate any Loyalists that wanted to go to other parts of the British Empire. One of the biggest advocates of this position was Guy Carleton, the British commander in America after Yorktown who later went on to become the Governor-in-Chief of Canada. He had more to do with what happened in this history than any other single person.

Guy Carleton (1724-1808)

The British government made an effort to make things right for these Loyalists. Not many Loyalists were completely reimbursed, but the fact that an effort was made was extraordinary for the day. In some cases, Loyalists were offered large grants of land, in other cases they were offered smaller grants of land and in other cases they were offered pensions and partial reimbursements for lost property. All of these offers were new innovations and a sign that the British government wished to honor the loyalty they had shown.

Some loyalists wanted nothing more than to start over, some looked to just work themselves up the British societal ladder, some wanted to get away from British society and some looked for a chance to get even with the Americans. 

There was a racial component to this as well. The British had offered freedom for any slaves that left their masters and joined their armed forces. The Americans pressured them to return the runaway slaves (including slaves from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) but the British refused to go back on their deal with the former slaves as a point of honor. However, those former slaves oftentimes were given less money and less land than white Loyalists when they arrived at their new homes.

The British tried to honor the commitments shown by the Native American allies as well, but not nearly as much. 

Loyalists ended up going all over the empire but mostly to Canada. There were several families that went to Bermuda and Jamaica and back to England itself. Several families of African descent moved to Sierra Leone in Africa as part of an experimental colony. A few went even further to India. 

The section on the Canadian settlement was, at first, interesting but it soon got bogged down. It was all relevant detail, but just too much for me. In fact, that's pretty much my review of the entire book.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: LIBERTY'S EXILES: AMERICAN LOYALISTS in the REVOLUTIONARY WORLD (audiobook) by Maya Jasanoff.

CRIMEAN WAR: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

 

E-book published by Hourly History in 2020.

Hourly History specializes in histories and biographies that take about an hour to read. In the case of the Crimean War (1853-1856), I think that's about right.

The war was the result of European alliance politics. Russia was looking to push into Ottoman territory. The Ottomans were considered to be pretty weak and certainly on the decline after centuries of being a major power. The Austrian Empire was a traditional ally to the Russians, but decided to stay neutral. The Prussians were just starting out so no one really cared what they did. Even though they had been traditional rivals for centuries, England and France decided that they had to intervene on behalf of the Ottoman Empire in order to stop Russia from becoming too powerful. 

The French and the English sent troops all of the way to the Ottoman Empire and then up into the Black Sea and landed troops on the Crimean Peninsula and the war was on.

The war itself is worthy of note for several reasons, including:

1) France and England worked together as allies. It was the beginning of what has mostly been the default position ever since;

2) Florence Nightingale's work as a nurse;

3) The Charge of the Light Brigade and the poem of the same name describing the futility of the attack and the by Alfred, Lord Tennyson featuring the line "Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die";

4) Exposed the weaknesses of Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Those weaknesses led to revolutions within 70 years;

5) It was demonstrated that rifled weapons were vastly superior to older style weapons;

6) Trench warfare was introduced. This pointed towards what would be the signature fighting style of World War I sixty years later;

7) The media of the day was able to relatively quickly send stories back from the front due to new technologies;

8) Photography brought realistic views of the war back to the English and French public.

This book does a good job of explaining the war, the causes, the military results and the short term and long term results. 

I rate this e-book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Crimean War: A History from Beginning to End. 

KING RICHARD III: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (BIOGRAPHIES of BRITISH ROYALTY) by Hourly History

 

Published in 2019 by Hourly History.

Hourly History is a series of histories and biographies that a reader can read in about an hour. Sometimes, that works out quite well. Sometimes, the topic is just too big to cover in an hour.

I am an avid reader of history, but I have areas of weakness that I am perfectly willing to shore up a bit, but I don't want to invest a ton of time. I want to know a bit more, not become an expert. The British Royal Family is just one of those areas for me. I know more than most people, but I can see the glaringly empty areas of my own ignorance.

I recently read Hourly History's biography of Henry VII (the king that defeated Richard III in battle and took his throne). Usually, I find the British Royal family to be a tedious topic, but I found the Henry VII biography to be quite interesting. I was hoping to have a similar experience with the biography of Richard III.

King Richard III (1452-1485)

Richard III took the throne towards the end of the slow motion civil war known as The War of the Roses. Richard started out as a loyal and devoted follower of his brother (Edward IV) who pretty much let him rule Northern England as a sort of mini-kingdom. Richard dealt with Scotland and border incursions and consolidated English royal control over some of the major noble families of the region.

When Edward IV died, Richard was supposed to step in and serve as Lord Protector for Edward V. Edward V was only twelve years old and Richard was to rule in his stead until Edward V came of age. 

This is where Richard III's story becomes complicated and very much like an episode of Game of Thrones...

This is an exciting story (Shakespeare wrote a play about it because it was so rich in drama) but this short biography just fails to convey that drama. 

I rate this biography 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: KING RICHARD III: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (BIOGRAPHIES of BRITISH ROYALTY) by Hourly History.

FRANCIS of ASSISI (The Great Courses)(audiobook) by William R. Cook and Ronald B. Herzman

 

Published in 2013 by The Great Courses.
Lectures by William R. Cook and Ronald B. Herzman.

Duration: 6 hours, 10 minutes.
Unabridged.

The idea behind The Great Courses is a simple one - take a college lecture course given by an expert that knows how to give an interesting lecture and package it up as an audiobook that anyone can listen to.

In the case of this audiobook, there are two college professors that have a great chemistry together and really enjoy a discussion of St. Francis.

Before this audiobook, I knew only the barest of details of St. Francis so I found the entire discussion interesting and informative.

I do have a rather big complaint about the way the information was presented, however. They start with a biography of St. Francis up until the moment when he becomes recognized by the Pope and his movement is up and going. From that moment, they move to a thematic presentation and the listener hears about moments in his life that are not tied to any sort of biography. 

For example, they mention more than once that he participated in a crusade as a bystander and as a person that wanted to reach out to the Muslims that were defending, but there is no coherent narrative to that story that makes it more than just a few random snatches of extremely interesting information and teachings. I do not like the fact that I listened to a six hour audiobook about the life of a person and I do not have a grasp of many of the basics about the life of that person. As a fellow teacher of history, I cannot imagine the thought process that went into that decision.

Fortunately, they provided an interesting list of books or presentations written by other, well-known authors such as W.E.B DuBois and G.K. Chesterton.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found here: FRANCIS of ASSISI (The Great Courses)(audiobook) by William R. Cook and Ronald B. Herzman.

THE PRESIDENTS' WAR: SIX AMERICAN PRESIDENTS and the CIVIL WAR THAT DIVIDED THEM by Chris DeRose

 

Published in 2014 by Lyons Press.

This is my 142nd Civil War-related review. When I heard about this book, I found myself wondering how no one else thought to write this book before.

Former presidents have their own political power and impact current events. Nowadays, you can see this with Jimmy Carter's modeling of volunteerism and his attempts to be a peace mediator in the 1980s and 1990s, Bill Clinton's maneuvering to remain relevant, George W. Bush's refusal to endorse or approve of anything done by Donald Trump, the calls that the Biden Administration is really just the third Obama Administration and, obviously, the 45th President's refusal to admit he lost the 2020 election.

DeRose starts with a rundown of the political careers of each politician involved: John Tyler, Martin Van Buren, James Buchanan, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and Abraham Lincoln. 

Then, he discusses how they reacted to Lincoln's candidacy, the break up of the Democrat Party in 1860, Lincoln's election and the Secession Crisis. 

John Tyler, the 10th President (1790-1862)

To a man, they were all critical of Lincoln's handling of the Secession Crisis. John Tyler surprised me, though. Tyler was from Virginia and owned slaves and had a working slave labor plantation so he was never going to be supportive of Lincoln who was philosophically against slavery but only against expanded it into new territories and/or states as a matter of policy. 

Tyler left the presidency politically unpopular and seemed to have relished in the attention he received during the Secession Crisis. Suddenly, people were seeking his opinion on the most important issue of his lifetime. Tyler came to D.C. and led a peace conference hosted by Virginia in the Willard Hotel. 

Nothing came from the conference. Tyler operated as a proxy for the Confederacy, in my opinion, and his proposals were ridiculous. Tyler was elected to the Confederate Conference and served in the Provisional Confederate Congress until his death. He remains the only President that ever served in a government at war with the United States. 

I was amused by the constant thread of James Buchanan's post-presidency - he was going to write a book to explain his actions during the Secession Crisis. He claimed over and over again that he would be vindicated once everyone knew all of the facts and ... he never was. It was almost like a running gag throughout the book. Even today, he is universally acknowledged to be the one of the worst presidents of all of the presidents. 

The book continues on with reactions from each of the surviving presidents to the events of the war such as Antietam, the Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg, the fall of Atlanta, Lee's surrender and, finally, the assassination of Lincoln. 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE PRESIDENTS' WAR: SIX AMERICAN PRESIDENTS and the CIVIL WAR THAT DIVIDED THEM by Chris DeRose.

OUR FIRST CIVIL WAR: PATRIOTS and LOYALISTS in the AMERICAN REVOLUTION (audiobook) by H.W. Brand

 

Published by Random House Audio in November of 2021.
Read by Steve Hendrickson.
Duration: 16 hours, 31 minutes.
Unabridged.

When I read the title of this audiobook, OUR FIRST CIVIL WAR: PATRIOTS and LOYALISTS in the AMERICAN REVOLUTION, I was sure that I was going to be listening to an in-depth look at how the population of the young United States dealt with its neighbors and family that disagreed about the question of independence. The most famous example is Benjamin Franklin and his son William Franklin. William Franklin was the last royal governor of New Jersey and their relationship never recovered from the shock of the Revolutionary War. 

This book deals with more of these issues than most histories of the Revolutionary War era, but that is not particularly hard to do - most of them mention the Franklin family situation and use it as a stand-in for all families. But, it does not go in-depth into this concept of Loyalists vs. Patriots. For example, I learned more about this topic from this Wikipedia page than I did from this book. I should not learn more about the topic from 11 pages of text on a Wikipedia page then I did in a 16+ hour audiobook.

So what is this book, if not an in-depth study of how the American Revolution fractured families, cities and populations?

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and William Franklin (1730-1813)

It's a very good political history of the Revolutionary Era that focuses especially on Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and, to a lesser extent, John Adams. The text hums right along and it was a very good listen. This is one of the few Revolutionary War histories that I've read that actually discusses the dilemma that slaves faced in the war and the offer of freedom that the British military offered for males slaves that were willing to leave their families and volunteer. He looked at the stories of two slaves - one who fought for the British and one who ending up fighting for both sides.

All of that being said, I am going to deduct one point from what would have been a 5 star review. This book does not adequately address what the title promises.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: OUR FIRST CIVIL WAR: PATRIOTS and LOYALISTS in the AMERICAN REVOLUTION (audiobook) by H.W. Brand.

BENITO MUSSOLINI: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (World War 2 Biographies) (kindle) by Hourly History

 

Published by Hourly History in 2017.

Mussolini and Hitler in 1937.

Nowadays, Benito Mussolini is best known as Hitler's far lesser partner in the Pact of Steel (signed in 1939), the formal treaty of the Axis Powers. He is often seen as the weaker partner that may very well have drug the entire alliance down due to incompetence. 

But, back when Mussolini took power in Italy in 1922, he was seen, by some, as the vanguard of the future of political organization in Europe - a movement called fascism. He was at least begrudgingly admired by people all around the world. 

This is, perhaps, the most balanced of all of the Hourly History biographies. I was mostly interested in a brief look at how Mussolini came to power and what he did once in power. The biography was a little skimpy on Mussolini's years in power before World War II and it won't please students of the war to see how little they discuss of his wartime policies and decisions. That being said, I thought this was a pretty solid short biography. 

I rate this kindle e-book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon here: BENITO MUSSOLINI: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END by Hourly History.

THE BROKEN CONSTITUTION: LINCOLN, SLAVERY, and the REFOUNDING of AMERICA (audiobook) by Noah Feldman

 

Published in 2021 by Macmillan Audio.
Read by the author, Noah Feldman.
Duration: 11 hours, 14 minutes.
Unabridged.

In The Broken Constitution Feldman argues that the Constitution as it was known to Congressman Abraham Lincoln (he served in the Congress from 1847-1849) was already a broken Constitution and maybe had been broken since it had been ratified in 1788. What caused this break? No real surprise - slavery.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Feldman details the compromises that had been in place to induce the Southern states to join a stronger Federal union and how those compromises were re-hashed in the decades that followed in acts like the Missouri Compromise (1820), the Nullification Crisis (1832-33) and the Compromise of 1850. The Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court in 1857 only heightened tensions between the slave states and the rest of the union. Feldman's point is that if the Constitution were not already broken, these crises wouldn't have been so dramatic and wouldn't have actually have been crises.

When the Confederate states start seceding after Lincoln's 1860 Presidential election, it was really a continuation of the ongoing series of crises. Feldman details all of those crises and also tells how Lincoln's rising political career was affected by them. 

Feldman then details how Lincoln often broke the rules of the Constitution in the name of restoring U.S. Constitutional government to the Confederate states. Lincoln's political evolution during the war paved the way for the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. The 14th Amendment (1868) in particular changed the relationship between the Federal government and the citizens of the United States and made the Federal government the ultimate guarantor of Civil Rights.

This is not a book for readers who are not already very aware of the issues that created all of the crises I mentioned above and eventually caused the Civil War. Feldman spends almost no time talking about the fighting in the war. He assumes the reader knows all about them and can follow along without anything more than a reminder.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It was an interesting take.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here:  THE BROKEN CONSTITUTION: LINCOLN, SLAVERY, and the REFOUNDING of AMERICA by Noah Feldman.

KING PHILLIP II: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (Kindle) by Hourly History

 

Published in 2020 by Hourly History.

King Philip II (1527-1598) ruled Spain at its most powerful. This is the Spain that took over Portugal, consolidated its New World holdings, conquered the Philippines, stopped Ottoman naval expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean, stopped Protestant expansion in several areas yet lost the Spanish Armada to the English and suffered a series of losses in the Netherlands. It was the first that could reasonably claim that the sun never set on its empire. 

Philip's personal life takes up a lot of this book. For such a powerful man, his personal life had to humble him. He had multiple wives who died from a variety of ways, but usually related to giving birth.  He also lost several children.

His oldest son suffered from physical and mental illnesses that were so pronounced that the Philip II stepped in and barred his son from being next in line for the throne. That son died in custody, possibly by making himself ill while being held in confinement by poisoning himself or freezing himself by covering himself in ice and sleeping on beds of ice.

The beauty and the weakness of this book series is the brevity of each book. They are designed to be read in about an hour, which means I can explore a whole new area or person with little time commitment. But, I always end up with questions. In this book, Philip's self-assigned role as a defender of the Catholic faith and the politics in that arena was given light treatment.

I rate this short e-book 3 stars out of 5. Nothing wrong with this book - it doesn't make the reader an expert, but it did fill in some blanks in my personal knowledge of this time period.

This e-book can be found on Amazon.com here:  King Philip II: A Life from Beginning to End in 2020 by Hourly History.

THE DAWN of EVERYTHING: A NEW HISTORY of HUMANITY (audiobook) by David Graeber and David Wengrow

 

Published by Macmillan Audio in 2021.

Read by Mark Williams.
Duration: 24 hours, 2 minutes.
Unabridged.

In my professional life I am a high school history teacher. I don't teach it now (I teach another subject), but in the past when I taught world history I taught that the origins of civilization in the traditional way and it always goes something like this:

-At first there were wandering groups of people, probably based around 1 or 2 families. Things were fairly democratic because these groups had to talk things out to make decisions.

-Somebody along the way figured out how to domesticate a few animals.

-Somebody along the way figured out how to domesticate plants. Some small fields were started and left mostly on their own while the wandering continued with scheduled returns to the fields.

-Eventually, the fields were so productive that it made no sense to leave them.

-Populations grew, towns were developed and simple authoritarian government led by almost always by a man who served as an all-powerful king of some sort always sprang up to manage the resources, resolve property disputes, etc.

-With the exception of Athens and a few other Greek city-states, democracy was non-existent. 

The classic case for this was Egypt. The way we taught it is that it has always gone this way, pretty much without fail - like it was a law of human behavior.

In The Dawn of Everything, these authors come at this with a different perspective. They've done a lot of research and have come to the conclusion that what happened in Egypt was not only not the norm but may have been a fairly unique exception. 

The authors look at the roots for our the official history of how it had to have happened (we really have no idea how, when you think about it). They then proceed to take a long look at why it is wrong to say that all or even most civilizations followed that pattern when they adopted agriculture. 

The authors spend 24 hours of audiobook telling us something that we all should have known to begin with without being told - there is no law to human behavior in any area. Human beings continue to come up with a multitude of familial, work, governmental and religious arrangements. Is that a feature of modern man or has that been the situation all along? My vote goes to "all along."

Monks Mound at Cahokia in Illinois. It is the largest
pyramid structure in the Americas north of Mexico
and one of the largest pyramids in the world.

This audiobook is interesting and makes a serious, well-considered argument. It looks at ancient Egypt, Crete, ancient Pakistan, Turkey, Stonehenge, Ukraine, China, Japan, Cahokia near the Mississippi River in Illinois, Poverty Point, the Aztecs, the Mayas, the Inca and more. Sometimes it gets a little too detailed, especially in the first one-third of the book, but it did bring a different perspective to my view of ancient history and was well worth listening to.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE DAWN of EVERYTHING: A NEW HISTORY of HUMANITY (audiobook) by David Graeber and David Wengrow.

THE LAST BATTLE: WHEN U.S. and GERMAN SOLDIERS JOINED FORCES in the WANING HOURS of WORLD WAR II in EUROPE (audiobook) by Stephen Harding

 

Published in 2013 by Blackstone Audio.
Read by Joe Barrett.
Duration: 7 hours, 11 minutes.
Unabridged.

At the very end of World War II there was an extraordinary pairing of German soldiers and American soldiers to protect French dignitaries and celebrities being held in an Austrian castle prison.

How late was it in the war? Hitler was already dead. The Allies were well into Germany and Americans had pushed all of the way into Austria. 

But, that does not mean that the German military was without power. They had fantastic equipment and there were still plenty of "true believer" SS troops insisting that the war wasn't over - or it it was over, the Allies should pay for every inch of territory until the last German soldier fell.

The unlikely alliance happens when a Austrian-born German officer comes to an agreement with the leaders of the local anti-Nazi resistance movement in Austria. Technically, Austria was a part of Germany but it had only been a part of Germany for 7 years when Germany absorbed independent Austria. It seemed like a popular move at the time, but World War II started about a year and a half later and it had brought disaster and ruin to Austria.

Germany had converted a castle in the Austrian Alps into a prison under the supervision of the Dachau concentration camp. Multiple VIPs from France ended up at Dachau and the German supervisors realized that they couldn't just keep those VIPs in the middle of a death camp. So, they moved them to the castle. 

And, some members of the German military thought that killing off these VIPs would be a fantastic way to deliver one more bit of cruelty in an obviously lost cause. 

****

This audiobook has some issues. 

The production is fine, although I am not a big fan of the reader, Joe Barrett.

The biggest thing is the very slow pacing of the book. The title of the book is "The Last Battle" and the actual fighting is really just a few minutes of a 7 hour audiobook. I did not measure it, but my impression is that the author spent more time describing the history of the castle and various facelifts, upgrades remodels and repurposing that had been done over the years than the time he spent describing the actual fighting.

It felt like he was packing the book with filler to make it longer, like a freshman college student might do to make sure his essay is exactly a certain number of pages in length. My favorite example of this filler is the fact that the author actually took the time to note that handrails were installed on a certain staircase during a remodel in the early 1900s. That struck me as odd when I heard it (because who actually cares?) so I listened carefully for a time when the handrails might become a part of the story. I had imagined that the VIPs might have removed the handrails and used them to barricade a door or something. No luck. It was just filler.

There were long biographies of each of the French VIPs. There was no particular reason to do this. They could have been edited down because they were not important to the story except that they were the people to be rescued. Saying that they were former members of the French government and various other celebrities, including a world famous tennis star would have been enough. I guarantee that the American officers that decided to save them had less information than the author gives and those officers decided to go join forces with a German unit and go out of their way to save them.

So, I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5 because it really should have been nothing more than a very long article in a history magazine or a chapter in a book called "Improbable Stories of World War II". 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE LAST BATTLE: WHEN U.S. and GERMAN SOLDIERS JOINED FORCES in the WANING HOURS of WORLD WAR II in EUROPE (audiobook) by Stephen Harding.