SONGS of AMERICA: PATRIOTISM, PROTEST, and the MUSIC THAT MADE a NATION (audiobook) by Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw

Published in 2019 by Random House Audio.

Read by the authors, Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw.

Duration: 7 hours, 40 minutes.

Unabridged.

It turn out that historian Jon Meacham and country music star Tim McGraw are neighbors. They decided to work together on Songs of America, a book that looks at the role of music in American politics.

They start with songs of the Revolution and work their way forward, hitting songs you've heard of such as The National Anthem (War of 1812) and The Battle Hymn of the Republic (Civil War) and songs you've most likely never heard of. 

Not every song is war related. For example, the anti-lynching song Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday. There is a nicely done section comparing two still-popular songs from the 1980s - Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen and Proud to Be an American by Lee Greenwood. 

I particularly liked the juxtaposition of two Vietnam era songs: The Ballad of the Green Berets by Sgt Barry Sadler (1966) and Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival (1969) show how public perception of the war changed in three short years.

Despite the book having been released during the first Trump Administration, there is literally no mention of Donald Trump in the book.

Jon Meacham provided the bulk of the material for this book. He provided the historical context and the story behind how the song came into being. In the first 1/3 of the book, McGraw had practically no input except for reading the lyrics in a completely uninspired way. In the later sections, with more contemporary songs, McGraw's input was not only more frequent, but often more insightful.

But, the book dragged at times, especially early on. I was disappointed that there were only one or two actual pieces of music in an audiobook about music. Tim McGraw knows his way around many styles of music and I assumed that he would be at least playing the tune of the older songs. Sadly, he does not.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Songs of America: Patriotism, Protest, and the Music That Made a Nation.

COMMEMORATIVE HISTORY of the GEORGE ROGERS CLARK BICENTENNIAL EXHIBIT by The Indiana State Museum

Published in 1976 by the Indiana State Museum Society.

1976 was the bicentennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence and if you were not alive in 1976, you have no idea how much went into that recognition. Every store had special decorations, every town had commemorations, everyone had red, white, and blue clothing and this went on for a long time - not just on the Fourth of July in 1976.

Part of this ongoing celebration took place in museums. The Indiana State Museum had a 3 year exhibit on Indiana's role in the American Revolution. People remember the original thirteen colonies and correctly note that Indiana was not one of those colonies. None of Indiana's immediate neighbors were, either.

But, the modern states of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois were on the front line of a different kind of war zone during the American Revolution. There were no great ships, no massed armies, and precious few soldiers even wearing an actual uniform - but there were pitched battles. Commemorative History of the George Rogers Clark Bicentennial Exhibit tells one of the most dramatic parts of that story.

During the fighting, White towns and settlements were wiped out. Indian villages were burned to the ground. much of the fighting was due to the encouragement and financing of the British government. The British Lt. Governor in Detroit was ordered to finance Indian attacks on white settlements in an effort to start a wide ranging guerrilla war in the Ohio River Valley to distract the American colonies from the main fight on the Atlantic coast.

This was not hard to do since a low grade fight had been going on for more than a decade. In order to keep up their side of the fight, the Indians needed supplies to feed their families and weapons and the British could easily supply those. The supplies were shipped out of Detroit to a network of smaller forts in Illinois and Indiana.

George Rogers Clark figured that the way to shut down this fight was to take those British forts. He did some preliminary reconnaissance and found that they were lightly defended, depending mostly on the vast spaces of friendly Indian territory between them to protect them. He secured funding from Virginia Governor Patrick Henry to buy powder and supplies for 350 frontiersmen to attack two forts in Illinois near the Mississippi and Vincennes on the Wabash.

Clark got together about half the amount of men he thought he would need and launched his attack in 1778. He was so successful that Lt. Governor Hamilton personally led an expedition to retake Vincennes. From there, he planned a reconquest of the Illinois forts.

Clark decided that a bold move had to be taken before Hamilton could bring in more supplies, equipment, and men. Clark led a 180 mile march across southern Illinois in February of 1779 in order to surprise Hamilton. 

If you do not live in the midwest, you may not understand how truly miserable it can be in February. It may not snow much, but it will be very wet and very miserable - and it was in 1779. It wasn't cold enough to freeze, but it rained for days on end and the rivers came out of their banks. Imagine hiking nonstop through a sloppy mudhole in 35 degree weather with no dry land to be found for days on end with no modern clothing to keep you warm.

At one point their drummer boy had to cross a flooded area by using his drum as a flotation device while he kicked with his feet. The expedition ate all of their food because the floods drove away most of the wild game.

There was a reason that Hamilton felt secure in Vincennes - no one was crazy enough to march through this mess!

Clark's 170 man force surprised Hamilton and convinced him they were a much larger force through some trickery. Hamilton to surrender on February 25, 1779.

Clark's surprise attack cemented America's claim to what is now called the Old Northwest and was one of the factors that helped convince France to support the Colonies in the Revolutionary War. Clark described it this way: "Great things have been effected by a few men well conducted."

This book has a lot of photographs of items displayed in the exhibit. It also includes the illustrations commissioned for them. I found the illustrations to be helpful and interesting, although a bit retro. The strength of this small book does not lie in the pictures, however. The text is the real strength of the book. The story of the entire campaign is told in well-paced bite-sized bits. 

I rate this history 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Commemorative History of the George Rogers Clark Bicentennial Exhibit.

A completely horrible scan of this small book can be found here: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED139709. The text is legible, and that's about all that can be said for it.

TRAVELS with GEORGE: IN SEARCH of WASHINGTON and HIS LEGACY (audiobook) by Nathaniel Philbrick

Published in 2021 by Penguin Audio.
Read by the author, Nathaniel Philbrick.
Duration: 9 hours, 34 minutes.
Unabridged.

George Washington looked at the newly formed United States of America and saw what it had always been - 13 disunited states with nothing to bind them together. Washington may not have been the deepest-thinking founding father, but some things he just "knew" deep in his bones. What did he know in this case? He knew that they actually all did have something in common. They all had George Washington in common.

So, George went on a series of extended trips around the states until he had visited all 13 of them and he gave them a visible introduction/reminder (it depended on the state and the citizens) of what the new United States of America was all about. Travels with George is the story of those tours.

Each state had its own issues. For example, Rhode Island wasn't even a state when the started traveling - it was holding out. The Southern states, especially away from the ports, were always a little separate from the main political action between Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Washington was aware of this and mostly traveled over rutted, muddy, rough roads south of Virginia. This also meant he was traveling in areas that were barely mapped. That had to be tough on a man in his late fifties.

This is not just a whimsical fanboy look at this tour - it discusses the dangerous politics of the time (Rhode Island was one of the dangers) and it discusses the uncomfortable topic of slavery thoroughly and honestly in my opinion. 

This is a thoughtful and enjoyable book. I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: TRAVELS with GEORGE: IN SEARCH of WASHINGTON and HIS LEGACY by Nathaniel Philbrick.

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.

CULPER SPY RING: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END by Hourly History

 

Published by Hourly History in 2022.

The Hourly History series features e-book histories and biographies that can be read in about an hour. They are great if you want to learn more about a topic, but you don't want to read a regular-sized book or biography. Plus, they offer a set of free books every weekend so you can explore without spending a dime.

The Culper Spy Ring has become a trendy topic in Revolutionary War history (if you can have such a thing). The spy ring grew out of the need of Continental Army to keep tabs of the British forces based in New York City. The spies were untrained but clever amateurs who, over time developed fairly sophisticated techniques to deliver information, including newspaper ads, letters with invisible ink and secret codes. They used the fact that they were private citizens to their advantage by taking advantage of their normal business routes and family visits to pass along knowledge.

I was intrigued by the fact that after the war the spy ring kept their secret spy ring a secret until they died. Their roles were pieced together by historians in the 20th century. 

Hercules Mulligan, 1740-1825

I was surprised find Hercules Mulligan in the book. I was only aware of him because of my daughter's love for the Broadway musical Hamilton. Mulligan is on the edges of the action in the production (he has less than a minute of solo singing parts - here is a link to all of them put together. Be aware that Mulligan uses foul language in the musical.)

It turns out that Hercules Mulligan may be worthy of his own musical. He was a member of the Sons of Liberty and he ran a high end tailor shop that was so good that the British officers used despite his political leanings. He must have been a great conversationalist because he pumped those officers for information even after Benedict Arnold had him briefly imprisoned for being a suspected spy. He started the war as a slave owner but freed his slave Cato in 1778. He also co-founded the New York Manumission Society, a group dedicated to gradually abolishing slavery and protecting free African Americans who were wrongfully accused of being runaway slaves. 

I enjoyed this e-book quite a bit. I rate it 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: CULPER SPY RING: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END by Hourly History.

THE AMERICAN STORY: CONVERSATIONS with MASTER HISTORIANS (audiobook) by David M. Rubinstein

 

Published in 2019 by Simon and Schuster Audio.
Voice work by various historians hosted by David M. Rubinstein.
Duration: 9 hours, 52 minutes.
Unabridged.

David M. Rubinstein is an avid amateur historian and financial supporter of history-related projects. He organized a series of 16 interviews of historians by the Library of Congress with the intended audience to be actual members of Congress with invited guests. 

He picked historians who have written popular and professionally respected histories and biographies of famous Americans such as Ron Chernow (Alexander Hamilton), David McCullough (Adams and Truman), Cokie Roberts (Abigail Adams) and Doris Kearns Goodwin (Lincoln) and just let them discuss the person they studied.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

The audiobook consists of the actual audio of these interviews with a little introduction

The interviews were all solid, but could have been better if Rubinstein had not insisted on inserting himself in the middle of them so often. So many times the historian would be discussing an interesting topic and Rubinstein would interrupt to ask a question that totally changed the trajectory of the conversation. I noted to my wife that Cokie Roberts and Doris Kearns Goodwin were best at fielding his questions and then going right back to the topic they were pursuing. Perhaps they have a lot more experience with men interrupting to say something that was not relevant. 

This is still a good listen and I do recommend it. I did remove 1 star for the interruptions. Yes, I found the interruptions to be that annoying.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE AMERICAN STORY: CONVERSATIONS with MASTER HISTORIANS by David M. Rubinstein.

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.

THE 1619 PROJECT: A NEW ORIGIN STORY by Nikole Hannah-Jones and others.

 

Published in November of 2021 by Random House Audio.
Multicast Performance
Duration: 18 hours, 57 minutes.
Unabridged.

I have developed a new hobby as of late - I read books that politicians tell people they should not read. The former governor of Indiana (and later the President of Purdue University) tried to prohibit Indiana University (or anyone else) to use a well-known history book to teach anyone anywhere. I read it. The Lt. Governor of Texas cancelled a book reading about the Alamo because it was not a hero worship book. There's a politician in Texas that posted a list of 850 books that he wants to ban across the state that has provided a lot of potential reading. 

But, in the last couple of years nothing, absolutely nothing, has compared to the 1619 Project and the controversy it has generated.

If you have not heard of the original 1619 Project, you have not been paying attention to America's culture wars. President Trump hated it so much he created a commission to counter its assertions. Local school boards are assailed with parents that demand it not be used in classrooms and several state legislatures have literally outlawed its use in classrooms by name.

The 1619 Project started out as a 100 page edition of The New York Times Magazine with a theme of looking at United States history through the lens of the African American experience. This book is an expanded version of the original magazine. 

All of that controversy and I can almost 100% guarantee that no more than a handful of the people who complain and pass laws have actually read the original magazine articles.

To be fair, I didn't read the original magazine articles, either. But, I jumped at the chance to hear this audiobook.

As I stated before, it is a history of the United States told through the perspective of typical African Americans. It is not a parade of famous African Americans, like you might see during Black History Month. 

One of the complaints that many politicians make is that it is critical of America. This is a ridiculous complaint. How much of American history has been a real positive time for African Americans? I am going to address that in a ridiculous way:

1619. First Africans arrive in Virginia. They are sold as slaves.
1620. Still enslaved.

1621. Still enslaved.

1622. Still enslaved.

1623. Still enslaved.

1624. First child born to the enslaved Africans. He is the first African American. He is born enslaved.

1702. African Americans are still enslaved.

1776. Thomas Jefferson wrote: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." But, not African Americans, almost all of whom are still enslaved.

1892. African Americans are no longer enslaved. But, they have few civil rights in most states. They cannot vote in most states, they cannot sit on juries in most states. They can't even own guns in some states. Most live in a state of peonage to white landowners.

You get the idea.

This was never going to be an upbeat book. Let's face it - African Americans have gotten the short end of the stick in just about every way there has been to get the short end of the stick in American history right up to and including now. Is it better than it was in 1619? Certainly. Has America delivered on its declaration that all men are created equal? Not yet. That enduring fact is worth of comment. After all, if we don't recognize our shortcomings as a country, how can they be addressed?

My review:

The history in here is very solid. There are political complaints that it is riddled with errors and slanted. 

Here's a little secret from a history geek - all histories are slanted and riddled with errors because all historians interpret history. You can't write a complete history of, let's say, the Civil War because you can't literally include everything. You can't tell about every general, every division, every squad, every soldier and every bullet fired in every battle. There were 10,500 military engagements. You can't cover all of those in a book. Who would read a book that big? There were 50 major battles, but most histories don't even cover all of them.

Once you start cutting out parts from a history, you are interpreting it. When you decide that something is important enough to keep and other things are going to be cut from a history, you are slanting it and you are committing an error because the history is not complete. For example, everyone knows about Gettysburg - the only battle to be fought on non-slave state soil in the Civil War, right? It is in every history of the Civil War and rightly so. But, there was another battle fought on non-slave state soil 5 days after Gettysburg in Corydon, Indiana. The Confederate general was a famous one - John Hunt Morgan of Morgan's raiders. I have never read a Civil War history (I've reviewed 138 books that I've tagged "Civil War") that mentions this battle by name, even though the raid is often mentioned.  Are those histories slanted against the brave civilian militia from Indiana that tried to stop Morgan's men? No, of course not.

The 1619 Project is a history of African Americans. The traditional American heroes are not going to be heroes in this book. How can George Washington be a hero in this book when he owned African Americans and forced them to work for him under the threat of violence? How can Thomas Jefferson be a hero when he says that "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence (1776) and then complains in the same document that the British were arming escaped slaves and using them as soldiers (starting in 1775) and this made the other slaves hard to control - "He has excited domestic insurrections among us...". If all men were created equal in Jefferson's eyes, he should have been freeing and arming his own slaves. 

A frequent complaint is that The 1619 Project makes too big a deal of a British court decision that essentially outlawed slavery in the British Isles right before the tensions that created the Revolutionary War. I am sure that the colonists were aware of this case, but considering that so many of the colonists' complaints were about how the colonies were treated differently than their fellow citizens back in Britain, they must have assumed that the case simply did not and would not apply to them. It would have been a minor concern at best. But, after 1775 (see previous paragraph), it is certainly correct to say that slave owners could be worried about their slaves being taken away by British soldiers and to say that slaveowners would have been motivated to fight the British to keep their slaves.

My question is not why the court case in Britain was included in this history. It is  why haven't I heard of this case before. I have 51 books that I tagged "Revolutionary War" and this is the first I am hearing of it? It does point towards the beginnings a general trend that eventually resulted in Great Britain outlawing slavery, though.

Each chapter of the book is separated by a short work of fiction that accentuates the themes that are being explored. I literally have no problem with using fiction to accentuate history. When I taught history, I used to have my students pick out  a piece of historical fiction to read. Historical fiction can be so immersive that it makes the history seemingly come to life. But, I did not enjoy many of these interludes. There was a lot of poetry and I rarely enjoy poetry. Nothing wrong with the idea itself, but It fell very flat with me. If I had been reading a physical book, I would have skipped those sections entirely. But, I was listening to an audiobook and I had to keep listening.

I am still going to give this work a 5 star rating, though. Highly recommended, especially for those that are immediately against it because a politician or a talking head on a news channel told you it was wrong. Go to your library and read it for yourself if you are concerned about financially supporting the authors. It's okay to see history through the eyes of another culture.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE 1619 PROJECT:  A NEW ORIGIN STORY by Nikole Hannah-Jones and others.

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

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 For Liberty and Glory - 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 Boston Massacre, Paul Revere and Patrick Henry and so on and then this kid from France comes over. He and Washington bond, Lafayette makes a good showing and he helps bring the French military in to help fight the English. And, at some point Lafayette goes away and doesn't come back until 1824.

I knew Lafayette was involved with the French Revolution, but my interest in the French Revolution is not strong (to me, it's a story that starts out well and then, all of a sudden, mobs are carrying heads and body parts around screaming for more blood and ends with a dictator that attacks every country in Europe, parts of Africa and even Haiti). So, I simply lost track of him. I asked someone who was a French Revolution buff what happened to Lafayette and the short answer was: "It didn't go well for him" with no elaboration.

So, this book looked like it would answer that question. It is a double biography of Washington and Lafayette as well as a double history of the American Revolution and the French Revolution. It is certainly not the definitive biography of either man or the definitive history of either revolution. But, it is immensely readable. I enjoyed it.

Turns out that I learned a lot about Lafayette. For example, his first name is Gilbert. Yeah, that seems trivial, but I've never heard him referred to as anything but Lafayette or the Marquis de Lafayette (almost like "Marquis" was his first name).

Lafayette was in love with the concept of the American Revolution from the

moment he heard of it. This teenager was so excited by the prospect of assisting in the war that he came here against the orders of the King's advisors - they had ordered all of the potential volunteers to stay in France. But, Lafayette and a few others crossed the border to Spain. Lafayette bought his own ship, sailed to South Carolina and eventually became an American hero - a Founding Father of sorts with more than 400 towns named after him. In my own state (Indiana) we have two cities and one county named after him.

Lafayette returned to France and was caught up in the French Revolution. The phrase "caught up" makes it sound like he was passive. Hardly. He co-wrote the most famous document of the French Revolution - the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. He created the modern French flag by combining the flag of Paris with the flag of the King of France. He helped save Louis XVI's life at one point and ended up languishing in a foreign prison for five years because of his role in the Revolution. He was offered the chance to be dictator at one point, and like his friend and hero George Washington, he turned it down. Bonaparte would not turn it down when he was offered that chance. But, Lafayette had a hand in Bonaparte's political demise in 1815 (after Waterloo). The luster of his name helped to carry the day.

Speaking of Bonaparte, Lafayette knew him personally. He knew so many big names in his life - George Washington, Victor Hugo, Marie Antoinette, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Victor Hugo, Louis XVI, Andrew Jackson, Alexis de Tocqueville, James Monroe, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and more.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. A must read if you are a student of the American Revolution and the early years of America's independence. Gaines has made this very approachable and writes in a lively manner.

It can be found on Amazon.com here: FOR LIBERTY and GLORY: WASHINGTON, LAFAYETTE, and THEIR REVOLUTIONS by James R. Gaines.

THE HESSIAN by Howard Fast

Originally published in 1972.

Howard Fast (1914-2003) was a prolific author with a particular love of historical fiction. He is most famous for the novel Spartacus, the book that the famous movie is based on.

The Hessian is set in rural Connecticut late in the Revolutionary War. The war has moved on south of Connecticut. The main character is Dr. Feversham, a veteran of the Revolutionary War and wars in Europe who is sick to death of war. He is not a particularly pleasant man. He is a lapsed Catholic while most of his neighbors are Protestants. There is also a scattering of Quakers in the area.

A British ship dropped off a squad of 16 Hessians who cause a panic. Hessians are German soldiers hired by the British to help supplement their soldiers during the Revolutionary War. They were particularly hated and feared because they were mercenaries (and they fought very well). The Americans could understand why the British fought, but what was the motivation of soldiers who were rented out by their lord back in The Holy Roman Empire?

The reason for this mission by the Hessians is never discovered, but they do hang a local man during their march. He was a simpleminded fellow who barely knew how to speak. He was following them because they were new and interesting. The Hessians seem to have killed him because he might be a spy, but it was just as likely that they did it because he was annoying and this was a war zone.

The local militia forms up to go after them and, using their superior knowledge of the countryside, they successfully surprised them and wiped out the whole force - except for the teenaged drummer boy who ran away.

The drummer boy shows up at a Quaker home in need of medical care. The Quakers do what all Quakers would do - they assist him and bring in the doctor. Being pacifists, they are not part of the war, but they do help those in need.

And that is the problem - is he a boy or a soldier? Is he lost and in need of help or is he a soldier looking to rejoin the rest of his army? Is he responsible for the murder of the mentally disabled man?

This book has moments of greatness in it. The premise is a powerful one and worthy of a book. But, there is annoying subplot about the doctor's marriage and his attraction to another woman that distract from the issue at hand. 

Also, in this book Howard Fast has a really bad habit of having long threads of dialogue without identifying who is speaking. Multiple times I had to go back and re-read these passages just to figure out who was saying what to whom. Even worse, sometimes he ends such a conversation and with a short sentence goes right into another one. At one point I was wondering why the doctor was having an argument about his love life with the family gardener until I realized that the conversation had changed with very little warning.

So, I am sorry to say that the book does not live up to its potential. I rate it 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE HESSIAN by Howard Fast. 

FOR the COMMON DEFENSE: A MILITARY HISTORY of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA by Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski

Originally published in 1984 by The Free Press.

Note: This is a review of the original version of this book, published in 1984 and ending with the first Reagan administration. It has been expanded and updated to include events up to 2012.

Way back in my undergrad days at Indiana University I took a class called American Military History. It was taught by a visiting professor from West Point and FOR the COMMON DEFENSE: A MILITARY HISTORY of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA was an excellent choice for the text for the class.

For 30+ years I have carried this book around with me - through 5 different moves and who knows how many book shelves this book was the anchor of my history section because it is quite beefy. But, I decided it was time to clear out some books. Technically, this book was a re-read but I didn't really remember anything from all of those years ago so...

The book starts with colonial defense and moves along with the same format up through the early 1980's. There is a chapter about a war or conflict followed by a chapter on the interwar years followed by a chapter on the next war or conflict. 

Soldiers in the Korean War in 1950.

Each chapter is about 30 pages with a bibliography, with the exception of World War II and the Civil War - they are each covered by two chapters. 

Generally speaking, the war chapters are more interesting than the interwar chapters. The interwar chapters can get bogged down in detailed discussion of the upper level command structure of the military (Joint Chiefs of Staff, the role of the Secretary of War/Defense, etc.) , but I found the interwar chapter that covered Reconstruction and the Gilded Age to be one of the best in the book. 

It is striking to read how American defense policy changed radically after World War II and the book provides little discussion of those changes, it just notes that they happened.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: FOR the COMMON DEFENSE: A MILITARY HISTORY of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA by Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski.

AMERICAN HERITAGE: GREAT MINDS of HISTORY interviews by Roger Mudd

Published in 1999 by Wiley and Sons.

Roger Mudd, formerly of CBS and NBC news, interviewed five historians about their special topics of expertise. They are all solid interviews that allow the historians to tell why their topics are important. Mudd does a great job of letting the interviews flow along a natural conversational path, but he does interrupt with questions that ask for clarification or challenge a point.

The historians are: Gordon Wood discussing the American Revolution; James McPherson discussing the Civil War; Richard White discussing Westward Expansion; David McCullough discussing the Industrial Era; and Stephen Ambrose discussing World War II/Eisenhower/Nixon.

This was a lot like sitting down with a talented professor in a coffee shop and letting him/her go on about their favorite topic. They weren't lectures, but more like a conversation. I know the work of four of these five historians and have read quite a bit of McCullough, Ambrose and McPherson.

McPherson is my favorite of these three since he and I share a deep interest in the Civil War. I was surprised to learn that he came to study the Civil War later than I thought. McCullough's interview is interesting because of his wide-ranging interests. He discussed the Industrial Era, but he has done a lot of work outside of that time as well, including a great biography of Truman and a history of just the year 1776 during the American Revolution. Ambrose's interview very much felt like my previous impressions of Ambrose - great historian, occasionally a prickly personality.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. Very enjoyable read. It can be found on Amazon.com here: AMERICAN HERITAGE: GREAT MINDS of HISTORY interviews by Roger Mudd.

THE FIRST EMANCIPATOR: THE FORGOTTEN STORY of ROBERT CARTER the FOUNDING FATHER WHO FREED HIS SLAVES by Andrew Levy

Published by Random House in 2005.

Robert Carter holds a unique place in American history. He was a massively successful plantation owner in the Revolutionary War generation. He knew and worked with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the Virginia legislature. He was not particularly effective as a politician, but he was effective at something that all of the above failed at.

He freed his 450+ slaves while he was still alive and managed to keep his fortune and his property.

He did it over a series of years, but he did it. Thomas Jefferson thought that it couldn't be done and often wrote about the quandary he found himself in. A good student of American history will remember that Washington freed his slaves - but that was after the death of Martha Washington. Carter did it while he was alive.

Carter's motivations seem to have been a combination of religious ideals and political ideals, motivated by such things as the soaring rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence.

The problem is that history has forgotten Robert Carter. There is only one little historical marker that marks where he used to live but doesn't mention the emancipation of his slaves. One-fourth of the marker is about a tutor he brought in to teach his children. It's almost like everyone wanted to forget what Carter did with his slaves.

This book was a difficult read - partially due to the lack of information about Carter and partially because Andrew Levy tried to stretch that scant information out far enough to make a book. The book looks bigger than it really is - it has 195 pages of text and 105 pages of acknowledgments, notes, a bibliography and an index.

The book itself was not particularly well-written. I was immensely interested in this topic and it still felt like it was a slog.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE FIRST EMANCIPATOR: THE FORGOTTEN STORY of ROBERT CARTER the FOUNDING FATHER WHO FREED HIS SLAVES by Andrew Levy.

INVENTING FREEDOM: HOW the ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES MADE the MODERN WORLD by Daniel Hannan

Published by Broadside Books (a division of HarperCollins) in 2013.

Daniel Hannan is a prominent Conservative Party author and politician in the UK. His book Inventing Freedom is a celebration of the political ideas that are the foundation of what he calls the "Anglosphere".

Hannan's thesis is that the idea of government based on an evolving body of law (he probably would hate the fact that I used the word evolving, but that is what the English Common Law is) that values the rights of the individual before the rights of the state and its leaders is an English invention that has spread and amplified throughout the "Anglosphere". This type of government encourages capitalism due to its influence on the individual.

The Anglosphere consists of The United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and, to a lesser extent, other former British colonies that comprise the Commonwealth. These include Kenya, South Africa, India and dozens of more countries.

The United States is included in the Anglosphere and holds a unique position in Hannan's book. He considers the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution to the be the epitome of Anglosphere political theory. He also notes that the United Kingdom learned many lessons from the loss of the American colonies at the end of the American Revolution. The Anglosphere's most influential country is the United States, despite not being a member of the Commonwealth.

The book starts out strong as it emphasizes the common traits of the Anglosphere and their origins in English history. I would give the first third of the book 5 stars. It hums along and offers a fascinating take on the historical development of democracy and capitalism. It includes a very strong look at the development of the English parliamentary system.

The middle of the book gets bogged down in the minutiae of struggles over the English throne (Bonnie Prince Charlie, Oliver Cromwell, various Irish uprisings). The history is slow-paced, often repetitive and, I think, surprisingly dismissive of Irish complaints over the centuries.

If the author is dismissive of the Irish, he is enamored with the United States - to a point. It is clear that he loves my country from afar. He loves the theory of America more than actual American history. He quotes historical facts that didn't really happen, such as his claim that the American word "hillbilly" comes as a reference to the Battle of Boyne and a victory by King William III in 1690. He claims that residents of Appalachia would gather and march in remembrance of the victory every July 12. I simply cannot imagine that this would ever happen. No one in Appalachia cares a wit about a dead English king enough to march around to celebrate his victory, certainly not after the American Revolution. Or maybe they were supposed to be mourning his victory. I don't know, I lost track of what king was fighting what pretender to the throne.  Besides, the first time this supposedly old word ever appeared in print was in 1898 - more than 200 years after the battle.

When it comes to the Boston Tea Party, he misses the point completely. He notes that the taxes on tea were actually lowered before the Boston Tea Party but perhaps he doesn't realize that the same legislative flurry that lowered taxes on tea also made it legal to only purchase from a single vendor that set an artificially high price. The government giveth and the government taketh away.

He studies the larger conflicts within the Anglosphere (the English Civil War, the American Revolution) but is surprisingly silent on the American Civil War - the bloodiest conflict in American history (equal to all of our other wars COMBINED).  This war has often been labeled as THE most important event in the history of the United States and the author labeled the United States as THE must important member of the Anglosphere at this time. I expected more than a few random comments.

The author, Daniel Hannan.
Photo by Gage Skidmore

In one of those comments he claims the Confederacy tried to save itself by asking Queen Victoria to extend her protectorate over the the rebellious states. I have been studying the American Civil War for 30 years and I have never heard this before. It doesn't make any sense. One of the cornerstones of the Confederacy was slavery and by the 1860's, the English navy had been actively seizing slave ships for 50 years in an active attempt to stop the Atlantic slave trade. Slavery was the main reason the English didn't recognize the Confederacy - the English public wouldn't let them, especially after the Emancipation Proclamation.

I strongly agree with the author on his enthusiasm for bringing India more closely into the Anglosphere. India is a stable democracy, has a commitment to multiculturalism and is becoming more capitalistic. Bringing 1 billion more people who share many of your values into closer political and economic cooperation can only be a plus. Sadly, the last two Presidents (Trump and Obama) have mostly ignored India.

So, the short version - the book starts out strong, gets bogged down in English dynastic struggles, gets repetitive and ignores most of American history after the Revolutionary War era. I agree with the thesis of the book, but it needed editing and fact-checking. All of that makes it tough to rate, but I am going to give the edge to the strong thesis and rate it 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: INVENTING FREEDOM: HOW the ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES MADE the MODERN WORLD.

APRIL MORNING: A NOVEL by Howard Fast

Originally published in 1961.

Howard Fast (1914-2003) was a prolific writer (more than 60 novels, plus scores of short stories, plays, articles and histories). He is most famous work is Spartacus, the novel that inspired the iconic movie by Stanley Kubrick.

April Morning is my second Howard Fast novel and if you throw in Spartacus you see a trend in Howard Fast's books - he likes to tell the story of the underdog who fights back.

In this novel, the underdogs are the colonists of Massachusetts. The April morning in the title is the day that the British army moved on the stores of gunpowder in Concord, Massachusetts. This is when Paul Revere makes his famous ride. This action is now known as The Battles of Lexington and Concord. The book takes place in and around Lexington.

Adam Cooper is a fifteen year old boy in 1775 and the troubles of Boston with the British Redcoats seems a world away. His father is deeply involved with the committees that try to workout a common response to the British government. When the British army marches towards Concord with nearly 1,000 trained regulars, the local militia forms up to confront them. The militia musters only 77 men, many with small hunting weapons.

15 year old Adam Cooper is in that militia...

This was a truly great novel. As I previously noted, this is only my second Howard Fast novel, but it won't be my last. He had a real knack for making the characters seem real and believable. His characterization of 15 year old Adam is perfect.

The book does not glorify war in any way. It can be graphic. The fighting has real-life consequences. Some of the passages were quite touching. 

Others passages were cleverly observant. I liked this line on page 88: "Blame the devil, Reverend, but I tell you that three-quarters of the misery of mankind is the result of plain damned foolishness."

I rate this novel 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: April Morning: A Novel.

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

Published in 2018 by Penguin Audio.
Read by Ari Fliakos.
Duration: 13 hours, 40 minutes.
Unabridged.

Simply described, The War Before the War 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 kicked it down the road for later generations to deal with. By the 1850's the problem had come to a head. Interestingly, the thing that brought it to a head was a problem that rarely happened - what to do with runaway slaves.

When compared to the total slave population, very few slaves actually escaped and almost none made it to a free state. But, when a slave was caught in a free state, the media made a story out of it. Who can blame them? It was a riveting story. What was more important - property rights of the individual slave owner or the rights of a man to have his day in court to prove that he was actually a free man in court before he was taken away into bondage? What was more important - the right of a state to protect the property rights of its slaveholders throughout the country or the rights of a free state to declare slavery null and void within its borders?

When a slave was caught in the north and the process started to take him or her back to slavery the political system would often boil over. Both sides came to out, protested, wrote letters to the editor, gave speeches in Congress and generally used the occasion to rally their bases. The author makes a valuable point when he points out this is the same thing that modern political movements do (Black Lives Matter, Pro- and Anti-Abortion activists, immigration, etc.).

The book also looks at what individuals did when confronted with these problems. I was particularly struck by the judge that returned slaves in his courtroom but allowed his home to be used as an Underground Railroad stop by his grown children. He didn't actively help - he just actively ignored the extra people sleeping in his house from time to time.

This is an amazing book. I didn't think I could really learn a lot more about this topic. This will be my 108th review of a book that will be tagged "civil war" and the 77th book that will be tagged "slavery". But, seeing it all laid out in one big sweep is powerful. A great follow-up would be this book: Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865.

The audiobook was read by Ari Fliakos who did a fantastic job.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. Strongly recommended.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE WAR BEFORE the WAR: FUGITIVE SLAVES and the STRUGGLE for AMERICA'S SOUL from the REVOLUTION to the CIVIL WAR by Andrew Delbanco.

DECLARATION: THE NINE TUMULTUOUS WEEKS WHEN AMERICA BECAME INDEPENDENT, MAY 1 - JULY 4, 1776 by William Hogeland

Published in 2010 by Simon and Schuster

When you read the history books, it seems obvious that the colonies steadily worked their way up to declaring their independence without much of a hitch.

The beauty of William Hogeland's Declaration is that he shows that it was a lot closer than the history books usually portray. Samuel Adams and his cousin John Adams maneuvered many of the representatives to the Continental Congress into voting for independence and certainly manipulated the government of Pennsylvania. In fact, you could make the case that they toppled the government of Pennsylvania through a powerful media campaign combined with timely advice and political pressure and installed a pro-independence government just in time for the fateful vote.

But, this new (to me) information was marred by a difficult to read text. The book just bounced around - the writing style just never got into a flow. I found it hard to read more than a page or two at a time.

Samuel Adams (1722-1803)

On top of that, there are 56 pages of end notes with commentary. If this book were published back in the "bad old days" when typesetting was labor intensive, I would understand why it was done as end notes - it was a pain to work out all of the foot notes. But, in today's world, almost all of the complicated work of footnotes is done by a computer. If it is worth the author's time to make 56 pages of commentary in your end notes, it is worth turning them in to foot notes so that people will actually read them.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5 - interesting information, poorly presented.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Declaration: The Nine Tumultuous Weeks When America Became Independent, May 1 - July 4, 1776.