ON TYRANNY: TWENTY LESSONS from the TWENTIETH CENTURY by Timothy Snyder

 

Published in 2017 by Tim Duggan Books, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Timothy Snyder is a historian that specializes in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1930's and 1940's. This coincides with the rise of the Nazis in Germany the rise of the USSR as a world power. 

In On Tyranny, Snyder has written up several mini essays about the dangers that he sees in modern day politics that are actually echoes from the past. Or, as he puts it: "History can familiarize, and it can warn." (p. 11) He also warns, "We might be tempted to think that our democratic heritage automatically protects us from such threats. This is a misguided reflex." (p.13)

The author, Timothy Snyder

Snyder is clearly warning against the movement that brought Donald Trump to the Presidency, but as a Never Trump Republican, I am of the opinion that both parties do all twenty of these things. But, I am a Never Trump Republican because I am certain that Donald Trump went and keeps going too far. 

In his 5th point, Snyder reminds his readers to remember their professional ethics as a bulwark against authoritarianism. For example, judges need to stay fair and follow the law even if a ruling would reward the President who appointed them. Plenty of  judges that were appointed by Donald Trump wouldn't change their rulings when it came to overturning election results. Attorney General Jeff Sessions wouldn't change his mind about recusing himself from Justice Department Investigations and Vice President Mike Pence would not assert a Constitutional right he clearly does not have in order to stop the Electoral College from voting on January 6. 

His 6th point is to "Be Wary of Paramilitaries", especially when the groups that "...have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh." (p. 42) Witness the Proud Boys and similar groups and the January 6 attack in D.C.

There are 18 other points, some with just some good basic advice like "Contribute to Good Causes" because it helps civil society and keeps the basic building blocks of society strong. Another bit of good advice is to be a patriot, not a nationalist. There's a massive difference.

This small book is a quick, thought-provoking read.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: ON TYRANNY: TWENTY LESSONS from the TWENTIETH CENTURY by Timothy Snyder.

ARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTION to the WORLD'S GREATEST SITES (audiobook) by Eric H. Cline

 

Published in 2016 by The Great Courses.

Read by the author, Eric H. Cline.

Duration: 12 hours, 37 minutes.
Unabridged.

Eric H. Cline is a well-respected and highly experienced archaeologist who is a professor at George Washington University. He has excavated at several sites for a total of 30 seasons, doing everything from being an inexperienced newbie to being Co-Director of well-established sites.

Turns out that Cline is also a very likable guy who does a good job of explaining archaeological techniques. He tells about a number of sites that he worked on and some of the most famous digs in history (King Tut's tomb, Troy) in the first half of the book. It was a bit frustrating for me because they were all within 100 miles of the Mediterranean Sea. 

In the second half of the book, Cline tells about other digs around the world - Machu Pichu, the Terracotta soldiers, Teotihuacan and more. 

On the whole, this was a pleasant if not particularly riveting listen as an audiobook. I rate it 4 stars out of 5.

It can be found on Amazon.com here: ARCHAEOLOGY:  AN INTRODUCTION to the WORLD'S GREATEST SITES (audiobook) by Eric H. Cline.

ZONE ONE: A NOVEL by Colson Whitehead

Originally published in 2011 by Doubleday.

I don't often read zombie novels. I have reviewed 1600+ books and this is only my second one featuring zombies. They're not really my thing, but I figured that if an author who won two Pulitzer Prizes wrote a zombie book, it must be worth reading.

I was wrong.

The premise behind ZONE ONE is quite good, but it is an over-written mess.

Mark Spitz (a nickname) is a man who has gone through his life as a B/B+ type of guy. Never the smartest guy in class, never the first guy picked to play for the schoolyard games, but certainly not close to the last. He kind of floats through life being "good enough."

The reader meets Mark Spitz well into the Zombie Apocalypse. He is working as part of a mopping up crew in New York City. He and his crew are seeking out Zombies that the military may have missed in their sweep through the city. The worst of the Zombie attacks has passed and a provisional government is working out of Buffalo, New York. 

This new government is very concerned with crafting a narrative of the recovery - a narrative of hope and rebuilding with an official theme song and heroes and brand name sponsors and news from all of the other little colonies that it has established on the East Coast.

But, there are rumblings that things aren't going according to the plan...

My take: 

Whitehead has said that he was inspired by his childhood love of Stephen King and Isaac Asimov. King's The Stand is certainly a benchmark to judge all "end of the world" books by, but his lesser-known Cell has the most in common with this book. 

Cell has a focused plot with little character development (a rarity for King). Zone One's plot is constantly interrupted with flashbacks - some fill in important gaps, some seemingly just to fill up some pages. That's not quite fair, but the incessant flashbacks just ruined the momentum of the story. I think it would have been better if he had just cut the book up into its little narrative chunks and placed them in chronological order.

For a reason that is never explained, this new government is obsessed with re-
establishing New York City. As one of the most crowded urban environments in the United States, I would think that NYC would be a horrible place for a fledgling government to spend its limited resources. High urban populations would mean more zombies per city block. Why not just stay in Buffalo and take over Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, areas with low populations and less zombies? I guess it was more of the symbolism over substance pattern that this new government had already exhibited. Yes, re-establishing NYC would be a major feat, but would it be worth the cost? I think it is really a product of Whitehead leading a NYC-centric life, almost like he couldn't imagine that they would abandon New York City and head to West Virginia or Arkansas or South Dakota. 

On a different note, my edition of this book (first edition) was written in a font that I found very hard to read - tiny and very busy. 

I rate this novel 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: ZONE ONE: A NOVEL by Colson Whitehead.

CONFEDERATE GENERALS of the CIVIL WAR (Collective Biographies series) by Carl R. Green and William R. Sanford

 

Published in 1998 by Enslow Publishers, Inc.

Part of a series of 8 books, Confederate Generals of the Civil War was intended to be a classroom or school media center supplement for students to use as a resource. It is not a large book - 112 pages including a glossary, some charts comparing the the Union and the Confederacy, 2 maps and a timeline of the Civil War.

There are 10 biographies, arranged in alphabetical order. Each biography is 8-9 pages, including a photograph of the general and a related picture (photo of a battlefield, drawing of a battle scene, etc.). 

The biographies themselves are pretty neutral, although it does take some mild stands on a few controversial items. It states in a matter of fact manner that Robert E. Lee was anti-slavery (It was definitely more complicated than that). It puts a lot of blame for Pickett's Charge on Longstreet, not on Lee. And, it gets sappily sentimental in the last paragraph of Pickett's biography. I would rate it as very mildly slanted towards the old "Lost Cause" theory of the war (the three areas I mentioned are all at the heart of the theory), but not fatally so. 

The featured generals are:

Nathan Bedford Forrest;

William Joseph Hardee;

A.P. Hill;

John Bell Hood;

"Stonewall" Jackson;

Confederate General George Pickett
(1825-1875)

Joseph Johnston;

Robert E. Lee;

James Longstreet;

George Pickett;
J.E.B. Stuart

Other books in the series include a collection of biographies of Union Generals, "Women in America's Wars" and "American Heroes of Exploration and Flight".

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. The biographies are just not all that interesting out of context. This book can be found on Amazon.com here:CONFEDERATE GENERALS of the CIVIL WAR (Collective Biographies series) by Carl R. Green and William R. Sanford.

SILVERFIN: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL (A James Bond Adventure #1) by Charlie Higson and Kev Walker

 

Published by Disney Hyperion Books in 2008

Silverfin is the first of 9 books in the Young Bond graphic novel series. Bond's parents are dead due to an accident during while exploring. His aunt and uncle (a former spy) have sent Bond to the super-elite boarding school Eton College (ages 13-18) which has long been known as a school for multiple royal families and future military and political leaders. 

One of James Bond's signature lines being used
as he arrives at Eton.

Bond makes one really good friend and also one really devoted enemy who really tries his best to be James Bond's bully. When the term is over, he goes home to the family manor in Scotland and, as happens so often in teen movies and TV shows, he finds out that his wannabe bully lives fairly close by. In this case, the wannabe bully's family just bought a manor in the area. That could be rough - but it turns out that this manor is thought to be the source of a lot of strange activities that have been going on in the area and Bond wants to check it out...

The only real problem that I have with this graphic novel is that it is incredibly fast-paced. Bond makes a friend at school - all we know about him is that he is smart, nice, a bit pudgy and from India. What else about his schooling at Eton? There seem to be a lot of physical contests. I assume that Eton had something to do with Bond's adult adventures.

I also assume that the writers of the first book wanted to emphasize the action and that required a Bond-type villain for Bond to fight and that required the plot to move very quickly in order to do some literary world-building to set the scene. It might have been better to build the world a bit more and then have a small confrontation at the end with the hint of an even larger confrontation to come. But, that's neither here nor there since this book was printed 13 years ago.

All that being said, it was an entertaining story. Notice my complaints with the story are only that it was paced too fast - the underlying story is solid and full of good characters. Kev Walker's illustrations are almost always clear and easy to follow and the multitude of new characters are easy to tell apart. 

I rate this graphic novel 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: SILVERFIN: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL (A James Bond Adventure #1) by Charlie Higson and Kev Walker.

THE ANTHROPOCENE REVIEWED: ESSAYS on a HUMAN-CENTERED PLANET (audiobook) by John Green

 

Published in 2021 by Penguin Audio.
Read by the author, John Green.
Duration: 10 hours, 3 minutes.
Unabridged.

This collection of essays is, from what I understand, mostly a re-working of essays that Green has published on his blog or his YouTube channel. However, they were all new to me because I haven't seen more than a few snippets of his videos that my oldest daughter has shown me. 

I know a bit about John Green because I live in Indianapolis, which is my adopted hometown just like it is John Green's adopted hometown. Green doesn't go out of his way to make his presence felt in his adopted hometown, but he is our current well-known author, replacing Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) with a completely different kind of vibe. Vonnegut gives off a whip-smart angry feeling with sarcasm to spare. Very clever. Green gives off a smart, understanding melancholy feeling. Just as smart as Vonnegut, but different. Vonnegut grew up here and moved away. He was always proud to be FROM Indianapolis but never lived here as an adult. Green grew up other places and is glad to live IN Indianapolis. 

The premise of this book is that it is a series of Amazon-type reviews of items from the Anthropocene Era (a term for the era of Earth since humans arrived on the scene, like the Jurassic or the Cretaceous). Green dislikes the 5 star review system and he assigns the different topics he writes about a different star value.

This collection of essays can be very personal. Green is very open about his personal struggles with depression, a discussion that makes you feel like you are being brought in close, like a friend, as you listen to the audiobook. His style comes off as very conversational, like a friend is telling you a story. All that's missing is the reader occasionally saying things like "Uh-huh" and "Really?" from time to time.

The World's Largest Ball of Paint in Alexandria, IN.
My family painted this yellow layer. Wondering why I
included this picture? It all makes sense if you read
this book. 

Green writes about a wide variety of topics, including the Academic Decathalon, Diet Dr. Pepper, Canada Geese, the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, Sunsets, CNN, The Smallpox Vaccine, Sycamore Trees, The World's Largest Ball of Paint, Super Mario Kart, Indianapolis, the Indy 500, and Piggly Wiggly. Some are basically information about a topic, some like the Super Mario Kart essay have a nice twist of political commentary at the end that make you think.

This is generally not a funny book, but there are parts that are literally laugh out loud funny. I laughed so hard that I cried during his essay enititled "Mortification". On the other hand, "Sycamore Trees" came very close to making me cry from his poignant commentary on living life with depression. We have a daughter that deals with depression and it struck home to me in a very personal way. When I finished hearing it as I was driving, I immediately called my wife and told her that she had to read it right away.

Highly Recommended. 5 stars out of 5.  I may be coming back to this one in a couple of years for a re-read. 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here:THE ANTHROPOCENE REVIEWED: ESSAYS on a HUMAN-CENTERED PLANET (audiobook) by John Green.

ROBERT E. LEE and ME: A SOUTHERNER'S RECKONING with the MYTH of the LOST CAUSE by Ty Seidule

 

Published in 2021 by Macmillan Audio.

Read by the author, Ty Seidule.

Duration: 10 Hours, 45 minutes.
Unabridged

I have been studying the Civil War since I was in college 35+ years ago. My thoughts on Robert E. Lee have evolved over the years. I used to be a lightweight proponent of the Lost Cause theory of the Civil War. I never was comfortable with the concept of slaves being content with slavery, but I certainly believed that the Southern officers were generally a noble and heroic lot when compared to the Union officers and the most noble and heroic officer of them all was Robert E. Lee. 

My thoughts the war and Lee have changed as I have read more and gotten older and perhaps a bit wiser. This book will be the 131st book I have reviewed that has been tagged "Civil War" and the 42nd book tagged "Robert E. Lee". I have widened my readings to include more of the Antebellum Period and more of the Reconstruction Era. Reading the Declarations of Causes of Seceding States (documents designed to be much like the United States' Declaration of Independence in 1776) gave me additional insight. I like to think I have picked up a more informed perspective.

Ty Seidule

This mirrors the shift in perspective that the author of Robert E. Lee and Me went through, although his was certainly more dramatic. He grew up in the South and Robert E. Lee was his hero. It was only when he was a history professor at West Point that he started to think about Robert E. Lee and what he actually did.

Seidule doesn't come at this topic as an outsider. He is a retired Brigadier General who served with the 82nd Airborne and as a member of the 81st Armor Regiment. He is a career Army man, something he notes over and over again. But, being a career Army man doesn't mean that he supports everything the Army has ever done - it means that he wants to support what the Army does right and fix what it does wrong and honoring Confederate leaders like Robert E. Lee is certainly wrong.

Seidule notes that moves to honor Confederate leaders tended to follow Civil Rights advances, as a pushback against them. Despite being a former head of West Point, Lee was practically purged from the facility after the Civil War. But, when black students started being appointed to West Point, Southerners began to push for naming things after Robert E. Lee, mirroring a phenomenon in the larger American culture. 

But, Seidule goes farther and looks at Robert E. Lee as an officer of the U.S. Army. He notes that with every promotion, an officer takes an oath. Lee took this oath many times, including a little more than 3 weeks before the resigned to join the Confederacy (he was promoted to colonel on March 28 and resigned on April 20). Seidule has no tolerance for oathbreaking. He now finds it ironic that he proudly took his first oath at Washington and Lee University next to a memorial to Robert E. Lee.

There is a frequently made argument that Lee resigned to defend his state and that most officers did. Seidule dug through the Army records and discovered there were fifteen colonels from states that seceded in the U.S. Army before the Civil War (remember - the Army was much, much smaller back then). Twelve of the fifteen remained with the Union. Of those fifteen colonels, eight were from Virginia. Only one colonel from Virginia resigned to join the Confederacy - Robert E. Lee. 

Seidule's book looks at the entire "Lost Cause of the Confederacy" phenomenon that excused the Confederacy from any wrong-doing, downplays the central role of slavery in the conflict and similarly downplays the evils of slavery itself.

I leave this review with a comment for Union General George H. Thomas, a Virginian who stayed with the Union, provided an early Union victory, saved the Union Army from certain destruction at Chickamagua, participated in capture of Atlanta and literally destroyed a Confederate Army at Franklin, Tennessee:

[T]he greatest efforts made by the defeated insurgents since the close of the war have been to promulgate the idea that the cause of liberty, justice, humanity, equality, and all the calendar of the virtues of freedom, suffered violence and wrong when the effort for southern independence failed. This is, of course, intended as a species of political cant, whereby the crime of treason might be covered with a counterfeit varnish of patriotism, so that the precipitators of the rebellion might go down in history hand in hand with the defenders of the government, thus wiping out with their own hands their own stains; a species of self-forgiveness amazing in its effrontery, when it is considered that life and property—justly forfeited by the laws of the country, of war, and of nations, through the magnanimity of the government and people—was not exacted from them.

— George Henry Thomas, November 1868

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. Highly Recommended. 

It can be found on Amazon.com here: ROBERT E. LEE and ME: A SOUTHERNER'S RECKONING with the MYTH of the LOST CAUSE by Ty Seidule.