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.

INDIANA from the AIR by Richard Fields and Hank Huffman

 

Published in 1996 by Indiana University Press and Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

From 1993 to 1995 the two authors combined to take pictures of Indiana from an Indiana Department of Natural Resources helicopter - one was the pilot and one was the photographer.

They chose 100 pictures of the state for this coffee table book. There are 92 counties in Indiana, but there is not a picture of each county. However, these pictures are a good representative sample of the state ranging from the Indiana Dunes on Lake Michigan to the fossil bed at the Falls of the Ohio. The pictures include urban areas, suburbs, small towns, farms and pictures of Indiana's understated beauty. There are no commanding views like the Grand Canyon or the Rockies, but it is beautiful in its own way.

Since the book is more than 25 years old, it was interesting to note some of the changes. The Indianapolis skyline has changed with the addition of at least two very large buildings on either side of downtown. The photograph featuring the campus of IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis) is, I am pleased to say, very out of date. That university has really expanded and come into its own in the last 25 years. The West Baden Springs Hotel is pictured as it used to be - an abandoned but still glorious piece of architecture. Now, it is completely restored and very high class working hotel. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. I liked the book, but I would have made an effort to have a wider variety and included architectural gems like Columbus and Indiana University - Bloomington. 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here:  INDIANA from the AIR by Richard Fields and Hank Huffman.

FRANCISCO FRANCO: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

 

Published in 2017 by Hourly History.

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 in. Francisco Franco was one of those people for me. 

I came into this biography knowing only the barest of facts about the long-time dictator of Spain. Franco ruled from 1939 until his death in 1975. This biography spends little time on his early life and could have expanded on the Spanish Civil War that brought him to power. For example, the most famous image of the war is the painting Guernica. 

Guernica by Pablo Picasso (1937)

Guernica is one of the most famous paintings of the 20th century. It depicts the chaos of an attack by the German air force on the city of Guernica. Guernica was holding out against Franco's forces and Franco enlisted German help to deal with the city. German and Italian bomber planes tried out the relatively new technology in real life. Pablo Picasso painted Guernica to protest the attack and had it displayed at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris. Because of that, perhaps the most famous artist in the world and perhaps the most famous citizen of Spain was not allowed to return to Spain because of Franco. Most likely, Picasso wouldn't have wanted to return anyway - because of Franco.

This is the problem with the series. Since each book is limited in length, the author has to pick and choose what to include. In this case, they skimped on how he came to power. I enjoyed the discussion of how he sorted out a third way between the Axis and the Allies during World War II (not that I thought he was a good man for having done so, but it was interesting) and continually sought to become an accepted member of the western alliance against the Soviets after the war. I wouldn't have cut a word from the coverage of World War II, but I would have cut some of the talk about how he ran things on a day-to-day basis.  Why? Going back to Picasso, what most of the world outside of Spain knows about Franco comes from that painting of the bombing and it should have been addressed.

Anyway, I confirmed what I had gleaned about Franco. I found it interesting how he picked a member of the royal family, Juan Carlos, to be his successor. Juan Carlos went on to lead his country to a democratic system of government.

This e-book is a good choice to fill in some blanks (what I did) or get an introduction to one of the longest-ruling dictators of the 20th century. But, it is not the complete story. 

I rate this e-book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: FRANCISCO FRANCO: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History.

THE RECOVERY AGENT: A NOVEL (audiobook) by Janet Evanovich

 

Published in 2022 by Simon and Schuster Audio
Read by Lorelei King
Duration: 7 hours, 26 minutes.
Unabridged.

Janet Evanovich's The Recovery Agent features Gabriela Rose. Recovery agents can be another term for bounty hunters who look for fugitives, but Gabriela Rose is not a bounty hunter. She searches for missing property. Sometimes it's insurance fraud, sometimes it's stolen property and sometimes it's just looking for something rare for a wealthy client. She is based in New York City, is quite successful and flies all over the world recovering items. 

Gabriela Rose is dismayed to hear that her hometown in North Carolina has suffered a direct hit from a hurricane and (somehow) won't get any help from FEMA or any other government recovery program. The town is dying but Gabriela's grandmother knows where a fortune might be found. She was somehow told about the fortune by the ghost of her dead grandmother. In that fortune there is a ring called the Seal of Solomon. This ring is mostly in Arabic language legends about King Solomon of Israel who could use it to talk to animals and to control demons and djinn (genies).

Most of the book is a hunt to find and keep the ring in various settings with an ongoing simmering romance on the side. Readers familiar with the 1980s movie Romancing the Stone or the 2022 movie The Lost City will get the idea - except this book has competent protagonists.

My review:

This book is just all over the place, literally. There are 5 different trips to 4 different countries with jungles to find this ring. It gets old.

*****caution: spoilers*****

The goal of all of this searching is to find a treasure to save the town. Time after time the main characters leave behind literal fortunes of common, run of the mill gold trinkets, jewel-encrusted necklaces, statues, and at least one other famous golden item that would certainly have saved the town. 

There are other issues as well. Evanovich loves to name drop products in her books - pistols, boats, cars and more are named by brand. At one point, there is a planned attack on a compound. Gabriela Rose goes into battle with a fully automatic machine gun wearing a $465 La Perla Balconette bra (the price is mentioned). We know what bra she is wearing because at one point her bra is used as a tourniquet. Who wears a $465 lacy push-up bra into battle and not a sports bra? Sure, it made for a funny scene in the book, but it makes no sense - especially when she goes to a Target later on and buys common everyday underclothing and makes comments about how great they are.

*****end spoilers*****

What is good in the book is interesting supporting characters throughout the book.

I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE RECOVERY AGENT: A NOVEL (audiobook) by Janet Evanovich.

LAST ONES LEFT ALIVE: A NOVEL (audiobook) by Sarah Davis-Goff

 

Published in 2019 by Macmillan Audio.
Read by Anne-Marie Gaillard,
Duration: 5 hours, 33 minutes.
Unabridged.

Set in a dystopian future in Ireland, Last Ones Left Alive is the story of Orpen, a teenage girl. The world is overrun by "skrakes".

The reader is never exactly told what skrakes are, but it is useful to just think of them as a sort of zombie. Skrakes hunt humans and when a human is bitten by a skrake, the human gets an infection and becomes a skrake. 

Orpen grew up on an island off of the coast of Ireland. There are three of them - Orpen, her mother and another woman named Maeve, The skrakes never come to the island, but from time to time her mother and Maeve must leave the island to scrounge for supplies and hunt.

The story is told in chapters that alternate between the present and flashbacks to Orpen's childhood. There are hints as to what Maeve and her mother did before they came to the island. It is clear is that they have extraordinary hand-to-hand combat skills, both individually and especially as a team. Orpen is trained in those skills as she gets older and has finally reached the point where she can head to the mainland as well....

This is a debut novel for the author and she did an extraordinary job of telling the story from the point of view of just one character. There is no all-knowing narrator that tells us what happened to unleash the skrakes and there is no change of perspective that lets the reader go "Oh! Now I see." Instead, we get the perspective of this one young lady and it's more than enough to build a compelling story.

The audiobook was read by Anne-Marie Gaillard. Her Irish accent was an amazing change of pace for this audiobook reader. Her tone was perfect, no matter the accent.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:

LAST ONES LEFT ALIVE: A NOVEL (audiobook) by Sarah Davis-Goff.

WILLIE NELSON'S LETTERS to AMERICA (audiobook) by Willie Nelson and Turk Pipkin

 

Published in 2021 by Harper Horizon.
Read by co-author Turk Pipkin

Duration: 3 hours, 6 minutes.
Unabridged.

During the Covid-19 lockdowns Willie Nelson decided to write a book. This is not an unusual thing for Willie - he has written a handful of memoirs focusing on various parts of his almost 80 years as a professional musician (he was paid to play in a local band at the age of 10) and this book almost certainly overlaps with other books. 

The format of Willie Nelson's Letters to America is that Willie is writing thank you letters to various people, places and things that influenced his life and his career. He has a letter to his hometown, his grandparents, his sister, various members of his band over the years, his ex-wives, his wife, his kids, the fellow members of the supergroup The Highwaymen, among others.

Nelson's guitar, Trigger

There is also a letter to his guitar, Trigger. Nelson bought Trigger, sight unseen, in 1969 because he needed a new guitar after someone accidentally damaged the guitar he had been playing. Nelson has been playing that guitar ever since. He has literally worn a nasty-looking hole in it. This iconic instrument has its own Wikipedia page and was the subject of a Rolling Stone magazine documentary in 2015.

Nelson's last big theme is a series of politically-inspired letters. He writes to the Founding Fathers and he notes that although he is politically active, he refuses to talk politics on stage because that's not why people buy tickets and it ruins the fun.

I listened to this as an audiobook, but I liked these quotes well enough to get out a piece of paper and write them down:

"Rather than hiding our flaws, it's best to use our right of free speech and discuss them in the open."

"I've been asked if I believe people should be allowed to kneel during the national anthem. Regarding peaceful protests, and just about everything else, I believe everyone should do whatever the f*** they want to."

The biggest disappointment if this audiobook is that Willie Nelson chose not to read it. Instead, he asked his co-author Turk Pipkin to read it. Pipkin seems like a great guy and he does a good job with the reading, but he does not have that iconic Willie Nelson voice. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WILLIE NELSON'S LETTERS to AMERICA (audiobook) by Willie Nelson and Turk Pipkin.

HOW CIVIL WARS START: AND HOW TO STOP THEM (audiobook) by Barbara F. Walter

 

Published in January of 2022 by Random House Audio.
Read by Beth Hicks.
Duration: 7 hours, 17 minutes.
Unabridged.

The author of How Civil Wars Start has an extensive background in studying exactly why some countries collapse into Civil War and other countries don't, even when everyone thinks they will, like South Africa after Apartheid.

The first half of the book is a look at countries that slid into Civil War and specific characteristics that tend to make Civil War more likely. Her team has come up with a scale and they get concerned when societies move quickly on that scale. It doesn't matter if they move quickly away from democracy or towards it - generally speaking moving quickly means that groups in power lose power and they don't like it and they lash out. A classic example of this is Iraq. The Sunni had almost all of the power under the dictatorship Sadam Hussein, but once he was overthrown the Shia majority took power and decided that it was time to get even - democratization brought on a civil war because one group feared losing power and another group couldn't wait to abuse their newfound power.

The author explains how her team studies modern examples of civil wars and starts listing out the warning signs. A careful reader will start to compare those clues to the current political climate in The United States

and start to notice uncomfortable similarities. 

This is intentional.

This book is meant as a warning. The author lays out a scenario in which militias start a terror campaign against state governments across the country. By the way, the very existence of group-based militias is a sign of major trouble. The Proud Boys were clearly heavily involved in the January 6 riot (as I am writing this, several are on trial and at least one has made a plea deal) and a group called Patriot Front had 31 members arrested for planning attack on a LGBTQ event in a city park in Idaho.

We are standing on a precipice. Do we fall in, like the former Yugoslavia and Iraq did, or do we somehow decide to go back to working together like South Africa did?

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: HOW CIVIL WARS START: AND HOW TO STOP THEM by Barbar F. Walter.