Book Reviews: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything American History Textbooks Get Wrong

Written By James Loewen

Original Published in 1995 and Young Readers Edition 2019

As I go to type the review I saw the Young Readers Edition label. This is something that I missed when grabbing this off the library shelf and now changes my perspective on this book.

James Loewen delves into the world of historiography in this criticism of American classroom textbooks. The book is a study in mis/dis information at the scholastic level and how our textbooks do not tell the full truth of our history. Through whitewashing our bleaker moments or declawing our nobler radicals we give a much sanitized version of history. This leads to things not changing and young minds to be conditioned into the status quo being acceptable based on a mythologized past.

Loewen directs his focus onto many topics of American History including recent historical events. The approach taken by the author is a study of eighteen different US History textbooks commonly distributed to schools throughout the nation. Loewen analyzes the way these books mislead young minds in the classroom either with false information or by cutting out important information to take away a certain context or nuance. A lot of times the omissions are to defend white male leaders and at the same time used to whitewash more radical women or people of color. Some of the people whitewashed include Helen Keller and John Brown. Figures like Woodrow Wilson had a lot of their negative actions and statements withheld or hedged by taking some of their control away in certain decisions and actions.

Loewen does employee a lot of facts and additional information that runs counter to what is commonly seen in mainstream history, not academic history. The book was not so hard hitting for me as I expressed an intellectual curiosity for history at a young age taking honors courses and graduating with a university degree in the subject. I have also read plenty of books that have delved into the whitewashing of different figures and the negative side of heroic figures. Loewen wants of deifying and making heroes of anyone which is largely something I agree with. He also does a great job of expressing how language and its use can influence opinion even at a very subtle level. The later chapters of this book serve as a pretty good media literacy tool to help craft young skeptical minds.

I feel this book succeeds in accessibility. It is less than three hundred pages and very straight forward in its writing style. It is confrontational with its subject matter and designed to instigate a reaction. I will say he does use a lot of forceful language which runs counter to his recommendation to investigate or question opinionated writing. I also agree with his premise of truth at a time when the truth is under attack. He has some funny anecdotes in there on that subject as well. He also attacks the myth or the stupidity of the middle ground which I think is important. Can’t we compromise? Can’t we find the glorious middle ground? For example (my example not Loewen’s) presidential candidate A wants to take away the right to vote for all women while presidential candidate B says he wants to maintain the right for all women. You wouldn’t turn around and say, “hey they are both right in a way, lets take away half the votes!”

Other Reflections:

-The passages on 9/11 were interesting considering the recent Gen Z and Bin Laden TikTok drama of the last few weeks

-I read the book out of order not cover to cover but I think the book is a great tool for its intended audience of students and parents

-I think this book is a great companion to go with the Skeptics Guide to the Universe.

-I need to grab the original version and see if it is more academic

Book Review:

Blunt Instruments: Recognizing Racist Cultural Infrastructure in Memorials, Museums, and Patriotic Practices

Author: Kristin Haas

Kristin Haas tackled the controversial issue of historic monuments in the US with this recent book. Across the country there are Confederate monuments being taken down, Confederate flags being removed from government buildings, renaming of military bases, protests to the National Anthem and flag and a debate on the teaching of history in this country. During 2020 the nation saw a large racial reckoning in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota. This was a boiling point that had been building since the death of Trayvon Martin and a steady protest formed after numerous high profile deaths of black people at the hands of police officers. Discussions were had around the history of the nation, how we remember the past, issues that persist to this day and recognition for minorities in historical conversations while having an honest assessment of historical figures. A struggle formed between those trying to address history and those that wished to keep a patriotic history built around a mythologized past.

Kristin Haas is a Michigan professor of American Culture and the Director of the Humanities Department and has written two previous books on monuments. This book is written much like a scholarly work with a thesis and she continuously repeats her points in every chapter. Her argument is that monuments are not merely a neutral expression of the past as some of their defenders say. Haas wants readers to understand that monuments are never neutral, they are created by an artist with something to say, usually they are to promote an idea in the current landscape and often reflect a current anxiety rather than the strength shown by the heroic displays. Haas also continues to reiterate that when they blend in and do not appear to be making a statement that their job is done. She repeats these several points in every chapter with a summary on each topic.

Haas is very thorough in her work uncovering the backers and motivations of many of these public displays. She lays out a strong case why many of these monuments are problematic in nature. She discusses the fight over the creation of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC and compares and contrasts other war memorials in the capitol. There is also a discussion on museums and architecture and how things are displayed. She also delves into the issue of the stealing of artifacts from poor countries and hoarded into the US and other rich western countries. The latter part of the book deals with US patriotic customs like the flag, the Confederate Flag, the Fourth of July, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Star Spangled Banner. Haas chronicles how these normal practices began and how they were not always the norm. She solidifies the point that these songs and pledges and physical acts of saluting and standing came from groups trying to influence loyalty in this country. It is interesting the amount of things we do in our daily life that we never stop and question and have been unconsciously adopted. I feel this is one of the other strong points for Haas is her ability to get readers to think about the cultural practices around them and how these actions and displays got to the status they are at.

There are a lot of details in this book and it is hard to summarize everything. My biggest knock on the book is that some sections were dull and less interesting but the book would again become enjoyable in other topics. I found the book quite comprehensive and unlike a lot of pop history and pop sociology there is a lot of real and well researched evidence here. This is a great book for an open minded history buff that is prescient to the current mood in the country. Fights over history, the teaching of history, and the threat of a mythologized past to get people to fall in line is a real issue in this country. I believe Haas was successful in making her point even if some parts had to be labored through. 4 out of 5.

Book Review: A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland

Author: Troy Senik

Named a Best Book of 2022 by The Christian Science Monitor

Author Troy Senik has produced an interesting and engaging biography of one of America’s forgotten presidents in a pantheon of men between Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt who have managed to go largely forgotten in our collective memory. The book explores the importance of Grover Cleveland, the life and career of the former president and the historical mark he left and why that mark has been lost in contemporary America. Senik lays out his case very thoroughly in the introduction and conclusion explaining his motivations and reasoning behind the book. Cleveland is described as a man who harbors all of the moral astuteness and honesty that Americans desire in a president and is one of the few to successfully serve eight years in office only to be largely forgotten.

Cleveland is portrayed as the principled underdog who sticks to his moral fibers in the face of opposing forces and corruption. Cleveland, born in New Jersey, was raised in upstate New York after the passing of his father at a young age was forced to work to support his family. He took an unlikely journey into law and eventually found his way into politics through an election for Sheriff in Buffalo, New York. In a rapid political rise he went from sheriff to mayor, to governor, to president in the span of only a few years. His rise saw him overcome corrupt party politics of the late 1800’s and rise above partisan and sectional forces. He was marked by his unbelievable work ethic, masterful oratory skills, understanding of the law, and his ability to go against the grain. When boiled down, Cleveland was a politician who did not play politics as he took on the Democratic Party machine and Tammany Hall while rejecting the corruption common of the day. His priorities and guiding vision were serving for the people and upholding the constitution regardless of what was painless and politically expedient.

Cleveland is generally remembered as the president who served two non-consecutive terms. For those more versed in political history some may remember him as the first Democratic President to be elected after the Civil War in 1884. I chose this book in part because of the two term distinction and the connection to the present with the possibility of Donald Trump running for president again after being ousted in 2020. While having a Bachelor’s Degree in History and a Minor in Political Science, I had always considered the Gilded Age to be an uninteresting period in our history in comparison to the early stages of our republic, the Antebellum Period, the Civil War and other more prominent moments nearer in time. Since graduation in 2013, the country has headed into a period of consolidated wealth and power in the hands of a few wealthy tech billionaires and class and labor issues are as prominent as ever from Amazon unionization to strikes at railroads and even Star Bucks. The era and the book in many ways are prescient today with partisan gridlock in Washington being as deadlocked as it has been in our nation’s history. Cleveland shirked party politics in favor of what benefited the average person and did not make political appointments based solely on partisan lines.

Senik succeeds largely because he does not attempt to connect the story to present times and provides some counter balance. At times Senik’s appreciation for the subject show through and I looked up the author out of curiosity to learn he was a speech writer for George W Bush. Cleveland’s conservative approach to governing and avoiding overreach as an appeal makes sense for a conservative. However, Senik wisely does not try and claim him for the present day right like many commentators and writers try to do today. Much like Sean Wilentz’s biography on Andrew Jackson, the norms and politics of the nineteenth century are very different from the status quo we operate in now. To try and say Cleveland would really be X or Y in 2022 can be refuted with decisions, opinions and quotes that align or contradict with either side. Sometimes Senik’s bias comes to the surface but it is subtle, I feel more of the concerns I have with the book may be through omission on certain details. Some areas like his popular vote victory while losing the electoral college sound like a great accomplishment though it was largely through preventing freed slaves from voting. This is left out making me question other areas where he did not go into further detail. Senik does a good job of showing arguments against Cleveland from politicians of his day but that is the only rebuttal the author gives us. Senik does employee praise from both Cleveland’s time but also invokes great thinkers in American history and other polls taken after Cleveland’s death to show his former prominence. I think this lacks a little bit of balance though there is not much as far as biographical work on the former president.

The other parts of the book that I enjoyed stem from the remembrance of Grover Cleveland and the issues of the day. People today complain of corruption in politics mostly from special interests money and decisions like Citizens United; however, in Cleveland’s day the corruption was much more overt. There were issues of outright vote buying, voter intimidation of minorities and many governments operating with so much unsupervised graft. In this time period there was not a federal income tax and the government brought in money through tariffs which were also designed to protect American industries from outside competition. This issue also greatly effected the price of goods and wages, a problem very familiar with Americans in the present day. The nation was also on the gold standard and there was a fight to get on the silver standard or significantly incorporate silver into our financial system. Cleveland also presided over massive labor unrest, Chinese exclusion (another issue relevant in 2023), the reconciliation of the Civil War, conservation bills prior to Theodore Roosevelt, assimilatin of Native American tribes and land, he acquisition of Cuba and Hawaii, and a depression.

Senik spent time in the conclusion to explain Cleveland’s disappearance from American history. First, he cites sociological studies of which presidents Americans remember and without fail it is normally the first few, the last few, and Abraham Lincoln. Second, “great” presidents normally preside over landmark events such as Lincoln and the Civil War, Roosevelt with the Great Depression and World War II, Nixon and Watergate, etc. Though Cleveland did have to govern and navigate important issues, he did not preside over any massive world changing events or wars like those predecessors. Third, he chose to govern in a way that limited the power of the executive, a comparison could be made in sports where a quarterback may be seen as less great because they are a game manager and not a play maker. Cleveland saw himself as a manager in a system of checks and balances and though he had an incredible amount of vetoes, he did not go after opportunities in his own time to reach “greatness”. He did not add Hawaii or Cuba and the states availablamong other issuese to him in the form of territories were not elevated during his administration. Had he taken those measures he may be better remembered today.

Things that I learned:

Cleveland is one of three presidents to win the popular vote three times: Andrew Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt are the others

Cleveland was in the running to be on the $20 bill but was on the $1,000 bill when that was still a thing

Cleveland is the only president to get married in the White House and is just the second bachelor to be president: others were widowers or remarried

There was a ranking of presidents in the 1940’s cited that rated Cleveland the eighth best president off all time: he was remembered fondly closer in time

The only real remembrances of Cleveland are his birth house in Caldwell, New Jersey and a statue site shared with Buffalo’s other president in Millard Fillmore

Television & Social Movements

Continuing my series of posting history papers from college this is a semi review of the above title but more of a relating television to social movements. This may be even more relevant now in the age of social media.

Books and other media are strategically titled to exemplify the theme or motif of the story.  The title While the World Watched is an extremely effective title with a symbolic and literal meaning.  There are several factors to the events of the story and why the title makes sense.  The proliferation of television allowed people from miles away to observe groundbreaking events worldwide and the timing of this spread of television came at a volatile time that reshaped America.

                The African American battle for Civil Rights in the United States did not begin in the nineteen sixties despite the popular culture rememberance.  African Americans were enslaved from the early colonial days in America in the sixteen hundreds to eighteen sixty five.  After the slaves were freed their situation had not improved.  Jim Crowe laws kept the blacks separate from society and created a stark racial difference. 

                African Americans early on in the South did the only thing they could do, fight in the courts.  In eighteen ninety six the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the separate but equal laws already in place while handling the Plessy versus Ferguson case (Key12, 1).  In nineteen thirty eight the NAACP Legal Defense Fund achieved victory in the Missouri ex el Gaines versus Canada case (Key12, 1).  This admitted black student Gaines into an all white law school thus putting a dent in the separate but equal laws.  In nineteen fifty the Supreme Court helped get black students into law schools that opposed and the court found Plessy versus Ferguson unconstitutional (Key12, 1). Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense fund pressed harder and harder until they scored two major victories.  In nineteen fifty four Brown versus the Board of Ed brought down segregation in school and in nineteen fifty six the court ruled in favor of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.

                Many great leaders of Civil Rights had also battled hard to achieve equality.  Medgar Evers lost his life in the process of fighting for blacks to attend the same colleges as whites (Civ10, 1).  Marcus Garvey began the Back to Africa Movement which would try to escape the discrimination (Civ10, 1).  Rosa Parks protested the bus segregation rules by sitting in the front of the bus.  Dred Scott, Homer Plessey, Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas and Sojourner Truth were all early African American freedom fighters who all contributed to the movement and served as inspirations to the black community (Civ10, 1).  Finally, of course were the two titans of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

These events and the conditions of the South did not reach Americans outside the South or the population worldwide.  People only began seeing the horrors blacks endured when it reached their living rooms through their television screen.  Americans to this point had not seen the atrocities and maybe did not even care.  Now they could not escape it and now with the ability to see it people now knew everything.  Before people knew very little about what was going on and did not rally behind the cause.  Television got people excited.  Vast numbers of television sets witnessed the Kennedy assassination in nineteen sixty three.  About forty one million televisions were watched by one hundred eighty million Americans and about twenty four million Britons viewed the events from Dallas (Ame64, 1 and Revoir, 1). 

                Television was to spark incredible movements nationwide and a great change in thought.  The Vietnam War was brought to American homes.  People now saw war differently; it was no longer that thing your father would not talk about it was a visual reality for all.  Yes, the Korean War was unpopular as well but Vietnam spawned a new kind of war protest and attitude nationwide.  Other events gripped the nation; in nineteen sixty three Emile Griffith defeated Benny Paret in New York City for a boxing world championship.  However, this triumph in the ring is infamous for it being the first fatality in boxing on national television and New York politicians tried hard to ban the sport (Berger).  Television was opening eyes and changing minds.

                The Civil Rights movement hit a climax during the time covered in While the World Watched. As previously stated television was getting more and more influential and in more and more homes across the United States and globally.  The title insists the whole world watched which though just a metaphor has some truth to it.  The southern response to the growing movement for civil rights came at the wrong time.  Major events in the sixties led to a boiling point in the movement and television was to thank. 

                In the second week of January nineteen sixty three George Wallace took the oath of office as governor in Alabama (McKinstry xiii).  From April to August there were great strides in the fight for equality and unlike before these events reached the evening news.  Doctor King was locked away in a Birmingham prison, the children’s march that resulted in dog and fire hose attacks, activist Medgar Evers is murdered by the Klan, and Martin Luther King leads a two hundred fifty thousand person rally to the nation’s capital (McKinstry xiii).  The focal point of the book is the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing from September nineteen sixty three that resulted in four young girls becoming casualties of the battle for Civil Rights.  The girls were best friends with the author who herself was nearly caught in the blast.  The black community, desensitized to the death and violence, was not scared or intimidated but seemed motivated to do something about.  In the immediate aftermath they did not discuss it (McKinstry, 57-62).  The reaction of Birmingham’s black community was not nearly as important as the national and global response.  The marches with children actually led to many arrests but the tactics used to disrupt the march led to the firing of Bull Connor.  Times were changing now as television got the entire nation interested. 

                It is no surprise that in less than a year from the bombing in summer of nineteen sixty four President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act and later that year Doctor King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  Without television this may not have all been possible.  Or, had television evolved to the point where it was in nineteen sixty three in nineteen fifty one, would A. Phillip Randolph have been receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for the Civil Rights Act.  As previously stated blacks and other groups had been fighting for well over a century to gain equality, but it was the television that brought it to a moment that could not be ignored.  The African American community in the south was emboldened and the bombs and the dogs and the hoses used to stop them were seen worldwide on the television sets.  The movement would seem very much a matter of timing.  The rise of television, the assassination of Kennedy brought in a president more capable of getting equal rights in Johnson, and possibly just people becoming more tolerant as the generations pass led to the Civil Rights Act.  What was so interesting about a breakout year like nineteen sixty three is just how quickly the events of that year just suddenly led to national support and to the events of nineteen sixty four.

Bibliography

“America’s Long Vigil.” jeff560.tripod.com. January 25, 1964. http://jeff560.tripod.com/tvgjfk.html (accessed March 20, 2012).

“Civil Rights Leaders.” thinkquest.org. September 23, 2010. http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112391/civil_rights_leaders.htm (accessed March 23, 2012).

Ganzell, Bill. “Television.” livinghistoryfarm.org. May 19, 2010. http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/life_17.html (accessed March 23, 2012).

“Key Supreme Court Cases for Civil Rights.” civilrights.org. March 24, 2012. http://www.civilrights.org/judiciary/supreme-court/key-cases.html (accessed March 24, 2012).

Mckinstry, Carolyn Maull. While the World Watched. Tyndale House Publishers: New York, 2011.

Revoir, Paul. “The most watched TV shows of all time – and they are all old programmes.” dailymail.co.uk. October 7, 2008. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1071394/The-watched-TV-shows-time–old-programmes.html (accessed March 22, 2012).

Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story. Directed by Dan Klores Ron Berger. 2005.

The Post War Colonies and British Mistakes: The Causes of the Revolution

Continuing my series of history papers here is one from 2012 from a course on the American Revolution

                The Revolutionary War like most wars and revolutions for that matter can be traced to various key causes.  The American Revolution being as unique as it was is a very complicated event with many different catalysts in the lead up.  Some historians site the actual events, others the ideology and social causes, and others view the circumstances in the lead up.  This paper will breakdown the prerevolutionary fervor in the colonies as well as in England itself as the causes of this major historical event occur in both places.  The beginnings come from all three of the major factors however I believe that the events and circumstances as well as British mistakes are the most important and that the ideas though vital were not universal to all who rebelled.

                Another complication also emerges in studying this war, when did the American Revolution begin?  There is not a clear answer, is it Lexington and Concord or not until the signing of the Declaration of Independence?  For the sake of the argument and understanding the scenario better the war did not begin until the Declaration was passed.  The document written by Jefferson legitimized the revolution and like a poker game dragged the colonies all in.  The war could have been backed out of and to this point had been isolated to select portions of the colonies, after the Declaration there was no turning back.

                Events and circumstances of the revolution begin to come into play in 1763.  The colonists just fought in the Seven Years war for the British and were extremely helpful in the fighting and largely responsible for the fighting as well.  Esteemed Historian Fred Anderson’s book on the Seven Years war boldly claims that the war itself did not end and that the events continued to play into the revolution[1].  Whether or not that is literally true or not is open to debate however it is abundantly clear how vital this war was for the revolution.  Following the Seven Years War Great Britain had scored what Anderson referred to as Britain’s greatest military and diplomatic victories with the signing of the Treaty of Paris[2].  They had gained vast lands in Canada as well as land further west and also Florida.  The British were nearly unopposed on the continent and were in position of power.  However, the British encountered two vast problems, the land was far too large to govern and the war put them in debt.  The war cost seventy two million pounds sterling doubling the total debt to one hundred and forty six pounds sterling.[3] 

                The debt that the war caused by the colonists created required the empire to tax the colonists.  This did not sit well as the colonists felt wronged.  This is when some of the ideology comes into play.  The British began to tax the colonists without their consent or representation.  The colonists did not have the same rights as British citizens and parliament believed that they were properly spoken for and did not understand their grievances.  Circumstances were also a major part of the now angered colonists.  The King prior to the Seven Years War was very hands off when handling the colonies; almost to the point where they were almost a separate entity all together.  It had just not really occurred to them to break away because they still loved the King or maybe because of the French and Spanish presence they could be vulnerable to becoming subjects of other empires.  Well post war America saw the taxing and the garrisoning of the colonies.  Never before had the colonies had so many troops, people were uncomfortable.

                  The previously mentioned Seven Years War had contributed to the revolution in other ways besides being responsible for the taxing and the British becoming more involved.  The war gave these colonists confidence and pride[4].  The war also gave them an identity; they had never viewed themselves as a whole just as different colonies.  During the war the colonies fought united against the
French.  For the first time this idea of one nation was beginning to come about.  The fighting was brutal and unconventional and shaped the revolutionary’s tactics for facing the British army. 

                I believe that the British were extremely responsible for the revolution.  As much as it was likely that the colonists would break away I believe the British pushed them into it and gave them no choice.  The taxes started off very pesky but were manageable especially as many colonists found ways around the taxing.  However, in 1765 the Stamp Act created a wave of activism.  Crowd action took place until the act was repealed in 1766, but this victory was quite short lived because the Declaratory Act was passed soon after and authorized taxing of the colonies.  In 1767 the crowds became angry again as the Townsend Acts were passed.  The Dickinson Letters were written directly in response.  According to Dickinson the colonies were taken advantage of because the New York colony stood up for their liberties and were silenced by way of forced disbandment[5].  Dickinson was also frustrated that the colonies could only receive English goods but that these good came with new high taxes[6].  He saw the disadvantage of the colonies limitations and the Crown’s infringements.  In 1770 the Boston Massacre occurs and that is some of the first bloodshed in the colonies.  Also that year the Townsend Act is repealed except for the tax on tea; this results in the Boston Tea Party in 1773.  These acts of defiance lead to further and stricter punishment; in 1774 the British passed what was to me known as the Intolerable Acts.  This brought about quartering soldiers, closing the Boston Harbor, and trials to be sent overseas to Britain.  This resulted in the first Continental Congress and maybe more importantly Lexington and Concord.  These were the first two real engagements between the two sides resulting in bloodshed; this encounter is immortalized as the “shot heard round the world”.                  

As the war drew nearer in 1774 and 1775 the King and parliament helped raise tensions further.  The crisis was about to reach a boiling point and the British further tested the colonies.  In 1774 and 1775 the Continental Congress would gather and petition the King and raise money for troops as the fighting was going on but they were still loyal to the King.  Though there was blood being spilt the revolution was not universal and was not really begun.  Independence had not been declared and it would seem that many were still reluctant to make the final step.  These colonial gentleman had a lot to lose: good jobs, fortunes, families, good homes, and they did not seem so ready to gamble their well being just yet.  The revolution though not far in the future did seem preventable until this point.  Well in August 1775 the King declares that the colonies are in rebellion and fighting for their independence.  The military pressure has now escalated as the British are more fully committed.  In addition to Britain’s escalation they passed another act, the Prohibitory Act.  This act was to prevent any trade between the colonies and Britain and now make all American ships fair game for attack. Also all trade with other foreign powers was illegal; this would seemingly force the colonists to have to get violent or resist.  The colonists are not formally in rebellion and the crisis is not escalated and yet the King is pushing the colonies further and further into war and secession.  He first declares them independent or seeking independence before the colonists think so and then theoretically puts them in a trade embargo.  What was the King thinking?

                The British can be further blamed for the ideology of the revolution.  This of course is an indirect blame as this was not intended but the ideas flowing through a changing Britain did in fact spill over into the colonies.  According to acclaimed historian Gordon Wood the British were quite radical well before the colonists in America were[7].  The English were unenthusiastic about being subjects of the King while those in America still called themselves Britons and were very loyal.  Also, not only in England but the entire Europe, there were liberal movements in favor of Republicanism that weakened monarchies all over Western Europe.  Radical shifts in Europe of change and liberalism were starting to rock the age old foundations[8].  These ideals are very dangerous when trying to colonize large plots of land.  The idea of keeping subjects under control is to prevent them from thinking for themselves and to prevent them from believing in sovereignty and self governance.  These radical ideas leaked into the colonies and were instrumental for the revolution.  As previously mentioned the King ruled the colonies for the longest time in a very loose manner.  While this was going on the colonists began to learn of these antimonarchical ideas and let these thoughts slow cook into their minds.  Even before the Seven Years War people were hoping for a revolution or at least a large shift in the system before these ideas were even mainstream.  Now it is hard to block ideas or thoughts but it can be said that for a government to control many subjects from very far away it is not a good idea for them to have access to these principles.        

                This revolution came about in a way that cannot wholly be linked to events, circumstances or ideologies.  The manner in which the colonists got away from localism and found a unity is a miracle that can hardly be explained.  The colonies pre revolution were quite diverse and it is hard to believe that urban people of Boston and southern planters and all other regional distinctions could become one behind the same cause for the same reasons.  Many of the pivotal events in the lead up were somewhat isolate, the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Massacre, and other events seem to follow a similar pattern.  Learning about the revolution in the early phases would almost seem to be a Bostonian conflict, but the dissent spread and spread well beyond Boston.  

                Respected historian T.H. Breen attempts to explain this phenomenon that occurred in order to begin the widespread revolutionary fervor.  He believes that intellectual historians have too many roadblocks when trying to prove that similar ideas existed all over America[9].  He claims that the consumer culture in America led to the revolution.  Since Britain taxed the commodities that were everywhere people were able to have the same grievances, some boycott for political drive others because their neighbors do[10].  This point made by Breen further proves that the British can blame themselves for the revolution.  This boycotting allowed the colonists to all share an imagined community, once the colonists felt this sense of togetherness the movement grew in strength[11].  As colonists began to acquire more wealth they began to afford and purchase many luxuries.  The pioneer and survival log cabin life style was gone in the Eastern parts of the colonies that were a few generations deep.  As the colonists became consumers they bought British items rather than make their own cloths, and soap, and dishes.  They began to buy expensive items from Britain[12].  This shift only became important as the British taxed these items they needed, so either this could have been prevented by America not becoming consumers and living the rugged life style of the first settlers or Britain could never have taxed the items. 

                All in all it can be said that the events of 1763 onward, British mistakes and the consumer society all lead to the American Revolution.  The Seven Years war appeared to be the catalyst that set the whole train of events into motion.  Due to the war the British found themselves in debt and taxed the colonies.  The colonies would resist and the British would tax them and punish them further and the British would punish further and the colonist would rebel even more intense forming a cycle.  Eventually violence ensued.  The radical ideas that led to reform in Britain leaked into the colonies convincing some to move toward independence and rid themselves of the King.  Finally, the colonies united due to their similarities based on the consumer culture to take the movement to a larger level.  The Declaration of Independence led to the legitimizing of the revolution and a full scale war was to erupt in America.

---

[1] Fred Anderson, The War that Made America (USA: Penguin, 2005) xxv

[2] Fred Anderson, The War that Made America (USA: Penguin, 2005) 228

[3] Fred Anderson, The War that Made America (USA: Penguin, 2005) 243

[4] Fred Anderson, The War that Made America (USA: Penguin, 2005) 251

[5] John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania (Ontario: Broadview Press, 1765) 120

[6] John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania (Ontario: Broadview Press, 1765) 124

[7] Gordon S. Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1991) 12

[8] Gordon S. Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1991) 95

[9] T.H. Breen, Baubles of Britain: The American Consumer Revolutions of the 20^th Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) 77

[10] T.H. Breen, Baubles of Britain: The American Consumer Revolutions of the 20^th Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) 78

[11] T.H. Breen, Baubles of Britain: The American Consumer Revolutions of the 20^th Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) 78

[12] T.H. Breen, Baubles of Britain: The American Consumer Revolutions of the 20^th Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) 81

Book Review: One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon

Written in 2015, Tim Weiner exposes readers to the inner workings of Richard Nixon with the release of his private tapes. For those not familiar ex US president Richard Nixon kept listening devices in the Oval Office of the White House where he recorded day to day meetings and phone calls. During the height of the Water Gate controversy there was a legal battle to make the tapes public but Nixon cited executive privilege to avoid the release of the tapes. The tapes eventually came to light in congressional investigations and hearings leading to his eventual resignation and eventual pardon by Gerald Ford. After numerous legal battles from 1974 until his death in 1994 the tapes were not made public until 2007. This book is an in depth analysis of the tapes and a powerful biography of an extraordinarily controversial president.

Though it is impossible to get inside the mind of Richard Nixon, this book comes pretty damn close. Using his spoken and written words from both the tapes and speeches readers are led through the political rise of Nixon from the Alger Hiss Trials in the 1950’s through his presidency in the 1970’s. Through the tapes readers are revealed the nature to which Nixon thought of his political opponents, foreign leaders, the press and his allies. Some of the most damning information in the book was his efforts to block Lyndon Johnson’s negotiations with North Vietnam in 1968 which led to the deaths of tens of thousands of lives in order to sink the Democratic Party’s popularity. His bombing plans of North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were also horrifying and largely kept secret from congress and other opponents. Throughout, we are shown a paranoid and self interested leader negotiating with China and in the Middle East to distract from domestic problems. During 1970, Nixon was unsure of his chances of victory in the 1972 election and sunk to low tactics of using prostitutes and drugs to sting and incriminate opponents at the Democratic National Convention. Nixon was also an angry drunk who lashed out in phone conversations and even warned by insiders in his administration to cut back or they would quit. These drunk conversations sink lower as the investigations into his spying on Daniel Ellsberg and the Water Gate break in controversy. We are shown a man driven by power with victory and anti-communism being his driving philosophy.

The book is also a useful contribution to the historiography of Nixon. For those who do not have a bachelor’s in history this basically means the history of history and reflecting on the importance of a figure or event. These tapes contained a lot of damning information but for decades were not readily available. Nixon knowing historians would not be kind to his legacy was very proactive in defending and promoting his place in history. Much like George W Bush was brought back from the dead during Donald Trump’s presidency, Nixon kept himself alive by telling his own story and the tapes could not refute him. in the age of social media Nixon sometimes receives a polished and glossy retelling based on getting us out of Vietnam and his visit to China and signing some landmark legislation on consumer protection and environmental protection. This book should serve as a way to slap people back to their senses by revealing the awful man he was and the horrible crimes he committed.

Finally, I would like to leave off with the story of the White House cook the day Nixon left for good. The secretary of state, another administration official and the cook stood chatting. They argued about technicalities and who the new president would be and the cook stated, “I have to make lunch for the president”. And with that life goes on, our country goes on and people move forward. We have a beautiful ability to survive mistakes and tragedies and plow ahead. The country lives on, our values live on and hope to restore what was lost.

Book Review-The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government

Written by Mike Lofgren

Published 2016

Mike Lofgren explores the realm of the real power brokers behind the inner workings of our government. This is a topic that I have interest in and something I have talked about in personal political discussions with peers. The powerful institutions and unelected people that stick around and control the functions of the government despite what happens every four years make up this deep state. They are the actors who control policy and are responsible for the phenomenon of promised reformers on the campaign trail governing in a very status quo manner on the larger picture issues once in office. The idea of the “deep state” has been hijacked by conspiracy theorists and other crazies and I worried that this book was going to be 320 pages of total bullshit. I am here to write that this book was comprehensive, well written, and living in the realm of facts and not fantasy. Mike Lofgren was a career man in Washington working for the Republican Party, specifically as an advisor/aide to John Kasich. He left the Capitol amid the Tea Party takeover of his party and this book is a reflection and a criticism of the way our government has changed and what can be done about it.

The first chapter of the book was a bit rocky as he spent a lot of time nit picking about Washington DC as a city. There was a lot of architectural references and SAT words thrown in that did not feed into the overall story. Chapter two is where the real action began with Lofgren breaking down his definition of the deep state and how it slowly took hold in our political system. Lofgren focused on the incremental nature of the takeover which was gradual but not provocative enough to create a widespread counter movement. Often the public fears and evoking of national defense and safety were warped into ways to grow the military industrial complex, militarized policing and domestic espionage. Lofgren looks at the deep state as a trident of the military industrial complex, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley and the ways in which they control government decisions and benefit from those decisions.

Lofgren spends the next few chapters demonstrating the ways in which presidents are not as powerful as they are perceived to be. He summarizes presidents dating back to Ronald Reagan to highlight the ways in which they were side characters to the larger events around them. Reagan was described as a figurehead stage performer who could speak well and engage the people but appeared like a minor character in the Iran Contra Affair which was mostly done by military brass with the president mostly kept in the dark. Bill Clinton being hampered on economic policy by the interests of hedge fund managers was discussed during his summary. George W Bush was described as more of a choice to be the Trojan Horse for career Washington players like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to run the show with the joke being “did George pick Cheney or did Cheney pick George”. Barack Obama was the current president at the time of publication and Lofgren drew many examples about the Obama presidency in this book.

Early in the book Lofgren discusses the similarities in policy between Bush and Obama despite the contrast in image and rhetoric. Lofgren is very critical of both presidents but qualifies his criticisms to the game and not the players in it, not using the book as an opportunity to throw stones but merely use the two men’s presidency’s as a case study. Lofgren highlighted the many ways in which the status quo remained the same despite the presentation put forth by the two men who held office. Obama in spite of his campaign trail speeches kept Guantanamo Bay open, had a troop surge in Afghanistan, continued the NSA spying that began under Bush, did not prosecute the bankers who tanked the economy, and got the country involved in new conflicts like the one in Libya. Yes it is easy to say that Lofgren is a career Republican of course he would hurl criticism at Obama but I do not feel it is partisan. He criticized Bush for the same actions and gave a critique very similar to what one could find in independent left media regarding Obama’s foreign policy. This is also used as evidence of deep state string pulling such as Robert Gates strong arming Obama into the surge. Was Obama a better presented and smoother talking Bush, or was he hampered by the real power brokers in the capital?

The sections on Wall Street and Silicon Valley were also interesting in regards to the role they play. Wall Street has been allowed to be too big too fail and hold the economy hostage making them tough to regulate. Lofgren brought forth the ways in which the regulated hold the regulators hostage and pull the strings. Silicon Valley is discussed in its complicity to the espionage that Edward Snowden revealed to the public. They attempted to down play their role but documents show they were more than willing to be complicit in turning over information despite a public face of pretending to stand up for privacy. Lofgren also focuses on tax policy issues that allow these companies to write off expenses on their taxes in the US but claim their profits overseas taking advantage of the system. Lofgren also discusses the phenomenon of the super rich seceding from the US. They do not have to care about public issues because they can afford not to. They influence the politicians through contributions to not change the tax code so that needed programs cannot be funded. They can do this because they have no vested interest to care about the average person’s conditions. If the roads, bridges, and highways fail, they have a private jet. If the schools fail, they can go to private school. They can afford any hospital stay, food or survival need, and any other inconvenience with their wealth and it creates a society where the haves can control policy to make it even worse off for the have nots.

Lofgren spends some time on the Tea Party who he vehemently disagrees with but does cite them as a rare resistance movement to the deep state even though they failed. He disagreed with the Tea Party in principal as to really take on the Deep State a group would have to take on the Pentagon, Wall Street and Silicon Valley. They were pro defense and pro big business so those reforms were a no go. They fit more into taking away relief and government aid from the poor and working class but were a complete disruption to the way in which the government functioned during Obama’s second term. Lofgren also referenced surveys on how the Tea Party did not assimilate into for the lack of a better term the Washington Swamp. From a study there was only a fifty percent conversion rate of Tea Party elected officials abandoning their platform and base. Lofgren explained this as them being in safe districts due to red lining and self segregation among like minded people that made it unlikely they would be unseated electorally. This meant that big money was less likely to sway them as their seats were unlikely to change hands and they could govern and run on ideology. I would like to know where Lofgren would stand on The Squad, Bernie Sanders’s campaigns, Black Lives Matter, Code Pink and Defund the Police in regards to their impact as resistance to the deep state.

Lofgren concludes the book with a list of possible solutions to the problem He also reminds readers of the difficulty in which it would take to overturn the current status quo. Lawmakers like Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar have tried to trot out bills on banking reform and anti trust reform that each feel would up end the current climate but Lofgren believes that this crisis that took decades to materialize will take more than a bill or two to radically change. Lofgren had several solutions with notable ones including reforming the tax code for wealthy Americans and corporations, overturning Citizens United and getting money out of politics and decreasing the defense budget while having our allies pick up a greater share of the tab which incidentally was something Donald Trump advocated for as president.

I will conclude my review with some of my own thoughts on this matter. As someone who reads a lot of independent media and is less inclined to watch, read or listen to the mainstream media I am very familiar with the issues covered in this book from defense spending, militarization of policing, Wall Street issues, Silicon Valley issues, and other societal problems. A lot of this book was a reviewer of things I knew or a furthering of things I thought I knew and got a better perspective on. Lofgren takes on both parties and their leaders and I feel delivers an even handed critique with possible solutions sprinkled in. I think this book is essential reading for those interested in politics. I am also pleased that he discussed other upheavals in this nation’s past that show a radical change could happen to reel in the deep state and right our course for this government.

Book Review: The Bomber Mafia

By: Malcolm Gladwell

Published 2021

Malcolm Gladwell is an author, thinker, and speaker who has attracted a lot of buzz over the years and I read this book in part because it was the Christmas gift I gave my mother in 2021. It appeared on my Libby App and I listened to the quick audiobook, the print form is only256 pages. I found the book to be engaging mostly because it deals in topics that I am interested in which are history, warfare and the ethics of technological advancements. The premise of Gladwell’s book is to discuss where the best of intentions when making technological advancements can be led astray and be bastardized past the initial dreams of their creator. The subject, aerial bombardment as a means to have a more ethical war that prevents long drawn out tragedies and minimizes deaths with precision bombing.

I was immediately drawn in by the subject matter of this work because I took an upper level course on the Second World War during my time as a history major at Rowan University. Among the many topics we covered included bombing and its efficacy and ethics and our astute professor Doctor Lee Bruce Kress opened the floor to many debates. We debated and discussed the premise of aerial bombing alone being able to win a war, the ethics of the atomic bombs used in Japan and also the destructive bombing of civilian targets in Tokyo and also Dresden. This book focuses on the divide between the men in the US Air Force who wanted to use precision and technology to cripple their opponents into a low cost surrender versus the at any means necessary men who sought to level their enemy’s cities and kill scores of people to end the war.

The Bomber Mafia were a fraternity of young military men drawn in by the capabilities of air power and what they could achieve in warfare. These men were a mini cult who were hell bent on proving that through precision bombing air power could render infantry, navies, and most other forms of combat obsolete. After the First World War turned into a horrible quagmire that led to dug in armies on many fronts cost the lives of nine million men there were thinkers determined to avoid fighting the last war. The Bomber Mafia believed that it was possible and ethical to use bombing technology to cripple any infrastructure and war making capacity to end wars before they dragged on depleting resources, devastating economies, creating mass suffering and death. Prior to the Bomber Mafia entering the war the British and Germans engaged in the Battle of Britain which devolved into bombing civilian populations on both sides in order to get the public to wilt and submit.

Gladwell seems to be on the side of the Bomber Mafia as he takes great points to highlight the failures of area bombing, or dropping mass bombs in populated areas. Gladwell asserts that these tactics failed to end the war and used accounts of British civilians and their desensitized living amongst the bombings. After that his train of argument seems to waver as he spends the next few chapters showing the limitations of precision bombing as far as its accuracy, safety for the crews flying the missions, and the ways in which area bombing ended the war in Japan. Gladwell then flips back to current times to show the efficacy of precision bombing in modern day warfare siding with technological improvements to our missiles. This sort of contradicting of the thesis during the book then arriving at the conclusion of precision bombing triumphing did not sit with me fully.

I also have some gripes with the conclusions regarding precision bombing. I used to be in the camp of precision bombing being a tool of safer and more decisive warfare. I remember in the WWII class back in 2012 making an analogy between a no armed boxer and a two armed boxer to explain that a military could win just from the air. I argued that the two armed boxer could continue to pummel the fighter with no arms and that his inability to fight back would cost him any chance. The other fighter may take the punches and never lose faith but without the ability to land blows of his own he was doomed to eventual defeat. Since that time I saw America’s precision technology which has only improved over the last few decades come up short against severely out matched guerilla fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite the precise nature of our weapons we still kill many civilians as tracked by Airwars and even through President Trump’s time in office when he stopped accurately counting civilian deaths and increased bombing in Afghanistan the tide was not turned. It may provide a significant advantage but not enough to fully deter our opposition into full and total surrender. In fact these air attacks still kill civilians and serve as recruitment tools for the other side.

Pros: Gladwell is an engaging writer and a good storyteller. The book is well focused and not caught in the muck of filler or over indulging on minor details. In the audiobook he uses actual interviews and his primary source usage is admirable. Despite contradicting himself at times I believe he makes a decent argument regarding the Bomber Mafia’s mission and their winning out in the overall fight between senseless bloodshed and a more philosophically fought war.

Cons: I do believe that the argument is too binary the way he pits Curtis LeMay against General Hansell. This also oversimplifies and possibly removes some nuance or gray area in the ways in which their mindsets overlapped. While it is a well spun story I would not take it as a total history of WWII and air warfare but more a story of technology and intent like he discusses in the introduction.

Some other thoughts:

I am a consumer of video essays on YouTube and about a year ago a content creator I like did a very good but very long video on the atomic bomb. For a long time I used to think the bomb was a more ethical end to the war because it ended the war faster and resulted in less people dying than if the US military made an amphibious assault on Japan and fought on the homeland. This essay is very engaging and uses many sources and quotes to make a very convincing argument that the atomic bomb was unnecessary and refutes the evidence I used to formulate that opinion of it being the right option back in college. Here it is in the link below:

Book Review: The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents

By: Joseph J Ellis

Published: 2021

Joseph J Ellis put together a comprehensive work on the decade of 1773 to 1783 covering the rise of patriotism in the thirteen colonies all the way to the Treaty of Paris. He titled the book The Cause because that is what the movement was called by the men who put the events in motion. Where this books succeeds is its ability to tell the story as a complicated matter with various perspectives and a not agreed upon ending. Much like David McCullough did in 1776 (reviewed on here), Ellis got into the various debates among American’s who wanted to declare independence, the perspective of loyalists and also the inner strife between British leaders. Great history does not present events as inevitable merely because they happened and we have hindsight but shows the nuance of what occurred. Think of today the many political issues and how many different disagreements people have even on minor policies or decisions.

Ellis clearly paints the revolution as a less straight forward moment in history and highlights the ways that the founding fathers were not some monolith that many in present time try to invoke to their own beliefs. The patriots agreed that they needed to be free of the tyranny of George III but were not fully united on what to do once the bloodshed was over. Difficult questions arose during the war that had to be resolved in real time and altered the future of the nation. Do the states become one nation? Do the states all become individual nations? What authority does a government have? All of these matters had to be grappled with while an army was fighting and struggling to secure independence to begin with. Ellis does a good job in explaining turning points and key moments but also discussing possible alternatives had certain moments played out differently.

Ellis covers a lot of ground in the book. Subjects like General Howe’s philosophy of a quick blow to get the colonists to look for peace rather than a decisive destruction of the Continental Army were interesting passages. They hover in the territory of what could have been as the losing leaders were quick to brand the war as unwinnable which was picked up by some historians, Ellis shows moments where the war could have been decisively ended by the British. The decisions of the many African Americans caught in the middle was another fascinating part of the subject matter. Black soldiers fought for freedom with the British, fled to Canada or joined the rebels in the hope of gaining their freedom. The performance of black soldiers in the field led to the idea of emancipation gaining ground. Emancipation and slavery also called into question the virtues of some founders who fought for freedom but not for all. The destruction of the Native Americans was another topic that weighed heavier towards the end of the book and the Treaty of Paris and what it opened the future up to as far as removal and atrocities. Like any good history book I leave with additional questions and curiosities to explore that were either not covered here or brushed upon briefly.

Historical Abstract: Fahrenheit 9/11

Fahrenheit 9/11

Michael Moore

Fahrenheit 9/11: Michael Moore (2004; Dog Eat Dog Films) full length, DVD.

The basic thesis of Michael Moore’s 2004 documentary follows the self interested corruption of George W. Bush and his pursuit of war in Iraq at the expense of working class and poor Americans and innocent Iraqis alike. The director starts the film with the whirlwind of events happening in the United States prior to the September 11th attacks by chronicling the 2000 presidential election and its controversial aftermath. The film goes on to show a president asleep at the wheel for the first eight months of office and during the initial attack only to change gears. President Bush rallied the American people around the flag and blinded by constant fear to surrender rights and be led into a war with a nation that did not attack us or pose an imminent threat. Finally, the personal profiteering of Bush and his inner circle is highlighted while the men and women suffering on both sides are victims of a lie. The director’s sources include news footage, senate floor footage, interviews of senators, declassified documents. The methodology of the director proves the way in which the September 11th attacks were used by the president and his cronies to wage an illegal war to fulfill their desires for blood and treasure.

(Yes I spent some time reviewing my history writings from college and want to get some practice in. More an abstract than a review.)

-George