THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SECOND AMERICAN REPUBLIC/MANISHA SINHA

The title is exactly what this academic work entails. What became of Lincoln’s vision of a unified American Republic following the initial Republic’s dismemberment during the Civil War? The years are 1860-1920. A very broad survey of a period when the philosophy of today’s political parties were reversed.

Manisha Sinha, Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut has written a scholarly detailed description of how Lincoln’s dream of Reconstruction was eviscerated in a cascading series of events that returned the defeated South into a post-war era of subservision of any and all rights gained by the Slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation and the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Sinha also places the Abolitionist movement in the North under a microscope and delves into the conflicts that developed between Abolitionists and Suffragettes as to who should be granted the right to vote.

From the day he took the Oath of Office following Lincoln’s assassination, President Andrew Johnson began a step by step premeditated campaign to restore The Lost Clause in the American South. For a brief period there was hope. The right to vote by black majorities in many regions saw former slaves elected to local and state offices. However this success, unprotected by the eventual withdrawal of federal troops and the political destruction of the Freedmen’s Bureau led to lawless revenge by the former plantation aristocracy. Sinha’s narrative details the horrors of the Black Codes, Lynchings, Poll Taxes, Jim Crow, and inmate leased labor that prevailed throughout the south.

The Rise and Fall is more than a deep review of Reconstruction. The narrative carries forward to Manifest Destiny and the Westward Expansion which led to the devastating impact upon Native Americans in the in the new territories. It is a general survey of politics, self interests, the Lost Cause, the impact upon labor during the industrial revolution, failed policies and racism in America from 1860-1920, long before the modern day Civil Rights Movement began. It is the perfect prelude to that forthcoming era.

This is an extremely complicated era in American History and Manisha Sinha does a brilliant job in enlightening the reader. An important addition to one’s library of American History.

THE HEAVEN AND EARTH GROCERY STORE/McBRIDE

Characters, Characters, Characters…….all deserving of capitalization…..you will meet them all. James McBride has gathered an endless collection of folks all passing through THE HEAVEN AND EARTH GROCERY STORE...no credit cards and cash not necessary at this Pottstown Pennsylvania “Chicken Hill” establishment. Immigrant Jews, African Americans, White People of dubious distinction, strivers, losers, cultures and subcultures all interacting sometimes positive, oftentimes negative.

THE HEAVEN AND EARTH GROCERY STORE is well stocked with cultural themes leading to a road to an asylum and a rescue that is worthy of a book unto itself.

Another best seller for McBride plus The National Book Award.

WAYS AND MEANS/ROGER LOWENSTEIN

Roger Lowenstein has researched and written an excellent analysis of an often overlooked battlefield of the Civil War. ” Money” This in depth academic work explores in great detail the complexity and drama of exactly how both the Confederacy and the Union financed the war. In Lowenstein’s account, the battle for financing may have equaled and even surpassed the importance of outcomes from the horrendous military clashes.

Taking a page from Doris Kern Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, Lowenstein places Salmon P. Chase’s selection by President Lincoln as Treasury Secretary at the very center of finding the money to finance the prolonged conflict, rightfully called America’s Second Revolution. In the north money for the war effort was a daily struggle but in the Confederate south the impossibility and mismanagement of securing funding became the most significant factor in the Confederacy’s final defeat.

Often overlooked during the passions of the war in 1862 the Republican 37th Congress, following succession by the Democratic southern states, enacted some of the most progressive legislation in the nation’s history. The Homestead Act, the Land Grant College Act, the Transcontinental Railroad, creation of the Agriculture Department, the Legal Tender Act, making paper money legal tender for all debts public and private. The same congress established the nation’s first Graduated Income Tax to provide critical financing for the war effort.

Lowenstein’s narrative ties together how the critical role the divergent approaches to financing the war were a determining factor in the final outcome at Appomattox. Additionally, the book is a study of the expansion of the power of the federal government acting as a nation.

CHITA

CHITA A Memoir with PATRICK PACHECO. The rise of Chita Rivera to Broadway stardom. This book is a must for lovers of the Broadway Theater. It is real and personal. Published in 2023, just months before her death in 2024, it comes to the reader as a timely tribute to her extraordinary life.

CHITA takes you backstage with Anita in the original West Side Story, Rosie in Bye By Birdie, Velma in Chicago, Aurora in Kiss of the Spider Woman and Claire in The Visit. The personal insight into the casts, producers and directors is genuine and warm. “Lenny” Bernstein, Bob Fosse, Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Hal Prince, Stephen Sondheim, and dozens more. And yes, Chita’s lovers are there as well.

Delores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero. Delores, the indomitable teenage Puerto Rican dynamo always present and often in the forefront of Chita’s stardom.

CHITA is a orchestra seat on Broadway. Don’t miss the show!

THE REBELS/DEMOCRACY AWAKENING

Two recent books are great reads providing insight and understanding into the 2024 election year. DEMOCRACY AWAKENING by Heather Cox Richardson is an insightful narrative into the political rise of Donald Trump dating back to the beginning of Republican conservatism following FDR’s New Deal.Her concise narrative makes abundantly clear as to how and why Trump has taken over the Republican Party. A history that looks back to a mythologized past as the country’s perfect time is a key tool of authoritarians.

THE REBELS- Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the Struggle for a New American Politics by Joshua Green is a another must for the political observer. Green’s historical perspective does not miss one major player in this political drama.

Warren, Sanders, and Ocasio-Cortez, as detailed by Green, pulled the Democratic Party back to its working class roots. He speculates, We don’t know yet whether history will remember them as harbingers of a new Democratic age or as insurgents who ultimately didn’t change the party as they’d hoped.

Two books, perfect companion reads.

THE LIONESS OF BOSTON/EMILY FRANKLIN

Don’t spoil a good story by telling the truth. This quote from Isabella Stewart Gardner sets the tone for Emily Franklin’s wonderful novel The LIONESS of BOSTON.

If you have visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum this novel will add volumes to the dimension of your experience. If you have not yet made the trek read The LIONESS of BOSTON first.

Glass ceilings broken long before anyone coined the term. An intimate look at the Boston Brahmin society of the late 19th Century and how one woman changed an insular world. A story of relationships, family, travel, art and artists and a greater grasp of Henry James, John Singer Sargent and Oscar Wilde.

Emily Franklin creates a new map as you walk with The Lioness the streets of Boston, Venice, London and Paris. You will not tire of the adventure.

GOING INFINITE/ MICHAEL LEWIS

Was Effective Altruism a creed to do good or a cover for personal greed? Does anyone understand the Crypto marketplace? Will you understand Crypto and Bitcoin exchanges and millisecond trading after immersing yourself in the pages of Michael Lewis’s new book GOING INFINITE? Maybe, but it will be a struggle.

What I can say is that you will get a good look at the persona, ethos and tactics of Sam Brinkman-Fried and exactly how he momentarily became the richest person in the world under 30 years of age. Brinkman’s rise and fall and the monetary and human wreckage he left behind is an astonishing story as told in Lewis’s unique style.

With Lewis’s book you need not have been in the courtroom to predict what would be a guilty on all counts verdict. You will understand why and may decide never to become a Crypto investor.

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE/NETFLIX

I disagree with the tepid reviews in the New York Times and Boston Globe about the NETFLIX mini series of Anthony Doerr’s novel All The Light We Cannot See. Of course no mini series or even a full length film can completely do justice to the book but the NETFLIX film interpretation is well worth viewing and I believe captures the essence of Doerr’s novel.

Search Gordon’s Good Reads for my take on the book.

Tune in. You will be entertained.

ELON MUSK/WALTER ISAACSON

Like all of Isaacson’s biographies you will come away with an intimate knowledge of the subject. Elon Musk is trademark Walter Isaacson excellence.

I choose to peak your interest in this very large volume by selecting quotes from throughout the book that I feel are particularly relevant to Musk and his formula for success. Some may even hint at his personal idiosyncrasies.

Move fast, blow things up, repeat. It’s not how well you avoid problems it’s how fast you figure out what the problem is and fix it.

Nobody is going to pay for something that looks like crap. The way to get a car company started was to build a high priced car first and then move to a mass-market model.

Every part, every process and every specification needs to have a person’s name attached to it to personalize blame when something goes wrong.

I think the best defense against the misuse of AI is to empower as many people as possible to have AI.

Musk made a rule to be wary of anyone whose confidence was greater than their competence.

And finally:

Is being unfiltered and untethered integral to who is is? Could you get the rockets to orbit or the transition to electric vehicles without accepting all aspects of him, hinged and unhinged.” Sometimes great innovators are risk-seeking man-children who resist potty training. They can be reckless, cringeworthy, sometimes even toxic. They can also be crazy. Crazy enough to think they can change the world. Walter Isaacson.

Just like his biographies of Franklin, Jobs, Einstein, and da Vinci Elon Musk is a six hundred fifteen page read that is part of our nation’s history.

Go for it.

THE ILIAD/EMILY WILSON

Some have, but so very many have not read Homer’s THE ILIAD). Emily Wilson’s translation, THE ILIAD, puts this classic within the scope of almost any reader. Wilson has accomplished a remarkable feat in bringing to the reader in contemporary iambic pentameter this incredible poem of over 500 pages vividly telling the mythical story of the nine year siege by the Greeks of ancient Troy. None of the mythical and mortal characters are missing.

What makes Wilson’s work even more accessible is her carefully detailed introduction which perfectly sets the table for the giant epoch. Furthermore, in THE NOTES, Wilson writes summaries of each of the twenty four books (sections) of the poem. However, don’t look for the Trojan Horse in these verses. That story is told in another ancient tale OF Troy, the Aeneid by Virgil.

When I first opened THE ILIAD I admit it was daunting. But once I ventured into the poem it unfolded very logically despite the enormity of the plot and cast.

The ancient story has contemporary meaning. You can raid fine cattle or well fed sheep, and you can trade to get tripods and horses with fine golden manes. But human life does not come back again after it passes through the fence of teeth. No trade or rustling can recover it. (9.324.29)

Cowards and heroes have the same reward. Do everything or nothing-death still comes. ( 9.493.97)

THE ILIAD teaches: In war, killers recognize no binding obligation to compensate the families of their victims. The only way the bereaved can recoup their losses is to kill the killer-whose comrades will demand vengeance in their turn. Killing begets killing, death begets death, and every loss of life generates further loss of life. ( THE ILIAD Introduction P2)

Ancient perspective for the world affairs of October, 2023.