Roger Bishop

NonfictionBiography

The tumultuous love life of a celebrated poet

Review by Roger Bishop

Robert Lowell was considered by many to be the English-speaking world’s pre-eminent poet after the Second World War. In 1946, when he was barely 30 years old, he received the Pulitzer Prize for his second poetry collection, Lord Weary’s Castle. He received a second Pulitzer for The Dolphin in 1973, and many other awards followed until his death in 1977. He was charming, brilliant in literary subjects, admired by both men and women, and a good friend to both. Born into a prominent Massachusetts family, he was charismatic, ruggedly handsome and an extraordinary mix of New York liberal and Southern conservative. Though he had many Jewish ancestors, Lowell was raised Episcopalian and converted to Catholicism. The very large collection of his letters shows he was one of the central literary figures of his time.

Although Lowell was committed to a lifetime of writing poetry, there was another aspect of his life that caused much disruption for himself and others. He was manic-depressive, and his illness provided experiences that sometimes appeared in his work. Between 1945 and 1976 he suffered at least 16 mental breakdowns. Over the years he was confined in five different countries and 15 psychiatric hospitals and clinics. Some believe his best writing came when he was entering or emerging from his illness. A positive aspect of his condition was that it gave him greater compassion for the suffering of others.  

In a compelling and insightful new book that draws in part on several previously unpublished sources, Robert Lowell in Love, biographer and literary scholar Jeffrey Meyers explores a central aspect of Lowell’s life and art: “As compensation for his mania, Lowell needed women and loved the idea of falling in love, and each affair became an intense dramatic episode. His impressive achievements came at great cost to himself as well as to the women who were attracted to his intellect, generosity, and charismatic personality. This book tells the stories of the women who inspired his poetry and were at the emotional and aesthetic center of his life.” 

Lowell is widely identified with the term “confessional” poetry, a term he did not like. He always insisted that his so-called confessional poems were in significant ways invented. However, since some of his poetry dramatized his own emotional experiences, the women in his life, often part of a small literary circle where many knew the individuals involved, had to suffer again when his poems were published.

It is crucial to understand that Lowell’s parents were particularly unsuited to each other. Neither knew how to relate to their gifted only child. In his last book, Day by Day, published in 1977, Lowell’s poem “Unwanted,” dealt with his psychological wound from being the unwanted son of a mother trapped in an unwanted marriage. Lowell learned this early on, and it was something he had to bear until his death. His mental illness apparently developed, at least in part, because of his relationship with his volatile and unstable mother. 

Meyers offers an overview of Lowell’s early life, including his years at Kenyon College where he demonstrated his commitment to a life of poetry by studying with the influential poet/critic John Crowe Ransom and became good friends with other literary figures. Meyers then focuses on Lowell’s three wives, Jean Stafford, Elizabeth Hardwick and Caroline Blackwood; his close women friends such as the highly regarded poet Elizabeth Bishop; and his best known students, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. Hardwick, a literary critic and novelist, was a firm anchor as his second wife between two turbulent marriages to emotionally unstable women, and Meyers characterizes her as the tragic heroine of Lowell’s life. 

Meyers considers the “heart” of his book the section on nine of Lowell’s many lovers, with whom he was able to conduct extensive interviews. Lowell regarded each new romance as permanent, which made the ending of these relationships devastating to the women involved. Recognizing this, Lowell tried to keep in touch with his lovers, to check on their well-being. But he did confess, “Sometimes I think I am the enemy of womankind.” Surprisingly, few of the women wanted to leave him, even after he had treated them irresponsibly. When he died, Lowell was still married to Blackwood, although he had moved from England back to New York to live with Hardwick. The latter even had Blackwood stay with her in the days leading up to his funeral.

This absorbing biography has many riches, including perceptive readings of some of Lowell’s poetry, an appendix that reveals how Meyers was able to locate nine of Lowell’s identifiable romantic interests, and another appendix that lists significant literary references and allusions that did not make it into Lowell’s Collected Poems.

Robert Lowell was considered by many to be the English-speaking world’s pre-eminent poet after the Second World War. In 1946, when he was barely 30 years old, he received the Pulitzer Prize for his second poetry collection, Lord Weary’s Castle. He received a second Pulitzer for The Dolphin in 1973, and many other awards followed until his death in 1977.
NonfictionBiography

A reform-minded writer

Review by Roger Bishop

Jack London lived during America’s first Gilded Age from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. Readers of his very popular books (he was the first U.S. author to make more than a million dollars) were entertained by stories about dogs and wolves and gold miners and ships and cannibals. At the same time, London was educating the public about serious societal problems that required fundamental reform. He understood that fiction could appeal to the heart as well as the mind and that public empathy was crucial before significant social, economic and political change could take place. As an avowed socialist for many years (he eventually left the party) he was also a prolific producer of nonfiction and joined with others in advocating such reforms as workplace safety and better working conditions for adults and children, changes in the seriously flawed justice system, wealth inequality, sustainable agriculture, conservation and more.

In her enlightening and beautifully written reappraisal of London’s life and work, Jack London: A Writer’s Fight for a Better America, Cecelia Tichi, professor of English and American Studies at Vanderbilt, demonstrates that the author was a great American public intellectual. His deep research on specific problems and his literary skill enabled him to reach a vast and extraordinarily diverse readership at a time when the printed word, through magazines and books, was the popular medium of communication.

London had an impoverished childhood and worked at a series of odd jobs to help his struggling family. He learned first hand or saw many of the concerns he would later address in his writing. His schooling was mostly self-guided and included just one undergraduate semester at the University of California. But he was an omnivorous reader, interested in a wide range of subjects, and significantly helped by two librarians. His mother was not warm and affectionate toward him but, importantly, she encouraged his ambition to become a successful writer. When he began to enjoy financial security, he was keenly aware he was part of the very culture he hoped to reform; his wealth came from an economic system he both needed and loathed.

In a period that was appropriately labeled the era of Big Business, it was not tycoons’ wealth that bothered him but their abysmal failure at managing the social world they created. London said in 1914, “If, just by wishing, I could change America and Americans in one way I would change the economic organization so that true opportunity would obtain; and service, instead of profits, would be the idea, the ideal, and the ambition animating every citizen.”

London’s stint as a war correspondent covering the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 and his work reporting on the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 made a lasting impact on him. Although he did not accept another wartime assignment until 1914, when he covered the U.S. intervention in the Mexican Revolution, he was eager to tell the public, Tichi writes, “directly or subtly, flagrantly or in nuance—that war and its corollary, empire, were inglorious, wasteful, corruptive, and inhumane.”

This book vividly explores London’s life and times, including the development of corporate public relations to oppose causes he advocated. There are expert readings of his works which show how he combined marketable writing with messages for reform. Tichi’s important work offers a new way to see an author we may have thought we knew well. 

Jack London lived during America’s first Gilded Age from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. Readers of his very popular books (he was the first U.S. author to make more than a million dollars) were entertained by stories about dogs and wolves and gold miners and ships and cannibals. At the same time, London was educating the public about serious societal problems that required fundamental reform.

NonfictionEssays

Looking back at a literary life

Review by Roger Bishop

Roger Angell, now 95, has had an extraordinary life. A longtime fiction editor of The New Yorker and one of the best-ever writers on baseball, he is the only writer elected to both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Baseball Hall of Fame. His wonderful new collection, This Old Man: All in Pieces, is, he says, a grab bag, a portrait of his brain at this point in his life. The title piece, a moving and personal account of aging, received the 2014 prize for best essay from the American Society of Magazine Editors.

“Getting old is the second biggest surprise of my life, but the first, by a mile, is our unceasing need for deep attachment and intimate love,” Angell writes. “We oldies yearn daily and hourly for conversation and a renewed domesticity, for company at the movies or while visiting a museum, for someone close by in the car when coming home at night.”

Some of my favorite selections are about writers. Angell reflects on the 20,000 or so manuscripts he has rejected over the years and addresses many misunderstandings about fiction, pointing out that there is no one way to write a story or to edit one for publication. He notes that his fellow fiction editors were very much alike in their passion for their work, but each went about the job differently. His own approach is to constantly ask tough questions about such things as clarity and tone, and, at the end, to ponder “Is it good enough? And is it any good at all?” In a postlude he writes, “[E]diting, I think remains a mystery to the world. Sometimes it even mystified me.” 

“Writing is hard,” he says, “even for authors who do it all the time.” He remembers his stepfather, E.B. White, rarely being satisfied with what he had written, sometimes commenting after sending his copy to The New Yorker: “It isn’t good enough. I wish it were better.” Angell need not worry about his own writing in this eloquent collection. It shares and illuminates and entertains in a variety of ways and is a reader’s delight.

 

This article was originally published in the December 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Roger Angell, now 94, has had an extraordinary life. A longtime fiction editor of The New Yorker and one of the best-ever writers on baseball, he is the only writer elected to both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Baseball Hall of Fame. His wonderful new collection, This Old Man: All in Pieces, is, he says, a grab bag, a portrait of his brain at this point in his life. The title piece, a moving and personal account of aging, received the 2014 prize for best essay from the American Society of Magazine Editors.
NonfictionHistory

A look at Roman culture

Review by Roger Bishop

Ancient Rome helps define the way we understand the world and think about ourselves. The ideas of liberty and citizenship, the Western calendar, phrases such as “beware of Greeks bearing gifts” and much more came from this one source. Renowned classicist Mary Beard, a professor at Cambridge University, has spent much of the last 50 years studying the literature of the Romans and the thousands of books and papers written about them. Her magnificent, eminently readable SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome is an authoritative exploration of how a small and unremarkable village became such a dominant power on three continents. The title of the book refers to the Senate and the Roman People, the main sources of authority in first-century BCE Rome. 

Beard says two things undermine modern myths about early Roman power. First, it’s true that Roman culture placed a high value on success in battle. She doesn’t excuse its terrible brutality. However, violence was endemic in that era, and other peoples were just as committed to warfare and atrocities as the Romans. Second, the Romans didn’t plan to conquer and control Italy. They saw their expansion in terms of making alliances with other people rather than gaining territory. The only long-term obligation the Romans imposed on those they defeated was the provision and upkeep of troops for the Roman armies.

From early times, Roman culture was extraordinarily open to outsiders, which distinguished it from every other ancient city. Peoples of Roman provinces were usually given full citizenship.

Beard notes that the most extraordinary fact about Roman culture is that so much of what they wrote still survives. She gives particular attention to Cicero, where we find “by far the most sustained insight” into the life of a notable Roman.

SPQR is the best kind of history. With a deep knowledge of her subject and a healthy skepticism about what we think we know, she enlightens us with riveting prose while broadening our perspective.

 

This article was originally published in the November 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Ancient Rome helps define the way we understand the world and think about ourselves. The ideas of liberty and citizenship, the Western calendar, phrases such as “beware of Greeks bearing gifts” and much more came from this one source. Renowned classicist Mary Beard, a professor at Cambridge University, has spent much of the last 50 years studying the literature of the Romans and the thousands of books and papers written about them. Her magnificent, eminently readable SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome is an authoritative exploration of how a small and unremarkable village became such a dominant power on three continents.
NonfictionBiography

Love him or hate him, he’s hard to ignore

Review by Roger Bishop

Henry Kissinger is one of the most controversial statesmen in American history. Some regard him as the country’s greatest strategic foreign relations thinker, while others describe him as conspiratorial or as a war criminal. Noted Harvard historian Niall Ferguson tells the first part of Kissinger’s story in great detail in Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist, the first of a projected two-volume biography. His research included access to previously private papers, documents from more than 100 archives and many interviews with his subject’s former colleagues, friends and foes, as well as lengthy sessions with Kissinger himself. All of this will not end controversy, however, and may even provoke it, since Kissinger suggested to Ferguson that he write the biography. 

Kissinger left Germany with his family in 1938. At least 13 members of his family were killed in the Holocaust, with the actual number probably closer to 30. Despite this, he has always strongly denied that the Holocaust was crucial to his development. More important was his return to Germany as a private in the U.S. Army. He led a team responsible for historical research and psychology, in an effort to prevent sabotage and to identify ardent Nazis. 

Kissinger has said that Fritz Kraemer, a fellow soldier, was “the greatest single influence on my formative years.” Kraemer, also born in Germany, was a highly educated conservative whose training was in international law, and he generated Kissinger’s systematic interest in history. Later, at Harvard, William Elliott encouraged him and demonstrated that a professor could also be a political actor.

Ferguson offers a rich exploration of the interplay among Kissinger’s study, his own writings and his experience. He is often identified as a “realist,” whose primary influences were Metternich, Bismarck and Machiavelli, a label he rejects. Instead, he says the work of the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant has meant the most to him. 

Two subjects in Kissinger are most likely to generate strong reactions. The first is that as early as 1965, Kissinger believed that the war in Vietnam could not be won by military means but could be ended only by negotiation. Why then did it take eight more years to reach an agreement? The second is Kissinger’s alleged role in a conspiracy to leak information from the Paris Peace Talks to the 1968 presidential campaign of Richard Nixon. Ferguson points out numerous weaknesses in the arguments that such leaks took place. He does say, however, that Kissinger might have destroyed or failed to record evidence of his activities in Paris.

Whatever one thinks of Kissinger or whether one agrees with Ferguson’s assessments of people and events, this magisterial work should be required reading for anyone interested in one of the major figures of 20th-century history. 

 

This article was originally published in the October 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Henry Kissinger is one of the most controversial statesmen in American history. Some regard him as the country’s greatest strategic foreign relations thinker, while others describe him as conspiratorial or as a war criminal. Noted Harvard historian Niall Ferguson tells the first part of Kissinger’s story in great detail in Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist, the first of a projected two-volume biography.
NonfictionBiography

The force behind the national security state

Review by Roger Bishop

Henry Kissinger’s years as President Nixon’s national security adviser and as secretary of state to both Nixon and President Ford are well documented, in Kissinger’s own writings and in previously classified material. Among major achievements in those years were: détente with the Soviet Union, including negotiating arms treaties; opening a relationship with China; shuttle diplomacy with Israel and others in the Middle East; and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in officially ending the war in Vietnam. But Kissinger continues to be criticized because of his ruthless pursuit of foreign policy goals. His detractors point to his involvement in invasions or interventions in East Timor, Cambodia, Laos, Angola, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Cypress, and against the Kurds. In his richly detailed and stimulating new book, Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman, historian Greg Grandin writes that Kissinger was “the quintessential American, his cast of mind perfectly molded to his place and time.”

The book tracks Kissinger’s views and decisions and focuses on the central role those decisions have played in influencing his successors’ actions in creating the world we have today, “which accepts endless war as a matter of course.” From U.S. intervention in Central America and the invasions of Grenada and Panama to the first Gulf war and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, to the more recent drone attacks in Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan, we have seen increased U.S. commitment, more military forces deployed, and more lives lost.

Grandin, whose books include Fordlandia, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, is quite aware that many individuals, not Kissinger alone, are responsible for the evolution of the U.S. national security state. But he argues convincingly that Kissinger’s influence is greater than anyone else’s. He explores Kissinger’s thinking, including careful readings of his written work, with particular attention to his senior thesis at Harvard in 1950 on “The Meaning of History.” Kissinger has repeated many of its premises and arguments to the present day. He contends that there is no such thing as absolute truth, that truth isn’t found in facts but in the questions we ask of those facts. Often considered a foreign policy realist, Kissinger wrote in the 1960s that he respects facts, but “There are two kinds of realists: those who manipulate facts and those who create them. The West requires nothing so much as men who create their own reality.” His “realism” is profoundly elastic and means that hunches, conjecture, will and intuition are as important as facts. This approach was taken up and extended by some defense intellectuals and policy makers. Even some who initially opposed him, both Republicans and Democrats, came to adopt aspects of his thinking when their administrations were in power.

Kissinger helped reconstruct the national security state based on spectacular displays of violence, intense secrecy, the increasing use of militarism and the establishment of an imperial presidency. Power is weakness unless a country is willing to use it in “little wars,” such as Vietnam, he argued.

A key to his approach in helping the national security state adapt to new challenges was the establishment of a denial mechanism that led to strict secrecy and the falsification of records. Kissinger also insisted that what had happened in the past shouldn’t limit what action we pursue in the future. Past policies of the United States and the violence and disorder in the world are not related. Something or someone else is always the reason that led to U.S. involvement. Also, previously classified material indicates that it is hard to find a single foreign policy initiative that was not taken for political gain.

Kissinger’s Shadow attempts to move beyond praise or condemnation to demonstrate that Kissinger, for good or ill, is the architect of much foreign policy thinking that followed him. Whether a reader agrees with the author’s judgments or not, the book makes for fascinating reading. 

 

In his richly detailed and stimulating new book, Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman, historian Greg Grandin writes that Kissinger was “the quintessential American, his cast of mind perfectly molded to his place and time.”
NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

America’s revolution, viewed from the fringes

Review by Roger Bishop

The residents of the Gulf Coast in the 1770s and 1780s saw the American Revolution differently from the rebelling colonists in the north. Initially they regarded it as another imperial war, fought for land and treasure. Eventually, though, the Gulf Coast became the only site of Revolutionary War battles that was outside the rebelling colonies but later became part of the U.S. The area had a diverse population that included the British, French and Spanish, people of African descent, and Native Americans. Most of these groups had no interest in Britain’s attempt to tax and regulate its colonists, nor to rebel. When war began to affect them, however, it brought both opportunities and dangers, and many used it to advance their own ambitions for themselves, their families and their nations.

In her richly detailed and riveting Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution, historian Kathleen DuVal explores what the war and its aftermath meant in the lives of eight individuals who lived in an area with many competing interests. The most important long-term need for the region was more land for the steadily expanding population. In the short term, decisions about whether to fight, which side to support and how to secure rights and property became major concerns.

Independence was not a universal goal in the 18th century. For most people on the continent, advantageous interdependence was a more realistic goal. On the Gulf Coast, only Native-American leaders fought for sovereign independence. But, they, too, operated through a complicated arrangement of interdependencies. By winning the American Revolution, the rebels advanced their own varieties of independence at the expense of others, primarily Native Americans whose ancestors had lived on the land for centuries and millions of enslaved Africans whose labor helped to fuel a new industrial economy. Despite their land being fought over by others, the Indians were not invited either to the meetings that led to the Treaty of Paris officially ending the war or to join the union of other sovereign states.

The war sometimes gave chances for individual liberties and even freedom from slavery but no side proposed the abolition of slavery. The status of white women did not change for the better and often got worse. Life-changing decisions continued to be made by men. Although nearly half of the North American population was female, few women are mentioned in accounts of war and building a nation.

DuVal skillfully weaves the lives of her main characters into the larger themes. The vast majority of the land in the region belonged to the Indians. Success or defeat for the British, French, Spanish or Indian nations depended on the decisions of Native Americans to fight or refuse to do so. Two prominent Indian leaders are profiled in the book. One is Payamataha, a leader of the Chickasaws, who played a key role in such decisions. A combination of diplomat and spiritual leader, he sought independence for his people through a pragmatic course of peaceful coexistence. During the 1760s and 1770s he led his nation to make peace with a sizable group of other Indian nations, all of them long-time enemies of his people. Forces beyond his control created problems later on. The other Indian leader discussed in detail is Alexander McGillivray, of Creek-Scots ancestry, who supported the British in the war. In its aftermath, he promoted Creek independence and worked toward a confederation of Indian nations committed to protecting their land.

There is also Oliver Pollock, a British subject and wealthy merchant in Havana and New Orleans, who was able to do business easily with the Spanish and French. The Continental Congress appointed him its commercial agent in Louisiana, and he invested virtually all of his fortune with the rebels in the American Revolution. His wife, Margaret O’Brien, saw her life change for the worse because of her husband’s decision.

James Bryce and Isabella Chrystie were firmly on the side of the British. Living in West Florida, they realized that their independence depended on the connections, infrastructure and order provided by the British Empire. They understood that they received much more in services from the crown than they paid to it.

Petit Jean was enslaved but played a more autonomous role than most slaves in post-1763 Mobile. He was a cattle driver who had a deep knowledge of the landscape around him and was entrusted with great responsibility. He could have run away but had he been caught, the consequences would have been severe. The slaves’ loyalty was not to their masters or a government but working for their own families’ interest in the whites’ war of rebellion.

Amand Broussard was a rancher in Louisiana whose family had been expelled from Acadia (now the northern coast of Canada) by the British. Although the Acadians had prospered in part from selling their grain to the British in West Florida, they had not forgotten the harsh treatment they had received by the British.

In this important book, the author writes “Striving for American independence really meant striving for the right balance of independence and dependence. Native Americans and European empires struck different balances and both lost in North America.” How this happened is a complex story and DuVal tells it magnificently.

The residents of the Gulf Coast in the 1770s and 1780s saw the American Revolution differently from the rebelling colonists in the north.In her richly detailed and riveting Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution, historian Kathleen DuVal explores what the war and its aftermath meant in the lives of eight individuals who lived in an area with many competing interests.
NonfictionBiography

Nixon’s lonely battles

Review by Roger Bishop

In his farewell remarks to the White House staff after his resignation from the presidency, Richard Nixon said, “Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.” In his illuminating and compelling One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon, award-winning author and journalist Tim Weiner tells the story of a tormented man, considered by many to be a brilliant politician, in the process of destroying himself. Weiner, who received a Pulitzer Prize for his Philadelphia Inquirer reporting on secret government programs and a National Book Award for Legacy of Ashes, a history of the CIA, bases his book in great part on tens of thousands of government documents declassified between 2007 and 2014. Every quotation and citation is on the record.

Nixon saw himself as a great statesman whose top priority was to bring an honorable end to the war in Vietnam. At the same time, he regarded politics as war. Anyone who opposed him was considered his enemy, particularly antiwar protesters. Weiner reveals the extremes Nixon was willing to go to defeat his enemies at home and abroad. He strongly believed that John Kennedy stole the 1960 presidential election from him and vowed to do whatever it took to keep that from happening again. And he did.

Days before the 1968 presidential election, with his lead over Hubert Humphrey dropping in the polls, Nixon convinced government leaders in South Vietnam to wait until after the election to make any binding deals because, as president, Nixon told them he could negotiate better terms for ending the war than President Johnson could. It is a federal crime for a citizen to conduct diplomacy with a foreign government against the interests of the U.S. Nixon would long remember that his victory that fall depended on deception and acts of dubious legality. He won by less than half a million votes, and not since 1912 had a president been elected with less of a popular mandate. Years later, Philip Habib, a senior State Department diplomat at the Paris peace talks, who served both presidents Johnson and Nixon, believed the talks then in progress would have succeeded if Nixon had not intervened. Habib said he was convinced that if Humphrey had won the election, “the war would have been over much sooner.”

Nixon’s grand strategy included persuading the leaders of China and the Soviet Union to put pressure on North Vietnam to help him pursue peace. But as that initiative failed, his frustration and anger led him to take personal control of much of the massive military power at his command, thinking he could bomb the enemy in Vietnam into submission. He did not trust anyone else, even members of his cabinet and his closest advisers (although he did count on top aides Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig to carry out his plans), and he was increasingly secretive and duplicitous. One of the best examples of this was his decision in 1970 to invade Cambodia, over the strong objections of his secretaries of state and defense. In 1971, relations between the country’s national defense and intelligence communities and the president were so bad that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had their own officially approved spy inside the White House.

H.R. Haldeman, Nixon’s chief of staff, noted accurately that “without the Vietnam War there would have been no Watergate.” After the 1970 congressional elections and with the country bitterly divided over the war, Nixon felt he had reached the low point of his presidency. At that point he devoted much time and effort to political strategy meetings that he hoped would lead him to an overwhelming re-election victory in 1972. Toward that end, the break-in at the offices of Lawrence O’Brien and the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel and other related activities came about because of Nixon’s obsession with doing everything possible that would reflect negatively on his opponents.

Rich in behind-the-scenes views of political and foreign-policy maneuvering, One Man Against the World is an excellent guide to better understand Nixon as a man, as well as his policy in Vietnam and the beginnings of the Watergate scandal. Weiner writes so well that his book is not only authoritative but a riveting read.

 

In his farewell remarks to the White House staff after his resignation from the presidency, Richard Nixon said, “Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.” In his illuminating and compelling One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon, award-winning author and journalist Tim Weiner tells the story of a tormented man, considered by many to be a brilliant politician, in the process of destroying himself.
NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

The messy legacy of Andrew Jackson

Review by Roger Bishop

Andrew Jackson, acting as both a government employee and a private citizen, was more responsible than any other single person for creating the region we call the Deep South. He did the most to establish the land for the states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. As president, his first significant initiative was a proposal to remove all Indians from the area. But, long before, while serving as a major general, he wrote, “The object of the government is to bring into market this land and have it populated.” Native Americans were removed by armies, acts, treaties and laws.

At the same time, private citizen Jackson was also deeply involved in real estate transactions on land that he had captured as a general. While on the military payroll, he bought and operated slave plantations and, in collaboration with friends, relatives and business associates, opened land to white settlers. Many real estate records were lost, but the names of Jackson and others close to him appear on the purchase records for at least 45,000 acres sold in the Tennessee Valley from 1818 onward. The evidence indicates that Jackson was able to align the nation’s national security affairs in a way that matched his interest in land development.

The Cherokee Nation, whose ancestors had lived on the land for many years, saw things differently. Led by the extraordinary John Ross, a politician and diplomat, they used every approach available to remain on their land. Ross’ father was a descendant of Scots-Irish traders going back to British colonial times and his mother was one-fourth Cherokee. He could have passed as white but something drew him closer to his Indian identity. This epic struggle between cultures and strong personalities is at the heart of Steve Inskeep’s fast-paced, extensively researched Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab.

Inskeep is a co-host of NPR’s “Morning Edition” and an award-winning journalist. His lively narrative details the many negotiations and increasingly strained relations between the two sides. Ross, an eloquent speaker and successful entrepreneur, was a keen strategist who used his skills well in an era when sovereignty was more often defended with words than with lethal weapons. By articulating the ways the Cherokees had worked with the U.S. government, including serving in the Army, he was able to establish a moral foundation for his cause. In a letter to the War Department Ross wrote, “We consider ourselves as a part of the great family of the Republic of the U. States,” willing to sacrifice everything in defending the republic.

It is crucial to understand that in the early 1800s there were two different and mutually exclusive maps, the white man’s map and the Indian map. Native Americans in the region had been on the defensive for centuries and in Jackson’s day the Five Civilized Tribes (as they were called because they adapted their cultures to white society) still lived in their heartlands.

Jackson had complex views about Indians. He was a frontier leader who made his own rules and in later years would be known as an “Indian hater.” He believed in being “just,” on his terms. He could show mercy and respect and have empathy for others. Indians served in his troops, and he honored his promise to give them the same pay and benefits as white soldiers, and to assure that their widows received appropriate benefits. After a horrendous battle, an infant orphan Creek (Indian) boy was found in the arms of his dead mother. Jackson decided to keep the baby and raise him in his own home. But these qualities were always governed by his ruthlessness and his will to win. Ross was also fiercely competitive but he had moments when his stubbornness allowed for generosity.

There were many prominent figures, including Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall and former attorney general William Wirt, who were sympathetic to the Cherokee cause but were unable to stop the removal of the Cherokees. Jacksonland also features many other interesting figures such as Elias Boudinot, the founding editor of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first Native-American newspaper; Jeremiah Evarts, whose influential essays promoted the Cherokee cause to a national audience; and Catharine Beecher, who played a key role in the first mass political action by women in the history of the U.S.

Jackson left his two-term presidency in 1837 and died in 1845 but his political influence remained for another generation. His Democratic Party won four of the six presidential elections after he left office. Ross moved to the West with the last group of Cherokees in December 1838. He lived long enough to see the Union prevail in the Civil War, a conflict that saw Cherokees fighting on both sides. At his death in 1866, Cherokees were negotiating another peace treaty with the U.S. that required them to give the government more of the land that was to have been theirs forever.

Inskeep’s superb storytelling skills guide us through a critical period of transition that meant heartbreak for thousands but continued expansion of the country for many others.

 

A version of this article was originally published in the June 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The epic struggle between cultures and strong personalities is at the heart of Steve Inskeep’s fast-paced, extensively researched Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab.
NonfictionHistory

Four founders

Review by Roger Bishop

Nationhood was never a goal of the American Revolution. The Declaration of Independence refers to “Free and Independent States.” After the Revolutionary War ended, a majority of the population was opposed or indifferent to a transition from individual states to a federal government. In his brilliant and exciting new book, The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789, historian Joseph J. Ellis tells the story of how a small group of leaders, disregarding popular opinion, took the American story in a new direction.

There were four men of vision—George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay—who led the way to the next stage of development. Ellis’ thesis may be controversial to some because he argues that radical change came not from “the people,” but from the political elite. It happened because the four leaders, all with impeccable revolutionary credentials, were keenly aware of the systemic dysfunction of the Articles of Confederation. They used their skills to call for a Constitutional Convention and, as best they could, to control the agenda. They even attempted to orchestrate the debates in the state ratifying conventions and then drafted the Bill of Rights (a popular move), which would, they thought, assure that states go along with the constitution. Ellis says that if he is right, “this was arguably the most creative and consequential act of political leadership in American history.”

Ellis offers insightful portraits of his main players and penetrating analyses of major issues while beautifully evoking the atmosphere of the era. The Quartet is the best kind of history—authoritative and superbly written.

 

This article was originally published in the May 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Nationhood was never a goal of the American Revolution. The Declaration of Independence refers to “Free and Independent States.” After the Revolutionary War ended, a majority of the population was opposed or indifferent to a transition from individual states to a federal government. In his brilliant and exciting new book, The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789, historian Joseph J. Ellis tells the story of how a small group of leaders, disregarding popular opinion, took the American story in a new direction
NonfictionHistory

Many voices, one tragic war

Review by Roger Bishop

The end of World War II in Europe brought a wide range of reactions, especially in Germany. From concentration camp prisoners to top Nazi officers, from refugees crowding the roads to soldiers eager to see the war finally over, there was a mixture of heartbreak, relief, chaos and disbelief. For German novelist Walter Kempowski, who died in 2007, researching and compiling those responses, through eyewitness accounts, letters and diaries, became a lifelong mission. The result was 10 volumes and a diary of his project’s progress.

The first part of this extraordinary collection to be published in the United States, Swansong 1945: A Collective Diary of the Last Days of the Third Reich, assembles what Kempowski called his “particles” to form a “collage” that brings four days in 1945 vividly to life: Friday, April 20, Hitler’s 56th birthday; Wednesday, April 25, when American and Soviet troops met at the Elbe; Monday, April 30, Hitler’s suicide; and Tuesday, May 8, the German surrender and VE Day. The power of the work comes from the great variety and volume of the personal accounts, many of them eloquent and moving.

The most heartbreaking entries come from concentration camp prisoners who describe the horrific conditions they were subjected to. Some of the most eloquent accounts are from Alisah Shek, daughter of a Prague civil engineer who was deported to Ausch-witz. She was held at the Theresienstadt concentration camp. “We sit here and watch: the worst thing they have done to us, is to rob us of reality, of the concept of reality. We know only a tormented, fear-filled world of cruelty, in which we are the victims of events, objects.” From Dieter Wellershoff, a German citizen: “I really can’t even grasp it. The Germany that I so loved is finished. Because it isn’t just a war that’s being lost. . . . I know just one thing, that I want to survive. I’m only nineteen years old. Everything should just be starting.” There are detailed descriptions of the last days of Hitler and his closest confidants, as recorded by his secretaries and valet. Until the very end, Hitler denied that he had started the war and claimed he had tried to stop it. 

This important book takes us beyond geography, statistics and battles and reveals the cost of war in very human terms.

 

This article was originally published in the April 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The end of World War II in Europe brought a wide range of reactions, especially in Germany. From concentration camp prisoners to top Nazi officers, from refugees crowding the roads to soldiers eager to see the war finally over, there was a mixture of heartbreak, relief, chaos and disbelief. For German novelist Walter Kempowski, who died in 2007, researching and compiling those responses, through eyewitness accounts, letters and diaries, became a lifelong mission. The result was 10 volumes and a diary of his project’s progress.
NonfictionHistory

The beginning of the end of Rome

Review by Roger Bishop

The most notable assassination in history, of probably the single most influential man in European history, occurred in 44 B.C. The event changed the world, but not as the assassins had planned. Why and how did it happen? In The Death of Caesar, history and classics professor Barry Strauss offers both excellent historical detective work and riveting prose.

Strauss explains the historical context of Julius Caesar’s assassination and demonstrates how it became, for all practical purposes, the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire.

The three main conspirators—Cassius, Brutus and Decimus—said they acted to preserve the Republic, but the truth was more complicated. Ambition, greed and perhaps envy that Caesar had selected his grandnephew, Octavian, only 18 years old, to succeed him, were also motives. Cassius probably initiated the plot, but it was his brother-in-law, Brutus, who was essential to the murder. He had the authority and a reputation for ethical behavior; if he called Caesar a tyrant, his credibility would convince others and allow fellow conspirators to remain alive. Decimus, the closest to Caesar, served with him in the army for 10 years and played a crucial role in the plot. Caesar had made a decision to stay away from the Senate that day and was tricked by his good friend to go.

The Roman people and the conspirators both wanted peace and compromise. Caesar was dead, but Caesarism—the idea that a general and his legions could conquer the Republic—lived on. What the conspirators needed was a military coup. Instead, they committed murder and made speeches.

Meticulously researched and superbly written, The Death of Caesar is a vivid and readable exploration of a momentous event.

 

This article was originally published in the March 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The most notable assassination in history, of probably the single most influential man in European history, occurred in 44 B.C. The event changed the world, but not as the assassins had planned. Why and how did it happen? In The Death of Caesar, history and classics professor Barry Strauss offers both excellent historical detective work and riveting prose.
NonfictionHistory

Worldwide echoes of Spain’s brutal conflict

Review by Roger Bishop

The Spanish Civil War, fought between 1936 and 1939, was the first struggle against fascism in Europe as the powers of Germany and Italy, for their own purposes, joined with General Francisco Franco’s Nationalist (rebel) forces to oust the elected government. Although the Western democracies adopted a policy of nonintervention, volunteers came from many countries to assist the Republican government in the hope that fascism could be stopped. Unfortunately, five months after the Spanish war ended, World War II began in Europe. As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun) shows in his fast-paced, often moving and revealing new book Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and the World It Made, the earlier war served in numerous ways as a laboratory for the larger war.

Rhodes concisely explains the background of the Spanish Civil War and follows events chronologically, but he is only incidentally concerned with Spanish politics. Franco’s side won the war and he ruled Spain as an absolute dictator until his death in 1975. Instead, Rhodes has three major concerns: first, the stories of courageous individuals whose stories have either not been told or told incompletely; secondly, the achievements in constructive technology spurred by the war, such as medical advances in collecting blood and sorting casualties; thirdly, the extraordinary works of art, reportage and literature, by such figures as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn and George Orwell, that brought the tragedy to the attention of the world .

Some two million men and women fought in the war; at least 200,000 were killed and many more injured. There were an abundance of compelling figures involved, often doing their life-saving work under incredibly difficult conditions. American surgeon Edward Barsky, in an unpublished memoir, provided the title for Rhodes’s book. Barsky had been a busy doctor in New York but agreed to help raise funds for medical equipment for the Spanish Republicans and recruit people with exceptional medical and nursing skills. He agreed to lead a contingent of U.S. volunteers. Once in Spain, he found that the red crosses painted on the roofs of his ambulances not only were not respected, they became prime targets in a war of attrition. He coped with problems in lines of authority and language. Stolen equipment, inadequate facilities, unceasing war and an unending flow of casualties followed. Eventually, Barsky’s team became the largest and best-equipped medical unit. His remarkable life after Spain found him serving in World War II and aiding various humanitarian and human rights causes, despite U.S. government harassment. He also helped provide emergency medical services for civil rights workers in the American South.

Wherever she was assigned, skilled British nurse and midwife Patience Darton went to work improving conditions that were often deplorable. This frequently brought her into conflict with her co-workers. Two surgeons, Frederic Durán Jordà from Spain and Norman Bethune from Canada, developed an innovative national blood distribution program. Despite the fact that Bethune’s team would be responsible for 78 percent of all blood transfusions on the Republican side during the war, some Canadian Communists conspired successfully to have him expelled from Spain.

Many gifted men and women felt it was important to offer their skills to the cause of democracy in a small but pivotal war at a hinge of history. Their hope was that if they were successful it would delay or prevent a wider war. Rhodes relates their stories in a superbly engrossing narrative that packs a lot of information and drama and reminds us of the importance of individual lives in wartime.

Although Orwell noted that his time in Spain had left him with “memories that are mostly evil,” at the same time, “Curiously enough the whole experience has left me with not less but more belief in the decency of human beings.” We meet some of them in this enlightening book.

The Spanish Civil War, fought between 1936 and 1939, was the first struggle against fascism in Europe as the powers of Germany and Italy, for their own purposes, joined with General Francisco Franco’s Nationalist (rebel) forces to oust the elected government. Although the Western democracies adopted a policy of nonintervention, volunteers came from many countries to assist the Republican government in the hope that fascism could be stopped. Unfortunately, five months after the Spanish war ended, World War II began in Europe. As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun) shows in his fast-paced, often moving and revealing new book Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and the World It Made, the earlier war served in numerous ways as a laboratory for the larger war.

Sign Up

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Sign up now

Trending Features

All Features