In his new book, bestselling military historian Patrick K. O’Donnell turns his attention to a forgotten story of the American Revolution. Today, only a rusted metal sign memorializes 256 Maryland soldiers who fell during the Battle of Brooklyn in August 1776. The men were part of a legendary regiment whose heroic actions in that battle—and others in the years to come—helped determine the outcome of the war. 

O’Donnell became curious about the men while on a walking tour of the Brooklyn neighborhood where the undiscovered remains of the soldiers still lie. Through his research, he uncovered the fascinating story of Major Mordecai Gist, who formed an independent company of men in Baltimore in 1774, when war clouds were gathering. The unit would become one of only a few that fought throughout the war, disbanding in November 1783. (Gist, who survived, named his sons Independent and States.)

O’Donnell gives a stirring account of the remarkable resilience and bravery shown by the Maryland soldiers. In the summer of 1776, British troops and warships sailed into New York’s harbors, set on invasion. Compared with the British, the American army was a ragtag affair. 

General George Washington “faced a nearly impossible strategic situation,” O’Donnell notes. Although outmatched and outmaneuvered, the Marylanders proved to be stalwart and daring soldiers, helping to cover the Americans’ retreat and causing Washington to cry, “Good God! What brave fellows I must this day lose!”

While O’Donnell focuses on the Marylanders, his absorbing narrative takes readers into the larger story of the Revolutionary War itself. In the process, he makes a compelling case for honoring these forgotten heroes with more than a rusted sign.

This article was originally published in the March 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Of all the weird twists in the 40-year drama of building the Washington Monument, perhaps the oddest was in 1855, when a band of rebels staged a coup and seized the project, largely because the board overseeing the construction had accepted a commemorative stone from Pope Pius IX. The Know-Nothing Party faction didn’t give back the monument until 1858.

Of course, the “monument” was then a 153-foot stump, decades from completion. As John Steele Gordon shows in his enjoyable Washington’s Monument, a history of the memorial specifically and obelisks more generally, dysfunction is not a modern phenomenon. Officials dithered over a suitable honor for George Washington from 1783, when Congress first passed a resolution, to 1888, when the obelisk-shaped tower, by then its full 555 feet, officially opened. The pattern: initial community enthusiasm, declining interest, failed fundraising, government bailout.

Gordon calls it “obelisk-shaped” because a real obelisk is by definition a monolith, carved from a single piece of stone. Obelisks were first erected—probably—by the ancient Egyptians, to stand in pairs outside temple entrances. There are still plenty of them around, and Gordon interweaves their stories with that of our monument.  

The heroes of Gordon’s book are the engineers who figured out how to move the ancient obelisks and build the Washington Monument. Each project presented a huge logistical challenge, overcome by technical innovation. These were astounding feats, forever capturing the public imagination: Some 600,000 people visit the Washington Monument annually.

This article was originally published in the February 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Journalist and globe-trotter Eric Weiner, perhaps best-known for his bestselling book The Geography of Bliss, continues his pursuit of big questions in The Geography of Genius. Why, he wonders, do some conditions give rise to networks of innovators who transform the world? As such a question suggests, Weiner is thinking about genius in a fresh way. He adroitly sidesteps our cultural myth of the solitary prodigy slaving away in isolation and instead thinks about genius as (always) socially situated, clusters of diamonds shining brightly in their original settings. “Certain places, at certain times, produced a bumper crop of brilliant minds and good ideas,” he explains.

Weiner generates a list of such places and times, and that list becomes his (and the reader’s) travel itinerary. From ancient Athens to contemporary Silicon Valley, with stops in China, India and Austria along the way, it’s a pleasurable ride. Like Socrates, Weiner enjoys coming to insights through dialogue, and so readers are introduced to a number of characters with whom he discusses his theories about genius. These interlocutors—whether Tony, who owns Tony’s Hotel in Greece, or Friederike, a “friend of a friend” who hosts a classical music show at a radio station in Vienna—add an immediacy the book. The reader has the sense that the ideas and insights arrived at through this talk are spontaneous. The progression feels natural, which is a pretty neat trick.

The fun, relaxed mode is also maintained when outside scholarship is brought in to help situate and consider a particular genius at hand, for instance, whether or not Beethoven’s messy habits contributed to his musical genius. Turning to research at the University of Minnesota that studied whether research participants came up with more creative ideas in messy environments or clean ones, Weiner manages to illuminate Beethoven through an unlikely blend of scholarship, musings about the popular photograph of Einstein’s chaotic desk and on-the-ground observation in Vienna. Well read, thoughtful and above all curious, Weiner invites the reader to explore a satisfying take on a meaningful topic while also enjoying daily pleasures in cities around the world.

The Pyramid Texts were written 4,000 years ago, and their discovery promised insight into the thoughts and ideas of the day. The first translations by Western Egyptologists sold the Texts short; presuming that they were written by a primitive people obsessed with mythology and utterly devoid of curiosity about the world around them, the earliest translations are a mishmash of monsters, legends and a surprisingly intense focus on the hindquarters of baboons. Susan Brind Morrow isn't having it: In The Dawning Moon of the Mind: Unlocking the Pyramid Texts, she offers a new translation that finds poetry, science and thought itself bursting from every line.

Morrow studied Arabic and Egyptology in college (at Columbia and Barnard) and worked as an archaeologist after graduation. She has traveled widely in Egypt and Sudan and wrote an acclaimed 1998 memoir of her experiences there, The Names of Things: A Passage in the Egyptian Desert. In her new book, Morrow reveals what she has learned in 20 years of studying hieroglyphs, showing line by line how the ancient pictorial writing can contain shrewd puns, onomatopoeia and a haiku-like sense of perspective, compressing grand ideas into their essential and smallest details. She comments that "far from being alien and incomprehensible, religious thought and with it, writing as high art in deep antiquity, is superbly lucid."

In the texts themselves, passages that situate the body within the cosmos and explore the meaning of the cycles of death and rebirth are beautiful, and also presage Christian thinking on similar subjects. Parallels to Buddhist thought and Tantra are also evident here, Morrow argues.

With subject matter so old, it's impossible to say with certainty whether her view is correct. Morrow nevertheless makes a strong case for her close line-reading as having more merit than the work of her predecessors. Rather than project assumptions about the authors, she follows the text, and in so doing has opened up a piece of the ancient world to our eyes and understanding. The Dawning Moon of the Mind is rich on every level.

Within a few months of the stunning July 4, 1976, Israeli raid on the airport at Entebbe, Uganda, to free hostages taken by pro-Palestinian terrorists who had hijacked a commercial airliner, three books had been written about the operation. That was just the beginning, as more books followed, along with multiple movies and documentaries.

So, other than to commemorate the upcoming 40th anniversary of the raid, why do we need another book? In Saul David's view, the story "had not yet been properly told"—and he set out to fix that. With Operation Thunderbolt, he has succeeded.

David, a military historian and broadcaster, set out to chronicle the event from multiple perspectives: the Israeli commandos who posed as Ugandan soldiers for the surprise attack, the politicians in Tel Aviv who gave the go-ahead after much deliberation (and more than a little dissension), the hostages themselves and their German and Arab captors. The story unfolds in real time, mostly jumping between Tel Aviv and Entebbe but also ranging to European capitals and, coincidentally with recent news developments, Benghazi. David takes a fly-on-the-wall approach, which is tricky because he was present for none of the developments. But with the help of dozens of sources, he pulls it off.

We are reminded that the operation, historically viewed as an unqualified success, was not without its setbacks. The commandos suffered one fatality—Yoni Netanyahu, brother of current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and three hostages were killed in the crossfire. (A fourth hostage, an elderly woman who had been hospitalized before the raid, was murdered on orders of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who had been personally and politically embarrassed by the raid.)

In a book filled with facts, David also manages to weave in some perspective—and closes on the sobering note that as much as it's celebrated, the raid on Entebbe may have actually harmed long-term prospects for peace in the Mideast.

An imposing book by virtue of size alone, the 640-page Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives is also decidedly ambitious. The dual biography explores the profoundly different paths taken by two iconic and influential German artists in the years before and after Hitler’s rise to power.

The parallel stories of actress-singer Marlene Dietrich and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl are told via an interweaving of politics, culture, German filmmaking, Hollywood and the uncompromising personal lives of the two women. The author, Berlin-based historian Karin Weiland, is up to the task. She doggedly mined a mountain of source materials, including various German archives, and gives context to the complex historical narrative that shaped Dietrich and Riefenstahl. As translated by Shelley Frisch, who previously translated examinations of Einstein, Kafka and Nietzsche, this is a compelling work that provides both scholarly assessment and page-turning dish.

Born within a year of one another, Dietrich and Riefenstahl were part of the early German film industry. They even competed for the same role—cabaret headliner Lola Lola in the 1930 classic The Blue Angel. Dietrich got the part, which paved her way to Hollywood and international stardom. Riefenstahl went on to appear in a series of “mountain films,” a genre that showcased physicality and German nationalism. She also become a comrade of Hitler, and directed documentaries extolling the Third Reich. As every student of film knows, Triumph of the Will (1935) remains one of the greatest, most disturbing pieces of propaganda ever made. Riefenstahl followed it with the equally famous Olympia (1938), about the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.

Dietrich, meanwhile, emigrated and became a favorite of American moviegoers—the most exotic transplant since Garbo. She took on U.S. citizenship and more than proved her patriotism with wartime work for the USO. She was actually given a rank and a uniform. Captain Dietrich was the first woman to be awarded the Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest distinction for civilian contributions to the war effort.

As for Riefenstahl, she later insisted she had no knowledge of what went on behind the walls of Germany’s concentration camps, and claimed to be ignorant of her country’s virulent and deadly anti-Semitism.

The two women enjoyed long lives, as well as latter-day attention. Dietrich reinvented herself in Las Vegas and took her act on the road—complete with diaphanous gown and teetering Ferragamo heels. Riefenstahl became a sought-after photographer and a darling of the film festival circuit. In covering their stories, the author has a clear favorite in the less complicated–and controversial–Dietrich. Your decision awaits.

Subversive historian Sarah Vowell offers another idiosyncratic chronicle of our nation’s coming-of-age with Lafayette in the Somewhat United States. This lively account of the Marquis de Lafayette and the American Revolution is of a piece with Vowell’s previous books, which include Assassination Vacation (2005), a tour of sites dedicated to murdered American presidents, and The Wordy Shipmates (2008), a raucous look at the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. These seem like sober subjects, but Vowell enlivens the proceedings with her prickly persona, her thing for slang and her taste for recondite factoids of Americana. 

With her new book, Vowell delivers a fascinating portrait of Lafayette as a dashing young French aristocrat who believed in the cause of the American colonists. Driven by a desire to make a name for himself and by a loathing for the British, Lafayette sailed to America, where he served in Washington’s army, befriending the founding father and becoming his confidant. Through the filter of the Frenchman’s story, Vowell examines the culture of the Revolution. She goes in-depth on the rifts between the Loyalists and the Patriots, between the Continental Congress and the army, and augments the trip back in time with incidents from her travels to historical spots. During a visit to Pennsylvania’s Brandywine Valley, where Lafayette was wounded in 1777, she takes in a re-enactment of the Frenchman’s story presented as—of all things—a puppet show.

The enjoyment Vowell seems to derive from poking around in America’s obscure corners is part of what makes her historical narratives vital. In tracing history’s circuitous path, she demonstrates how we got where we are today—and sheds light on where we might be heading next.

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. 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.

James A. Michener had his Tales of the South Pacific. Now comes Simon Winchester—an equally engaging storyteller—with his tales of the vast Pacific, all 64 million square miles of it. To make such a gargantuan subject manageable, he selects specific events which he says symbolize larger cultural, political and scientific truths about the region. One of the most intriguing of these is how Japan’s perfection of pocket-size transistor radios not only gave rise to the Sony consumer electronics empire but also changed how much of the world entertained itself. 

Winchester primarily concerns himself with events that occurred after 1950, the year President Truman gave the go-ahead for developing the hydrogen bomb. In the course of testing that dreaded device, the U.S. callously uprooted island-dwellers from their ancient homelands and showered the area with nuclear detritus, evidence of which still abounds. But the tide has been turning against such arrogance, Winchester says. The French and then the Americans were driven out of Vietnam, Britain had to relinquish Hong Kong to China and the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 forced the closing of two huge American military bases, thus creating a power vacuum into which the Chinese military has steadily moved. Winchester’s final chapter describes how China is systematically pushing out into the Pacific to lay claim to what were once Western-dominated waters.

Elsewhere, Winchester probes such Pacific-oriented science stories as the discovery of deep-ocean hydrothermal vents, the alarming phenomenon of coral bleaching and the rise of super storms. But he provides lighter fare, as well, as when the 1959 movie Gidget sparked an international enthusiasm for surfing, a sport long established in Hawaii.

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