The best Civil War book I have read. An excellent look at the unlikely paring of Sherman and Grant - both men of limited or no success prior to the Civil War, both military men who left the military and then found their way back to become the most significant figures in the war.
They came together on the western front in Shiloh, they expanded their relationship at Vicksburg, and developed a partnership and friendship that would last throughout the war. They began in the west and both ended in the East - Grant the bulldog fighting Lee in an offensive that is one of attrition rather than movement and Grant's counterpart - Sherman moving as an offensive force against the elusive Joe Johnston.
Sweeping through the south Sherman isolated Lee and the end of the war was inevitable. But rather than just repeating the stories and the battles, this book looks at the men and their growing relationship and complexity. As Grant got criticism because he did not move fast against Lee - despite the positions of the armies - Sherman ultimately got criticism for his offer to Johnston to end the war.
The Radicals in congress were angered because he offered to much leniency and for a while the press vilified Sherman for his softness on the south despite the destruction of his march to Savannah.
It is a complex combination of personalities and a look at the history of press and politics as they relate to the military.
Ultimately Grant's understated personality becomes the winning formula as he heads to the white house having worked with Sherman to keep him from self destructing.
Sherman goes to the West where he shows his inability to sympathize with people of color, while grant agonizes over the Indians and the fact that the real need is to protect the Indians from bad whites. But still he and Sherman continue a lifetime friendship that diminishes but does not disappear after the civil war.
The book is a wonder story telling and covers the war from a very fresh, but significant angle.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Hank Greenberg - Hero of Heroes by John Rosengren
There are many layers to this book that made for fascinating reading. As a baseball fan I enjoyed the quality of the baseball stories and the feeling for baseball in the 1930 - 1949 era. Greenberg is a Hall of Famer, one of the pantheon of legends, now gone and almost forgotten. But true baseball fans should celebrate his statistical prowess - his 330 home runs does not seem like much in the steroid era, but it was an amazing feat that put him in the top three for lifetime homers in his era.
But the reality of statistics has to be weighed with the shadow of war and 4 1/2 years at the point where most players have their peak he was in the military and did not touch a bat. His career was pre-war and post war when he came back from this long lay off and put a finishing touch on his legend.
However, even that is not the true story. What is significant is our terrible penchant for racism and bias in this free nation. He was the first and greatest Jewish baseball player and he paid for that position by withstanding some of the most vitriolic and awful bench jockeying and fan behavior. His exploits were always slightly tainted in the press if he had an off day, which all players do, by denigrating his Jewishness.
He was to the Jewish people what Jackie Robinson was to the African American. Their paths crossed on the basepaths at the end of Greenberg's career and the beginning of Jackie's. Jackie ran in to Greenberg, knocking him down. This could have been a race riot if it had been anyone else, but Greenberg's lighter skin was tempered by what he had suffered and as a result when Jackie apologized Greenberg was forgiving and even encouraging to the young star. They became friends, although in later years Hank was saddened that he did not do more for the "negro players" when he was active in the game.
This is a story of a many who was successful in everything he did, but not a man who was necessarily happy. The chip he had on his shouldered could create issues, but overall he was a man who controlled his own emotions and has moved on with the dignity of accomplishment.
It is well worth reading
But the reality of statistics has to be weighed with the shadow of war and 4 1/2 years at the point where most players have their peak he was in the military and did not touch a bat. His career was pre-war and post war when he came back from this long lay off and put a finishing touch on his legend.
However, even that is not the true story. What is significant is our terrible penchant for racism and bias in this free nation. He was the first and greatest Jewish baseball player and he paid for that position by withstanding some of the most vitriolic and awful bench jockeying and fan behavior. His exploits were always slightly tainted in the press if he had an off day, which all players do, by denigrating his Jewishness.
He was to the Jewish people what Jackie Robinson was to the African American. Their paths crossed on the basepaths at the end of Greenberg's career and the beginning of Jackie's. Jackie ran in to Greenberg, knocking him down. This could have been a race riot if it had been anyone else, but Greenberg's lighter skin was tempered by what he had suffered and as a result when Jackie apologized Greenberg was forgiving and even encouraging to the young star. They became friends, although in later years Hank was saddened that he did not do more for the "negro players" when he was active in the game.
This is a story of a many who was successful in everything he did, but not a man who was necessarily happy. The chip he had on his shouldered could create issues, but overall he was a man who controlled his own emotions and has moved on with the dignity of accomplishment.
It is well worth reading
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Book notes
Sometimes a full review is not in order, but a note or two is. Here are some recent books I read:
Odyssey - yup the classic. I have not read for a long time, but this really is the Bible for comic books and fantasy. What isn't in this trip - multi-headed dragons, Cyclops, wars, sea adventures, anger of the gods - this is the blueprint for all future books of these genres and worth reading again.
Mark Twain Mysteries - Tom Sawyer Detective, A Stolen White Elephant, and A Double Barrel Mystery. Not great stories, but Tom Sawyer Detective is one I missed and part of three publications that feature Tom (not counting Huck Finn). It is a fun story - not a classic. And Huck Finn is the narrator.
Mostly Mississippi - a book about a couple floating by canoe to St Paul and house boat to the gulf in 1920's. A honeymoon float by two Eastern writes who give a hilarious account of their misadventures and the river as they saw it.
Mr. G by Alan Lightman. The author of Einstein's dreams has another creative mind exercise - Mr G is God and in this creative book he imagines god and his relatives wrestling with the chaos of his knew creation - the universe and the unruly humans that finish the creation epic.
Five Million Steps - Mark Devitt. A very disappointing story about walking the Appalachian Trail. Not in one walk, but a series of walks. It is a book with too much of the authors personal religious feelings for me. Parts of the books are very good, but the preachiness gets to be too much.
The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond. The weakest of his three massive volumes. He tells some interesting stories but tries to interpret too much from his exposure to the New Guinea people. Some is good to reflect on, but much of it is a real stretch to relate to the world today.
Odyssey - yup the classic. I have not read for a long time, but this really is the Bible for comic books and fantasy. What isn't in this trip - multi-headed dragons, Cyclops, wars, sea adventures, anger of the gods - this is the blueprint for all future books of these genres and worth reading again.
Mark Twain Mysteries - Tom Sawyer Detective, A Stolen White Elephant, and A Double Barrel Mystery. Not great stories, but Tom Sawyer Detective is one I missed and part of three publications that feature Tom (not counting Huck Finn). It is a fun story - not a classic. And Huck Finn is the narrator.
Mostly Mississippi - a book about a couple floating by canoe to St Paul and house boat to the gulf in 1920's. A honeymoon float by two Eastern writes who give a hilarious account of their misadventures and the river as they saw it.
Mr. G by Alan Lightman. The author of Einstein's dreams has another creative mind exercise - Mr G is God and in this creative book he imagines god and his relatives wrestling with the chaos of his knew creation - the universe and the unruly humans that finish the creation epic.
Five Million Steps - Mark Devitt. A very disappointing story about walking the Appalachian Trail. Not in one walk, but a series of walks. It is a book with too much of the authors personal religious feelings for me. Parts of the books are very good, but the preachiness gets to be too much.
The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond. The weakest of his three massive volumes. He tells some interesting stories but tries to interpret too much from his exposure to the New Guinea people. Some is good to reflect on, but much of it is a real stretch to relate to the world today.
Full Circle Superior -
We are so pleased and proud.
Authors and Publishers:
Congratulations! Your book has been selected as a finalist in the Midwest Book Awards! It was a strong field again this year, with extraordinary books entered in each category.
Winners will be announced at the Midwest Book Awards Celebration on May 8 at the Bloomington Center for the Arts. You will receive an invitation shortly. I hope you will join us to celebrate so many fine books!
The finalists are (in alphabetical order):
Midwest Book Award Finalists
Travel
Going Full Circle, Lake Superior Port Cities Our BOOK!!!
Knives on the Cutting Edge, Scarletta Press
The St. Paul Almanac, Arcata Press
Authors and Publishers:
Congratulations! Your book has been selected as a finalist in the Midwest Book Awards! It was a strong field again this year, with extraordinary books entered in each category.
Winners will be announced at the Midwest Book Awards Celebration on May 8 at the Bloomington Center for the Arts. You will receive an invitation shortly. I hope you will join us to celebrate so many fine books!
The finalists are (in alphabetical order):
Midwest Book Award Finalists
Travel
Going Full Circle, Lake Superior Port Cities Our BOOK!!!
Knives on the Cutting Edge, Scarletta Press
The St. Paul Almanac, Arcata Press
 | Going Full Circle A 1,555-mile Walk Around the World’s Largest Lake by Mike Link & Kate Crowley |
Death on the Delta - Molly Walling
This is a memoir set in a mystery. Molly grew up in Mississippi, in the transitional south where blacks were "free" in name, but still treated as inferior property by the white families. During this period of her life, Molly was faced with a father who returned from the war to find a growing independence in the black soldiers who had fought side by side in the conflicts across the globe. They had been given a chance to be equal and they were not about to go back on this.
Molly's father caught between his writing, the culture of his old and landed family, and a marriage that was coming apart turned to drink and began a downward spiral that would affect Molly and her siblings, but as she began to put together her family history an old buried skeleton emerges - the death of two black men - shot by her father and his two brothers.
It is an incident that was buried behind the current of threat in the black community because anything that might look like retaliation could cause more death and damage to them and behind the law of the south where the white defendants never went to trial and the news was suppressed.
This incident brings the author in contact with the black families, musty old records, and minimum help from her own family who feel she is just causing trouble.
Through this she investigates the mores of the old south, the changing times, the possibility that one of the victims might have been a 1/2 brother of her dad, and the involvement of her grandmother in the cover up.
As she goes back and forth to her old home she peals off layers of recent history and the life time between WWII and civil rights. She also begins to realize that, though unpunished, the act that was committed may have been at the root of families dysfunction and divorce.
Molly's father caught between his writing, the culture of his old and landed family, and a marriage that was coming apart turned to drink and began a downward spiral that would affect Molly and her siblings, but as she began to put together her family history an old buried skeleton emerges - the death of two black men - shot by her father and his two brothers.
It is an incident that was buried behind the current of threat in the black community because anything that might look like retaliation could cause more death and damage to them and behind the law of the south where the white defendants never went to trial and the news was suppressed.
This incident brings the author in contact with the black families, musty old records, and minimum help from her own family who feel she is just causing trouble.
Through this she investigates the mores of the old south, the changing times, the possibility that one of the victims might have been a 1/2 brother of her dad, and the involvement of her grandmother in the cover up.
As she goes back and forth to her old home she peals off layers of recent history and the life time between WWII and civil rights. She also begins to realize that, though unpunished, the act that was committed may have been at the root of families dysfunction and divorce.
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