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J.D. Dickey, Rising in Flames: The story of Sherman’s Western army including the march through Georgia, highlighting among other stories a young Black boy who went along to help out even though Sherman wouldn’t let Black men fight; the relief efforts of women who raised money and tirelessly fed and tended soldiers; and the German immigrants including some of America’s first Communists who fought for Union and freedom.
Denise Pope et al., Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids: Though this was recommended by my son’s principal, it’s not really aimed at parents but rather at teachers and administrators, mainly at already-high-achievement schools that want to do better taking care of kids/leaving drill-and-kill behind. Among the topics: why late starts are good for teens; why longer block classes with alternating schedules are good; how to think about formative and summative assessments; whether AP classes are any good (maybe not).
Adam Hochschild, Spain in Our Hearts: Stories of the Americans who fought against fascism in the Spanish Civil War (with occasional reference to the more famous foreign correspondent, Orwell, whose experiences were overlapping). And, also, stories of the Americans who, in safety, supported fascism, especially Texaco, whose free hand with supplies and information gave Franco significant advantages in the war.
Barbara W. Tuchman, Practicing History: I read Tuchman’s books in high school and had vague memories of them. She’s really into telling coherent stories, but mostly what I got from this essay collection was: wow, she was pretty racist. I especially liked how the Japanese (“Orientals”) were congenitally incapable of negotiating fairly because they refused to accept facts, whereas Israelis were so successful because they refused to accept facts.
Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map: The story of the cholera outbreak in London that, in memory, began the science of epidemiology and dealt a death blow to the theory of disease-causing “miasma.” Johnson suggests it was much more complicated than that, with “experts” and laypeople fighting and door-to-door data collection carried on in significant part by one amateur vital to the conclusion that cholera was spread by infection-carrying water. This was necessary because figuring out where people got their water in pre-city planning London was quite complicated.
Rebecca Solnit, Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir: Solnit isn’t interested in childhood, though she indicates that hers was violent and unhappy; she writes about becoming an adult and learning to find her voice in a world often desirous of extinguishing and punishing female voices. Because of her interiority, it’s rarely about other people except insofar as they impinged on her consciousness, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. I’m not a big fan of most memoirs and this didn’t stand out to me. As she says, “Memoirs at their most conventional are stories of overcoming, … personal problems to be taken care of by personal evolution and resolve. That a lot of men wanted and still want to harm women, especially young women, that a lot of people relished that harm, and a lot more dismissed it, impacted me in profoundly personal ways but the cure for it wasn’t personal.”
Gene Weingarten, One Day: Weingarten, who randomly selected a day in the recent past, goes back and reports on various American events of one day—the last Sunday in December, 1986—and their consequences, including coverage of sports, Ed Koch’s mayoralty, a single relationship marred by appalling violence and ending (for now with forgiveness), and AIDS (the deaths of a beloved designer and a closeted Republican). It’s an interesting illustration of the idea that all stories have fractal complexity.
Megan Kate Nelson, The Three-Cornered War: The story of the Civil War in the West as a conflict among Unionists, Confederates, and Apaches. I’m not as familiar with the Western battles but there was a fair amount of stupidity and tragedy here, as well as a consensus among whites that natives should be gotten rid of; the only disagreement was whether they should be enslaved, exterminated, or put onto reservations to be civilized.
Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains: The story of the abolition movement in England, including its invention/first successful use of several common propaganda techniques (including political logos), and how it went from attacking the slave trade to attacking all slavery. Reminding me of the Cold War uses of the civil rights movement, abolition’s political successes came when they appeared geopolitically at least ok (when abolishing the trade/slavery would hurt the French or at least not disadvantage the British a lot). And success required compensating enslavers and not the enslaved. But no civil war was required—if only because the British learned both from the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution, in which they disastrously intervened.
Karl Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History: Retelling of a key massacre in the Arizona territory from the perspective of Anglo whites, Hispanics, and various Native bands (misunderstood as tribes or as generic Apaches).
Brian Deer, The Doctor Who Fooled the World: The reporter who broke a lot of stories about Andrew Wakefield’s anti-vaccine hoax writes a more comprehensive history of the man, though he never gets very close and the chronology is patchy. I would have liked more about the science and how it was faked/manipulated and a bit less blow by blow of various hearings.
Joyce Lee Malcolm, The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold: Malcolm really admires Arnold, a talented general who proved bad at the politics that often consumed revolutionary forces/the Congress far behind them. She argues fairly convincingly that he was abused and hard done by because of the manipulations of people less talented, but does not really try to justify the betrayal of his own troops (even acknowledging that this was a civil war and he wasn’t betraying his nation/people).
Denise Pope et al., Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids: Though this was recommended by my son’s principal, it’s not really aimed at parents but rather at teachers and administrators, mainly at already-high-achievement schools that want to do better taking care of kids/leaving drill-and-kill behind. Among the topics: why late starts are good for teens; why longer block classes with alternating schedules are good; how to think about formative and summative assessments; whether AP classes are any good (maybe not).
Adam Hochschild, Spain in Our Hearts: Stories of the Americans who fought against fascism in the Spanish Civil War (with occasional reference to the more famous foreign correspondent, Orwell, whose experiences were overlapping). And, also, stories of the Americans who, in safety, supported fascism, especially Texaco, whose free hand with supplies and information gave Franco significant advantages in the war.
Barbara W. Tuchman, Practicing History: I read Tuchman’s books in high school and had vague memories of them. She’s really into telling coherent stories, but mostly what I got from this essay collection was: wow, she was pretty racist. I especially liked how the Japanese (“Orientals”) were congenitally incapable of negotiating fairly because they refused to accept facts, whereas Israelis were so successful because they refused to accept facts.
Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map: The story of the cholera outbreak in London that, in memory, began the science of epidemiology and dealt a death blow to the theory of disease-causing “miasma.” Johnson suggests it was much more complicated than that, with “experts” and laypeople fighting and door-to-door data collection carried on in significant part by one amateur vital to the conclusion that cholera was spread by infection-carrying water. This was necessary because figuring out where people got their water in pre-city planning London was quite complicated.
Rebecca Solnit, Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir: Solnit isn’t interested in childhood, though she indicates that hers was violent and unhappy; she writes about becoming an adult and learning to find her voice in a world often desirous of extinguishing and punishing female voices. Because of her interiority, it’s rarely about other people except insofar as they impinged on her consciousness, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. I’m not a big fan of most memoirs and this didn’t stand out to me. As she says, “Memoirs at their most conventional are stories of overcoming, … personal problems to be taken care of by personal evolution and resolve. That a lot of men wanted and still want to harm women, especially young women, that a lot of people relished that harm, and a lot more dismissed it, impacted me in profoundly personal ways but the cure for it wasn’t personal.”
Gene Weingarten, One Day: Weingarten, who randomly selected a day in the recent past, goes back and reports on various American events of one day—the last Sunday in December, 1986—and their consequences, including coverage of sports, Ed Koch’s mayoralty, a single relationship marred by appalling violence and ending (for now with forgiveness), and AIDS (the deaths of a beloved designer and a closeted Republican). It’s an interesting illustration of the idea that all stories have fractal complexity.
Megan Kate Nelson, The Three-Cornered War: The story of the Civil War in the West as a conflict among Unionists, Confederates, and Apaches. I’m not as familiar with the Western battles but there was a fair amount of stupidity and tragedy here, as well as a consensus among whites that natives should be gotten rid of; the only disagreement was whether they should be enslaved, exterminated, or put onto reservations to be civilized.
Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains: The story of the abolition movement in England, including its invention/first successful use of several common propaganda techniques (including political logos), and how it went from attacking the slave trade to attacking all slavery. Reminding me of the Cold War uses of the civil rights movement, abolition’s political successes came when they appeared geopolitically at least ok (when abolishing the trade/slavery would hurt the French or at least not disadvantage the British a lot). And success required compensating enslavers and not the enslaved. But no civil war was required—if only because the British learned both from the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution, in which they disastrously intervened.
Karl Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History: Retelling of a key massacre in the Arizona territory from the perspective of Anglo whites, Hispanics, and various Native bands (misunderstood as tribes or as generic Apaches).
Brian Deer, The Doctor Who Fooled the World: The reporter who broke a lot of stories about Andrew Wakefield’s anti-vaccine hoax writes a more comprehensive history of the man, though he never gets very close and the chronology is patchy. I would have liked more about the science and how it was faked/manipulated and a bit less blow by blow of various hearings.
Joyce Lee Malcolm, The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold: Malcolm really admires Arnold, a talented general who proved bad at the politics that often consumed revolutionary forces/the Congress far behind them. She argues fairly convincingly that he was abused and hard done by because of the manipulations of people less talented, but does not really try to justify the betrayal of his own troops (even acknowledging that this was a civil war and he wasn’t betraying his nation/people).