The Whole Truth: A Review of The 1619 Project edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of my favorite scenes in my favorite Indiana Jones movie, The Last Crusade, is the moment when Henry Jones, Sr., played by the legendary screen actor Sean Connery, is being slapped around by the Nazi colonel demanding to know where Jones’s Holy Grail Diary is. But when the colonel asks, “What does the diary tell you that it doesn’t tell us?”, Jones grabs the colonel’s hand before he can slap him again and says, “It tells me that goose-stepping morons life yourself should try reading books instead of burning them!” I bring that scene up in the context of this book review because, as of this writing, scores of “parent groups” across the United States are trying to force public schools and libraries to remove books about BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+ topics from their shelves. This particular book has been at the center of many of these efforts ever since the first articles of this project were published in The New York Times Magazine in August 2019. Having just finished this book, I have to say that it is one of the best books about American history that I have read in a long time. The authors and editors of this book make the best case for why Black Americans’s 400+ year freedom struggle should be at the center of how we tell the story of America, and, to paraphrase Henry Jones, Sr., people must read this book instead of trying to ban it.

Building upon The New York Times Magazine articles that were first published, this book tells America’s history from the perspective of Black Americans with articles and works of poetry and fiction written by Black authors.  Starting with the first enslaved Africans being brought to the Jamestown colony in 1619, the authors document several different aspects of American life that have been affected by our country’s history of slavery and racial oppression.  In some ways, the concept and overall framework is very similar to another book that came out just a few months earlier than this, Four Hundred Souls edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain.  The key difference is that authors in this book are given an ample amount of space to discuss a particular topic, like medicine, music, or democracy, from the very beginning through the present, whereas in Four Hundred Souls authors a kept to a 5 page limit looking at a specific topic within a 5 year period in American history.  Because of that, the authors in The 1619 Project have the space to fully flesh out their topic and demonstrate how America’s past echoes strongly in our present.  Thus, the approach that this book provides a clearer picture and more impactful thesis in each chapter.

Each chapter of the book is divided into different topics with works of poetry and fiction separating each topic and providing a rough timeline of American history.  In anthology works such as these, I oftentimes find that the quality from work to work can vary wildly.  That is not so in this book.  Each chapter is top notch with excellent writing and research that both proves each author’s point and is incredibly engaging to read.  At no point did I feel bored or unconvinced.  The works of poetry and fiction that separate the chapters may appear superfluous at first glance, but in reality serve a vital function of marking out keep moments in American history, providing an artistic break between each chapter’s often thought-provoking topics, and inserting a creative outlet for what the authors and readers are feeling after each chapter.  

In short, this book is a monumental achievement in popular history writing that the editors and authors should be proud of.  I have nothing but absolute praise for this work and if there is one book on American history that you read this year, you owe it to yourself to read this one.

View all my reviews

It's A Start: A Review of the Library of America's first Ernest Hemingway Collection

Ernest Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises & Other Writings 1918-1926 by Ernest Hemingway

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Library of America is the premier non-profit organization dedicated to preserving America’s literary heritage for all time. Classic American authors from Mark Twain and John Steinbeck to James Baldwin and Zora Neale Hurston will have their works printed in perpetuity in fine cloth-bound hardcover editions. Having been in business since the 1980s, Library of America has an impressive collection of authors and works, some of which have been out of print for a long time. However, one landmark of the American literary landscape has been conspicuously missing: Ernest Hemingway. This is due to copyright laws that have been guarded zealously by Hemingway’s publisher, but with the recent lapsing of those copyright protections, Library of America has published its first volume of Hemingway’s collected works in this volume. Was it worth the wait?

Hemingway was a powerful writer, but he didn’t become one overnight.  Like many writers, Hemingway had to work to perfect that writing.  This volume collects 8 years of his earliest works including a collection of his newspaper articles for the Toronto Star Weekly and other newspapers.  It also includes the original and an early version of his first short story collection, In Our Time, his “satire” The Torrents of Spring, his first novel The Sun Also Rises, and a selection of his personal letters from this period.  It gives an incredible picture of Hemingway’s raw talent and his progress into the great American author he would become.

Both the journalism and In Our Time short stories are a bit up and down, like any selection of short stories.  A few news articles really stick out such as Hemingway visiting a barbers’ school to get a free shave and a haircut from the students and his first reports on bullfighting in Spain, foreshadowing his lifelong love of the sport.  For his short stories, “Up in Michigan” and “Indian Camp” stand out as well.  But, like any other short story or essay collection I have read, there are just as many misses as there are hits.  Overall, though, they were fascinating.

As for The Torrents of Spring, this is one of the funniest parts of this edition because of its fascinating backstory.  After publishing In Our Time, Hemingway wanted to get out of the contract with his first publisher and switch to a new one, but they needed to reject a novel of his before they could do that.  So, he wrote this “satire” in the hopes that his publisher would do that just that.  And boy is this a doozy of a bad novel as it is incredibly circular with no real narrative and some very odd fourth-wall breaks.  Knowing this background, The Torrents of Spring is good because of just how bad it is.

Then there is The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway’s first success as a novelist.  What more can be said about this book that has not already been said.  Just like its contemporary The Great Gatsby by Hemingway’s friend, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Sun Also Rises is very much a Lost Generation novel with its tale of the idle rich, conspicuous consumption, a self-absorbed heroine desired by the main character, and its questioning of masculinity in a post-World War I modern age.  This is one novel that I feel will have greater resonance with me after one or two rereadings, but my reading of this novel is someone slanted due to my slow slog through this book.  So, I shall reserve my judgement of this novel until I have had another chance to read it.

That leaves the final section of this edition, which is a collection of Heminway’s personal letters from this period.  This is perhaps the weakest part of this edition.  While The Torrents of Spring is bad in a good way, Hemingway’s letters are just bad.  Hemingway’s style of writing letters, particularly his earliest letters, is practically incoherent.  Misspellings and grammatical errors abound making these letters almost impossible to understand.  Even when the misspellings become fewer and further between, very few of them ever raise an eyebrow of interest.  Those surrounding the publication of In Our Time, The Torrents of Spring, and The Sun Also Rises are interesting, but the rest are boring or unintelligible.  Library of America typically includes these letters to give a fuller picture of what is going on in the life of the author at that time, but these letters were so uninteresting and with few tidbits about Hemingway’s life that it becomes more a chore than a pleasure to read.  Perhaps hardcore Hemingway fans who know more of about his life will get a kick out of these letters, but I couldn’t do much more than skim them.

Overall, Library of America has started its Hemingway collection very well.  Not everything is a hit here, but then again, few authors ever start their career having perfected their craft.  While the letters section should be skipped by the layman, hardcore Hemingway fans may find them insightful.  I would recommend this book to those hardcore Hemingway fans as well as those who are just looking to take a deeper dive into Hemingway’s early life and works.

View all my reviews

Where Do We Go Now?: A Review of Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria

Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

No event in recent history has been as disruptive to the world as the COVID-19 pandemic that, as of this writing, is still ongoing. Millions have died and millions more have been infected by this disease. In the United States, the number of deaths from COVID are comparable to the number of combat deaths during the Civil War. And the recession caused by the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns is on a par with the 2008 financial crises that we had only just recovered from. Much has been laid bare by this once in a century catastrophe, but fortunately Mr. Zakaria has written a fabulously book to guide us through this pandemic and look forward beyond our current crisis to see what the world may look like afterwards.

Best known for his book The Post-American World and his Sunday international news show on CNN, Mr. Zakaria is the right man to take a global perspective on this pandemic.  But, rather than disprove the central theses of globalization and relative American decline, Mr. Zakaria argues in this book that the pandemic proves both the necessity of globalization and America’s continued to decline.  He even goes beyond that to reveal how important quality government is to daily living, the need for two-way dialogue between experts and average citizens, and the overwhelming necessity for global cooperation.  All of these “lessons” are very well backed up by statistics and figures from an incredibly wide variety of authoritative sources.  And yet, despite all the overwhelming citations, Mr. Zakaria’s writing style is both engaging and easy-to-follow.  Both experts and laymen should be able to pick up this book and learn something.

The only drawback of this book is how outdated some of the information is.  Published in October 2020, some events have accelerated since then.  The COVID vaccine was still in development, though close to completion, when this book went to press and, of course, the 2020 U.S. presidential election and Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol had not  happened yet either.  Though this book in hindsight is quite prescient, I do hope Mr. Zakaria does update this book when it comes out in paperback.

Overall, though only slightly out of date, this is one of the best books to examine these current times and try to project into the future.  Though the pandemic has scarred nearly all of us, this book can help us make sense of this current crisis and what is necessary to build back better in the future.  I highly recommend this book to both policy wonks and laymen alike.

View all my reviews

Everything is Better: A Review of Factfulness

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The news seems to always be filled with bad news. Even without the threat of COVID-19, the news is littered with stories of violence, illness, and death. While this may be a more dramatic story, it unfortunately hides the major story of the last 50+ years: that on nearly every indicator (health, education, the economy, etc.) the world has made an extraordinary amount of progress. Enter Hans Rosling and this wonderful book to correct the misperceptions of the affluent "West".

This book could've easily fallen into a trap of pure humanistic triumphalism, but Mr. Rosling has done more than just list a series of good news items that are routinely missed. He also challenges our preconceived notions about why things are terrible in the world and addresses why we think that way too. At the same time, each chapter is filled with strategies about how one can reorient their mind and try to think of the world both positively and rightly.

This is a wonderful book filled with great charts and figures. A few of them have to be walked through by the author, but once you see where the data is pointing after the first few chapters, it is easier to predict where the other sets of data are pointing. What is most invaluable is how Mr. Rosling tries to make his reader drop the typical "West vs. the Rest" or "Us vs. Them" mentality and instead think of the world as on four different economic levels. This allows one to see the incredible progress the world has made in closing so many gaps on so many levels. Today, most people in the world do not live in extreme poverty, though it still exists. And that brings up another great point about this book, which is Mr. Rosling's use of maxims to illustrate his points. One of his most memorable is to think of the state of the world as "bad, but getting better." It's a little more complicated than that though, but I do not want to spoil anything for you.

One thing I will say about this book is that at times he seems to bash on the media a bit too much. Granted, Mr. Rosling does humbly admit that he is probably too harsh on the media, but it still stands out. Also, this is not a book that I would read alone. This is a book that demands to be read and discussed with other people so that you don't just tuck all these facts away into your brain and carry on. The good news about that though is that this is a very accessible book. Both experts and lay readers should have no problem sifting through the data presented in this book.

Whether you are looking for a respite from all of the doom-and-gloom news about COVID-19 or not, this is a book that you should read to better understand just how much better things are in the world today. I highly recommend this book to all readers, not just those interested in current affairs.

View all my reviews

Bully for America! A Review of The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the most persistent and pressing problems in recent U.S. history has been the ever widening gap between the rich and poor, the growing power of large corporations at the expense of workers, and the government's inability (or unwillingness) to address the problem seriously. Populist candidates on both the political right and left have gained a great deal of traction by criticizing our current state of affairs. As we face another election where the fate of Progressive politics for the next generation will be on the line, it is good to turn back the clock to a period in U.S. history and see how extraordinary leaders in politics and the press arose to meet a similar challenge. Fortunately, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin does all that in this excellent examination of the lives of Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the muckraking journalists of McClure's that did so much to bolster the Progressive cause of the early 20th century.

Ms. Goodwin starts with the lives of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, two men of drastically different temperaments, and how their strong friendship supported each other for much of their careers. As a longtime fan of Theodore Roosevelt, Doris Kearns Goodwin travels some rather well-trodden ground for me. With the exception of Theodore Roosevelt's second wife and longtime friend, Edith Carrow, Ms. Goodwin does not reveal much about TR that you couldn't have already found in other biographies. But when she turns to examining Taft's life, that is where this book really starts to pick up. Sadly, history has not been kind to Taft. Too often he has been overshadowed by his famous presidential predecessor, TR. But Ms. Goodwin does a tremendous job of revealing the true Taft to readers who may not be as familiar with him. The contrasting images of TR and Taft reveal that while TR was more combative, passionate, and stubborn, Taft was far more fair-minded, affable, and efficient even when he procrastinated. Indeed, Taft shines as the far more likable of the two presidents in this book. Ms. Goodwin's charting of their relationship's rise and fall is at the very heart of this book and that eventual fall is just as heartbreaking as you would expect.

While the two presidents make up the bulk of this book, another key element is the Progressive "muckraking" journalists that gathered around S.S. McClure's magazine, McClure's. The famous journalists Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, William Allen White, and Ray Stannard Baker all played a critical role in exposing the corruption of the different business trusts and political machines that had been choking the civic life out of the nation at that time. Indeed, Ms. Goodwin makes an effective case that, without McClure's and the top-notch investigative journalism it pioneered, TR would not have been nearly as successful as he became. Indeed, she strongly hints that, without McClure's, TR would not have had enough popular support to win the Republican nomination and then the presidency in his own right in 1904.

With these three moving parts, it would be a difficult juggling act for anyone. And, unfortunately, it appears at times to be too much for Ms. Goodwin too. Several times it felt as though these three storylines were disconnected from each other. This is especially true just before the beginning of McClure's golden age in the mid-1900s to the end of that time when S.S. McClure's manic mood swings and extra marital affairs would destroy the partnerships that made McClure and his journalists so successful. On top of that, the heart of this book is TR and Taft's friendship, but Ms. Goodwin rarely gives us any insight into how their relationship became so close despite the fact that these were two men of such vastly different talents and temperaments, though not entirely of politics (which might be a surprise to some). Not until the end does Ms. Goodwin really give us an image of TR and Taft as friends rather than really good office partners. But, when all three of these things do come together right around the middle of the book, when you see the muckrakers digging up and exposing corruption, TR providing the moral clarity and political leadership, and Taft faithfully executing TR's vision, the narrative is dynamite. It makes one nostalgic for a time when journalists were respected and their exposures of corruption were not only more frequent, but could make serious waves in politics.

The 700+ narrative pages may be daunting at first glance. But, for those who are interested in the combination of investigative journalism and Progressive politics, who are looking for solutions to our present predicaments by studying our past, this is a book well worth your time and effort. I highly recommend this book to fans of Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive era or who desire motivation for our current political times.

View all my reviews