Book Review: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

War, persecution, plague, and death galloped over the horizon on an unsuspecting Europe bring the High Middle Ages to an end and ushering in a series of crises the marked the Late Middle Ages. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman looks at this transformative century that saw two nations begin a century long war, the institution that knitted the fabric of Europe together split in twain, and finally the arrival of mass death thanks to a flea hitching a ride on a rat that stowed away on a boat.

Tuchman weaves the book around the life of Enguerrand de Coucy, a French nobleman once married to the daughter of English King Edward III putting him in the middle of events. The events of the 14th century from the Black Death that devastated the population of Europe, the first 60 years of the Hundred Year’s War that brought physical ruin to France and economic ruin to both France and England, the Papal Schism that broke the unity of the medieval Church after its long residence in Avignon that led to disrepute, and the numerous peasant revolts throughout Western Europe as a fall out from everything happening. Throughout the book, Tuchman brought up the medieval warrior code with its chivalry and worldview that the nobility claimed to do then countering it with what they did. Tuchman wanted to draw parallels between the 14th and 20th centuries and there are several that the reader could nod in agreement, however the differences are stark enough that it’s hard to make the connection but then again that might be why it’s a distant mirror. Over the course of 600 pages, Tuchman gives a pretty good portrait of the 14th Century especially regarding France but not at the total expense of the rest of the continent while being readable for the general reader.

A Distant Mirror is a general overview of the history of Europe’s 14th century which is so much more than the Black Death and Hundred Year’s War which Barbara Tuchman brings out in a very readable book.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Norse Mythology: The Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes Handbook by Kelsey A. Fuller-Shafer

Norse Mythology: The Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes Handbook: From Vikings to Valkyries, an Epic Who's Who in Old Norse Mythology by Kelsey A. Fuller-Shafer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

They are the mythological personages that know they are doomed but still fascinate the modern world, the are the Aesir and Vanir. Norse Mythology: The Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes Handbook: From Vikings to Valkyries, an Epic Who’s Who in Old Norse Mythology by Kelsey A. Fuller-Shafer is a handy guide to the major figures of the mythos for those interested in who is who that features illustrations by Sara Richard.

Over the course of 231 pages, Fuller-Shafer covers the major deities of Norse mythology along with their major opponents from the familiar to the lesser known just still important figures. Along with the gods were the major human heroes, whose bloody adventures and equally bloody deaths, that were chronicled in various sagas. Given that the sources Fuller-Shafer consulted sometimes contradicted one another and some of the same stories in both the Poetic and Prose Edda are different as well, she did a good job selecting a version and sticking with its details throughout the book when covering related individuals and stories. Throughout the book the art of Sara Richard brings events, creatures, gods, goddesses, and heroes to life which is fantastic since the main reason I purchased this book was for her art.

Norse Mythology is a quick, easy to read introduction to the major points on well known gods along with human heroes that are the focus of epic sagas that Kelsey A. Fuller-Shafer presents in informative synopsis form and to that the amazing art of Sara Richard which brings it to life makes is an added bonus.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Lake Worth Monster: The True Story of the Greer Island Goatman by Lyle Blackburn

Lake Worth Monster: The True Story of the Greer Island Goatman by Lyle Blackburn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The nation was getting ready to watch man land on the moon, but for a week in July 1969 for one community in northern Texas what was important was the creature roaming the local lake. Lake Worth Monster: The True Story of the Greer Island Goatman by Lyle Blackburn examines the well-told two-night incidents surrounding a mysterious creature that was witnessed by nearly 50 people as well as the sightings and incidents before and after the famous two-night appearances.

In 110 pages, Blackburn goes over famous July 10 and 11, 1969 incidents around Greer Island in Lake Worth just northwest of Fort Worth. Then he goes into the rest of the story from the research and interviews by Sallie Ann Clarke who wrote a book about the incidents a few months later but started a decade-long hunt to find out the truth, especially after she saw it five times over the years. Blackburn then goes the history of various creature sightings around the area, usually matching descriptions of a sasquatch especially with the tale tell big footprints including later sightings around Greer Island and the wider Lake Worth area. However, original reports called the creature a bipedal goat shaped man with horns and cloven feet which leads Blackburn to various locations where a “goatman” is said to haunt or roam from around Old Alton Bridge near Denton, Texas and Prince George County in Maryland. Blackburn also covers every base by going through the rumors who the July 1969 incidents being pranks and hoaxes done by a group of teenagers or multiple groups of teenagers independent of one another over a span of months or just spur of the moment hijinks in front of a large crowd. The major issue I have with the book is that there is a total of 164 pages which meant 50 pages were dedicated to appendices—maps, news and photo archives, an transcript of an interview of Sallie Ann Clarke, and a brief memoir by Bobby Brooks about his connected with the Lake Worth Monster story—which me seemed like the book was formatted incorrectly as the maps, news articles, and photos could have been dispersed throughout the text or between chapters while saving the Sallie Ann Clarke interview and Bobby Brooks’ short memoir as welcome additions at the end of the book. Besides the personal annoyance of the book’s structure, Blackburn’s writing is great as I finished this book in one day due to how interesting and readable he presented everything.

Lake Worth Monster covers one of the most interesting and maybe the best attested cryptid incidents on record, Lyle Blackburn covers the famous two day in July 1969 and then reveals what happened before and long after.

View all my reviews

Book Review: The Emergence of Lincoln, Volume One: Douglas, Buchanan & Party Chaos, 1857-59 by Allan Nevins

The Emergence of Lincoln: Douglas, Buchanan & Party Chaos, 1857-59 by Allan Nevins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The 1856 election was supposed to unite the country and save it from the festering issue of Kansas territory, unfortunately the politically spineless James Buchanan turned out to be worse than Franklin Pierce. The Emergence of Lincoln, Volume I: Douglas, Buchanan, and Party Chaos, 1857-59 is the third book of Allan Nevins’ Ordeal of the Union series, an eight-volume history of the lead up to and of the American Civil War, featuring how the last remaining link between North and South in the form of the Democratic party was broken in twain by the decisions of two men.

From the outset Nevins reveals that the country needed a national figure with a vision of national scope to unite the three major regions of the country—North, South, and growing West—but sadly for the United States the man coming into office in March 1857 was James Buchanan who in making up his cabinet became a passive functionary in his own administration. When Buchanan gave prominence to Southern politicians and anti-Douglas Democrats, the stage was set for the dividing of the party and the rise of the Republicans in the North as Douglas Democrats and Lecompton Democrats—named for their support of the pro-slavery constitution for Kansas that was drafted by convention assembled by a rigged election—set the stage for chaotic Presidential contest in 1860. Besides the congressional battle between opponents and supporters for the pro-slavery Kansas constitution, Nevins’ other major focus was the Lincoln-Douglas debates which saw Abraham Lincoln’s emergence on the national scene for the first time as well as detailing what the two politicians spoke about in each debate. Just to through in an additional element to all of this was the Panic of 1857 with its effects in economic terms and political perceptions—whether right or wrong—on all sections of the country. Yet Nevins also wrote about the Dred Scott decision and the Mormon War with their effects on the various elements in the country, the fact that I’m just barely mentioning them shows how much Nevin’s writing made me highlight other things. Honestly, there is so much I learned that I had previously just had a superficial knowledge of.

The Emergence of Lincoln, Volume I reveals how incompetent national leadership exasperated the rising sectional differences while both sides of the divide took different lessons from a economic panic as well as how the growing West were affecting things.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Contact by Carl Sagan

Contact by Carl Sagan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A machine orbiting a young star identifies artificial radio waves followed by television transmissions over a few decades coming from a small yellow sun, then begins transmitting a signal in return to humans on a little blue dot called Earth. Contact is the only work of fiction by Carl Sagan after converting a co-written screenplay from a stalled film that was later revived and released twelve years after the novel’s publication.

Sagan constructions a narrative about the detection of a radio signal by radio astronomers that signals to humanity that they are not alone thus changing society—with a still on-going Cold War—potentially politically and religiously. The central character of the narrative is Eleanor “Ellie” Arroway and thankful is the best formed character while several others come close to, but characterization wasn’t the best through the book which for a first novel might be as expected. However, Sagan’s narrative more than makes up for the characters as he tackles how scientists would react and coordinate while all around them politicians, religious figures, and the public deal with the news that there is life “out there”. With contacts across various disciplines, Sagan was able to construct a believable scientific element to this science fiction book while communicating it in understandable prose for your average reader. An interesting subplot is the philosophical implications to faith and religion under such circumstances that Sagan portrays in the novel, some might find it tedious or unnecessary, but I was fine with it. Overall, this was a good read.

Contact might be Carl Sagan’s only work of fiction, but it’s a good read.

View all my reviews

Book Review: The Aryan Myth by Leon Poliakov

 

The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist & Nationalistic Ideas in Europe by Leon; Howard Poliakov
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The death of six million Jews between 1941 to 1945 was the result of an evolution in the enquiry into the origins of peoples and nations that began during the Middle Ages passing from theological viewpoints to scientific ones and finally—unfortunately—to political viewpoints. The Aryan Myth: The History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe by Leon Poliakov traces how this myth originated and progressed until it became so accepted as to warrant the attempted destruction of an entire people.

Poliakov’s extensive research covers the whole of the Europe from the Spain’s “tainted blood” mindset after the Reconquista, to England’s belief of their connection to ancient Israel, to France’s back and forth between their Gallic/Celtic inhabitants and Frankish/German namesakes, Russia’s multiple origin tales, and finally Germany’s use of a fourth son of Noah to create a basis for the Germanic peoples. Yet while all these origins were in someway connected with the Bible, once the Enlightenment brought criticism and skepticism into the fore these any Biblical origins were dismissed and something new had to take their place which meant 18th-century social scientists and philosophers and others had to come up answers which resulted in the beginnings of the racial hierarchies and stereotypes that became into vague and still permeate society today. Throughout the 19th century, the division of Europe into being inhabited by two races—the Aryan and Semitic—steadily evolved towards the point that led to the eventual murder of two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population. Through 310 pages the reader is bombarded with a lot of information in rapid succession as well as Poliakov’s give context to quotes and brief information on the authors, while it is very informative there is a sense that Poliakov wanted to say more but either through original publisher or self-imposed page limit.

The Aryan Myth by Leon Poliakov reveals how through the centuries the search for national origins within different cultural prisms slowly lead towards myths of race and superiority.

View all my reviews

Book Review: The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine

The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For the educated elite and free thinkers, deism was philosophical position brought to the fore through reason but was not supposed to be disseminated to the masses for the good of society. Then came Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason, which brought deistic arguments long available to the elites to the general populace in an engaging and irreverent style, thus making them appealing to his targeted readers.

Paine’s argument comes in three parts, the first of which was against revelation of scriptures as proof of God’s existence as it is hearsay—especially of that in the Christian era because it was bent to political circumstances—while God’s existence is testified to in the natural world. The second is that organized religion is corrupted by civil authorities as well as corrupting civil authorities to gain or increase its power. The third is an analysis of selected Biblical texts in the Bible (Old Testament) and New Testament to show it is not the revelation of God. While the structure of the book is somewhat haphazard due to the history of its publication, Paine begins it with his personal creed which includes the belief in one God and what he believes the religious duties of man are then declares what he is personally opposed to institutionalized religion while supporting the rights of others to believe in whatever creed they want to profess. When one reads this book, Paine’s beginning statement on his personal views of religion should be kept in mind so as not get a knee-jerk reaction to call the author an atheist like some—Theodore Roosevelt to name one—have done since this was first published. As for my view on Paine’s arguments, some are easy to agree with like the history of cooperation of civil and religious authorities to prop up one another, my personal belief in the separation of church and state so to keep each from being tainted by the other. While I agree that God’s existence is revealed in nature, it’s Paine’s arguments that revelation as seen in scripture and his proofs that I critique the hardest. Mainly as he went through several texts, out of context in many cases, I could come up with texts in other locations that completely contradict his supposition of what the highlighted text said. And given that it was most of Paine’s argument, it was no doubt better debated at the time of publication and due to space and time I do not have time to write a pamphlet in response to Paine’s mistakes. Beyond the contents of the book itself, this is a concise though thorough argument for 18th-century British deistic thought as well as the anti-clericalism inspired by the French Revolution that began to influence political thought from then to now.

The Age of Reason is Thomas Paine’s argument to general public against organized religion in favor of the deistic beliefs that had long been developed and accepted among the elites who Paine believed propped up corrupt religious organizations to keep the common man from obtaining his full rights as a free man.

View all my reviews