Books

New #book acquisitions #history #civilwar

A post shared by Richard Welty (@rwelty1889) on Feb 13, 2018 at 12:43pm PST

Sometimes when I list new acquisitions people ask me to comment on specific books after I've read them. These requests can affect my reading order. Here is the current short queue:

Code Girls (women working as code breakers for the US in WWII)
The Half Has Never Been Told (the economics of slavery in the antebellum US)
To The Shores of Tripoli (the very beginnings of the US Navy and Marines)

requests welcome.

Some books that are coming out, some soon, and some are far enough out that I don't yet know the titles...

Meade and Lee at Bristoe Station: The Problems of Command and Strategy after Gettysburg, from Brandy Station to the Buckland Races, August 1 to October 31, 1863
Jeffrey Hunt

Why yes, that is a very long title. This is the second of three volumes addressing a generally neglected period - what did Meade and Lee do in the months right after Gettysburg? The previous volume is Meade and Lee After Gettysburg: The Forgotten Final Stage of the Gettysburg Campaign, from Falling Waters to Culpeper Court House, July 14-31, 1863. Why yes, that is another very long title. The new volume is available for pre-orders right now although the ETA is uncertain.


New biography of Frederick Douglass
David Blight

Blight is one of the more significant modern historians and writers, and this book is squarely in his area of specialty.


New biography of Robert E. Lee
Allen C. Guelzo

Guelzo is another top historian and writer, and this book should fill a major hole. There is a dire need for a good modern biography of Lee (the Korda book from 2014 does not qualify in my view.) While waiting, Reading The Man by Elizabeth Brown Pryor is a good way to learn about Lee.

at various times in my life, i have read substantial amounts of SF & Fantasy. lately i'm mostly reading Civil War History, but i still try to pay attention to what's going on in SF. the recent controversy over Hugo Voting caused me to take a look around. here are some thoughts on what i found.

this is how i started. for any given year it's worthwhile to read the nominees as well as the winners. tastes vary and frequently i like one of the nominees best that year. secondly, what i wanted to do was try and figure out what the Puppies were so upset about. they were complaining about a trend away from the kind of SF they like, which seemed to me to be an odd claim. keep in mind that there are two parallel things going on here; there is what is being published and what is getting awards. there seems to be lots of stuff being published that the puppies like, but it's not getting awards and that is making them unhappy.

so i have started reading. i had previously read and enjoyed Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice series, so i set out to read The Goblin Emperor next. Finished it on a plane flight, enjoyed it a lot, think the nomination is well deserved. Next up will be The Three Body Problem and i'm looking forward to it. i seem to be enjoying the nominated works that the puppies don't like.

so i'm not really done, but i'm going to present some preliminary thoughts.

the puppies describe a past that i think doesn't really exist, at least not in their lifetimes. i started reading SF in the early 70s, when i was in middle school. at that time, the "New Wave" had been around for a few years and Dangerous Visions was a well known, critically acclaimed landmark. Harlan Ellison had already written and received a Hugo for I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Ursula K Le Guin's great novels, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed had swept the novel category for the Hugo and Nebula Awards the years they were published.

So i'm having trouble understanding what's changed in 40-45 years. the Hugo awards have been honoring socially conscious writing for a long, long time. the puppie's fondly remembered past would seem to be imaginary.

but i know that some of the touchiness is over some of the shorter fiction. i'll have to go read that soon (time permitting). but so far, what i'm seeing is that the Hugo awards are still functional as a guide to good SF reading, even if you do have to pay attention to the context now in a way you didn't have to before.

I used to be able to read books as fast as i bought them. This hasn't been true for many years. However, here are some recently acquired books which I hope to read someday:

Troy, New York, and the Building of the USS Monitor, Stephen H. Muller and Jennifer A. Taylor, Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway, Troy, NY 2009
This pamphlet (36 pages) provides a brief history of the USS Monitor and discusses the many aspects of its construction that relate to Troy, New York (a city in which I lived for nearly 25 years, and live only a few miles south of today.) It should be available from the publisher (linked above). I picked up my copy at the Mariner's Museum/USS Monitor Center down in Virginia a week ago.

Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of K-129
Norman Polmar's name on a book about Naval History is pure gold. This should be fascinating, the story of the attempt by the CIA to recover a complete Soviet Ballistic Missile Sub from the bottom of the Pacific, right under the Soviet's noses. Another book from the gift store at the Mariner's Museum


The Official Virginia Civil War Battlefield Guide
I'm building a collection of various guides of this sort for a couple of reasons. One is that I just like tromping about old battlefields. This one provides summaries of the battles, maps of the battles, and directions on how to get to the battlefields reviewed. Found it at the bookstore at the Colonial Williamsburg Visitors Center.

A Guide to the Battles of the American Revolution
I am very annoyed. The Colonial Williamsburg Visitor Center Bookstore, where I purchased this, is selling the 2006 edition. I did not find out about the June 2010 edition until I went to Amazon for the link. I am providing the link to the 2010 edition, it's the least I can do for everyone else.
Savas Beatie has become one of my favorite publishers for US Military History in recent years; most of my recent civil war acquisitions have been books on their list. Theodore Savas, the publisher, is co-author of this. One of the things I particularly like is that the capsule summary at the beginning of each battle description provides time of day and weather information to help in understanding the conditions of the battle. Good maps, and the book also informs you what, if anything, is left at the battle site that indicates what happened there.

Back at RPI, I was an oddball. While all my classmates were doing minors in Management or Psychology, I minored in Literature. I figured that once I was out of college, my chances to take Lit classes were going to diminish rather sharply. My classmates in Computer Science and Engineering programs never understood my choice, but I have never regretted the decision.
During that time, as part of coursework, i read Portrait of the Artist and parts of _Finnegan's Wake_, but never read the most famous of Joyce's works. Given that I've had a copy on the shelf for um, decades, it seemed unlikely that i ever would.
But couple of weeks ago, I saw a note on Roger Ebert's twitter feed recommending an abridged audiobook version. A quick trip to the Upper Hudson Library System website revealed a copy in the Melrose Public Library, so I requested it.
Hearing it read, by people who know how to do it, makes all the difference in the world. Joyce is about language, cadence, meter and rhythm. He delights in the sound of language. The audiobook brings this out, it is beautifully executed. What I frequently found is that I would get lost in the sound, the rhythms, realize that I no longer knew what was going on, and have to go back to establish where I was in the plot (such as it is.) But this was ok, it meant that I got to listen to those sounds again.
I'm nearly done with the audiobook, I'll probably fhinish it in the car tomorrow. Feeling inspired, I found the copy of the book i bought 30 years ago and never read, and brought it up from the basement Maybe this time I'll actually read it. Hope springs eternal and all that.

The HBO WWII historical miniseries like The Pacific and Band of Brothers seem to be starting a pattern of the remaining participants producing memoirs. There were quite a few that came out of Band of Brothers, and we're seeing similar things with The Pacific, with the variation that with The Pacific, the books are being timed to come out with the series, instead of showing up a year later. I suspect that this is because Band of Brothers was perhaps a bit of a surprise, but now we know what happens when one of these Tom Hanks history projects hits HBO.
R.V. Burgin (Romus Valton, you can see why he goes by R.V.) joined the Marines in 1942 in order to avoid being drafted by the Army. He subsequently fought as a mortarman on Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, and Okinawa. In the latter two battles, Eugene Sledge, author of the classic With the Old Breed, served under him as a ammunition carrier. One of the interesting aspects of this book is that Burgin occasionally points out issues where he disagrees with Sledge, for example, in his assessment of their Lieutenant on Okinawa, "Scotty". This is likely because, as a non-com, Burgin had very different interactions with officers than Sledge, as a Private.
The part of the book of the most interest, is the discussion of Cape Gloucester. This is one of the "forgotten battles" of the Marine campaign in the Pacific, perhaps because it was fought under MacArthur's command in the Soloman Islands. The battles of the Solomons and along the north coast of New Guinea in MacArthur's area of operations are very much neglected.
Another interesting variation from the other memoirs I've read is the different view of women. Contrast the discussion of womanizing in Leckie and Basilone with Burgin's point of view. Burgin fell for an Australian woman early on and married her immediately after the war, which is very different from the behavior of many (most?) Marines down under.
This is a very readable book, of particular interest for the Cape Gloucester section. I still recommend reading Sledge and Leckie first; these two books remain unmatched in the category.

Books Discussed


The recent proposal by some Republicans that Grant's portrait on the 50 Dollar Bill be replaced by Reagan's has triggered some reevaluation of Grant. Others have discussed the trajectory of Grant's reputation, strong immediately after the war, and then apparently declining in response to the development of the "Myth of the Lost Cause". It may be time for a rebirth of Grant's reputation.
So the other day, I ran across Grant and Twain_, and had to get it. It is a very nice book, an excellent way to arrive at an understanding of Grant's final years, and how he came to write his memoirs - for those who are unfamilar with them, _Personal Memoirs is one of the truly great works of military autobiography, frequently compared to Caesar's Commentaries.
In the same time frame that Grant started on his memoirs, Twain was completely blocked, with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn half finished. In _Grant & Twain_, Perry tries to make the case that the two influenced each other, Twain persuading Grant to write, and Grant inspiring Twain to finish his masterpiece. Perry is not completely successful in making this case, but nonetheless the factual narrative is very well done and compelling, making this book well worth reading, as it helps a great deal in understanding the character of Grant. Those of us who have studied Grant are very familiar with the stubborn general, standing in the rain at Shiloh chewing on a cigar and telling General Sherman, "We'll whip 'em tomorrow". Those who aren't familiar with that Grant could stand to learn a bit from _Grant and Twain_.

some reviews that will be along momentarily...

_Grant and Twain: The Story of an American Friendship_, Mark Perry. Just finished, nice little book, shows how their relationship affected both Grant's classic memoirs, and Twain's great _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_.

_Islands of the Damned_, R.V. Burgin, another book related to The Pacific miniseries. Just about to start this one.