I've long meant to read Douglass's autobiographies (there are 3 of them), so I started with this first and shortest one. He details his life while he I've long meant to read Douglass's autobiographies (there are 3 of them), so I started with this first and shortest one. He details his life while he was enslaved and his subsequent escape (though he doesn't offer many details on the escape for fear that it would endanger others). In the Appendix, he also has very strong words against the Christianity of the enslavers....more
I feel pretty conflicted about this one. I listened to it in the van with my kids over the course of a month (we were introduced to it by their cousinI feel pretty conflicted about this one. I listened to it in the van with my kids over the course of a month (we were introduced to it by their cousins over Christmas, so I interlibrary loaned it). They really liked it--it has a good pace and style for kids, and the narrator was engaging. I like that it gives kids some historical background. Now they will have a framework or scaffold on which they can add new information that they learn about history. The book was clearly written for Christian homeschoolers, but I was pleased that there are sections on Chinese, Indian, African, and the Americas. Even though it does branch out, it still focuses mostly on the things one would learn in a Western Civ course, which by itself is fine. What concerned me is the clear preference given to Christianity. I'm a Christian, so I'm not at all opposed to my kids learning the story of Abraham from Genesis, or Moses and the Exodus, or the life of Jesus in the Gospels from this book. And I'm sure most parents who aren't Christian would be fine with their kids learning about important stories from the Bible as they are learning about various cultures and histories. But it's how it was presented. The story of various cultures' gods (Osiris or Zeus) or tales from folklore (Anansi) are presented as just stories. Whereas the story of Abraham hearing from God and then moving to Canaan or the story of the parting of the Red Sea during the Exodus from Egypt are presented uncritically as historical fact. It was also jarring to hear in one chapter the teachings of Jesus saying when someone strikes one cheek to turn the other cheek to the attacker instead of fighting back and then a few chapters later hear how Constantine converts to Christianity and leads his armies under the banner of the cross with no explanation.
So basically, know what you're getting into if you choose read or listen to this with your kids. It has a lot of good to it, but it also has a clear bias....more
This is a good and necessary book. Whenever there have been gains made by black people in America, there has been a backlash of white rage. Anderson dThis is a good and necessary book. Whenever there have been gains made by black people in America, there has been a backlash of white rage. Anderson details some of that backlash in a condensed history of the country since the Civil War. I've read histories that go into more depth on some of these topics (Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson for the Great Migration, Ari Berman's Give Us the Ballot for the VRA and the backlash against voting rights, and Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow for mass incarceration and the drug war, for example), but it's very useful to see the larger pattern (and Anderson includes new details that I hadn't read before, too). Highly recommend this relatively brief and readable account....more
Really excellent book about the commingling of church and state, and the corporate interests that got the ball rolling in order to fight the welfare sReally excellent book about the commingling of church and state, and the corporate interests that got the ball rolling in order to fight the welfare state of FDR's New Deal. As a former evangelical, I especially liked the two chapters on the Supreme Court decisions on prayer and Bible reading in public schools. But the whole book is great....more
Really good snapshots of evangelicalism in America in the last 25-30 years. Each chapter focuses on a different person or congregation/place across AmReally good snapshots of evangelicalism in America in the last 25-30 years. Each chapter focuses on a different person or congregation/place across America, from the premillenial dispensationalists at Dallas Theological Seminary to the director of Thief in the Night to a Billy Graham crusade to the studio of Thomas Kinkade to a Jars of Clay concert. Ballmer is clearly ambivalent about evangelicals since he himself grew up one and then left. But I feel that he is fair to the many people he interviews. He lets them have their say, even when he disagrees. It's a good companion book to Frances FitzGerald's The Evangelicals. In fact, it resembles the closely reported first person chapters of that book. Also reminds me of the reporting in Jeff Chu's Does Jesus Really Love Me?, another good look at the church today. If you read this one, I'd recommend getting the 25th anniversary edition because it has more chapters and an incisive afterword....more
I wanted to read another book on the 50th anniversary of MLK's assassination (the other was the novel Dreamer by Charles Johnson). I was worried that I wanted to read another book on the 50th anniversary of MLK's assassination (the other was the novel Dreamer by Charles Johnson). I was worried that this book would be merely a true crime narrative. And it was that, especially in the second half of the book as it chronicles the manhunt, but it did a good job in the first half of situating King and the sanitation workers' strike in Memphis so I could understand what was driving King in his last days. I really liked this book....more
If you've read Ta-Nehisi Coates's "The Case for Reparations" and wanted a deep dive into the ways that local, state, and federal government promoted sIf you've read Ta-Nehisi Coates's "The Case for Reparations" and wanted a deep dive into the ways that local, state, and federal government promoted segregation in the 20th century, then this is your book. ...more
Really strong book of poems. The first half had some real standouts (like "38"--I'll include a link) but others that I didn't quite get or understand Really strong book of poems. The first half had some real standouts (like "38"--I'll include a link) but others that I didn't quite get or understand what she was doing with form or shape (that's probably on me). The second half that deals with the formal apology of Congress to Native Americans is a tour de force. I really recommend reading this one. http://www.mudcityjournal.com/layli-l......more
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer is a good book about an important subject—money Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer is a good book about an important subject—money in politics—but I couldn’t help feeling depressed as I read it. Mayer has done the research and followed the money trail. She meticulously shows how rich men (especially Charles and David Koch, but also many others such as Richard Mellon Scaife) have used their fortunes to fund and influence the political conversation towards their preferred policies. A lot it comes down to tax avoidance. Scaife, for instance, and his sister received their large inheritances from their father in the form of two trusts of $50 million apiece. The money sat in the trusts for 20 years accruing interest. The interest had to be spent on charitable nonprofits, but after the 20 years were up, the children would get the entire $50 million tax free. The Koch brothers received a similar arrangement from their parents. Scaife and the Kochs used the interest from the trusts to fund nonprofits that aligned with their political views. One way they did this was to give to new, more ideological think tanks in the 70s. Before this, research think tanks had been driven by social science research for the general public interest. The new think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute had a much more ideological bent. It didn’t stop at think tanks. Then the Kochs and like minded rich philanthropists started funding programs in higher education in order to compete with the liberal agenda they saw in academia. Most of these billionaires were in the energy sector, whether oil, coal, or natural gas. They were most determined to fight any research that conflicted with their bottom line. Mayer details the political fights of the Obama presidency, showing how the influence of the money and operations of the Kochs and other billionaires has stymied progress. The total opposition to Obama began as soon as he took office, not in reaction to anything he did, but the very fact that he had won the election. The Koch brothers’ group Americans for Prosperity and another group FreedomWorks, funded by other billionaires and companies like Philip Morris, helped organize and promote the Tea Party. It wasn’t a grassroots uprising. The sea change in thought on climate change was especially profound and evidence of the power of monied interests. John McCain in 2008 actually ran on a platform of acknowledging climate change and advocating for a cap and trade bill, a relatively conservative solution to curbing green house gases based on free markets. A year later when Obama supported a cap and trade bill that passed the House, the opposition in the Senate became intense. It never was brought up for a vote because the it wouldn’t have passed. By 2012, Mitt Romney had to reverse his previous position of acknowledging human caused climate change in order to be acceptable to the conservative side of the Republican party. It was no longer acceptable to the big donors who funded the party. The Koch brothers believe that they are fighting for their libertarian free market principles when they fund attacks on regulations of the fossil fuel industry. It just so happens that all of the issues that they fight the hardest for and put their money towards would also help them avoid taxes or responsibility when accidents happen. The amount of money involved is truly astounding, made more so by the recent Supreme Court decision Citizens United which breaks down barriers to pour even more money into politics. It’s depressing that those with the most money have so much power and influence on our political system and even political opinion. Mayer focuses her attention on what she calls the “radical right,” but the problem of money in the system goes both ways. It is especially evident on the right at the moment. She does point out at various times some of the liberal billionaires that have attempted to use their money in a similar fashion, but it is mostly a reaction to the efforts of the Kochs and their like minded billionaires, and not nearly as well coordinated or funded. The book is solid research, but I would only recommend it to someone who can stomach it....more
The Second Amendment: A Biography by Michael Waldman is an important book that looks at two important things regarding the Constitution. First, it is The Second Amendment: A Biography by Michael Waldman is an important book that looks at two important things regarding the Constitution. First, it is a history of how the Second Amendment has been interpreted. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it wrestles with how to interpret the Constitution today, showing how the theory of originalism does not work as a coherent theory of interpretation. So first the history of the amendment. The Second Amendment is notoriously difficult to interpret because it has such a strange grammatical structure: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Waldman starts with a lesson about colonial America and the concept of state militias versus standing armies. It is this context that informs the writing of the Second Amendment. During the Constitutional Convention, there was no debate about an individual right to “private gun ownership” or that it needed to be protected in a bill of rights. Later, during the House debate on the Bill of Rights, “None mentioned a private right to bear arms for self-defense, hunting, or for any purpose other than joining a militia” (55-6). In the literature of the time, especially political writings and those of the founders, almost every use of the phrase “bear arms” had a military context. It was the duty of every adult male in the community to join the militia and bring his own gun when training or when mustered for duty. The courts of the early era mostly all understood the right espoused in the Second Amendment as a collective right so that there could be a local militia. Waldman then proceeds to give a history of the NRA, showing how it evolved from a marksmanship and recreational organization to the militant lobbying group it has become today. In 1958, their Washington headquarters had the sign, “FIREARMS SAFETY EDUCATION, MARKSMANSHIP TRAINING, SHOOTING FOR RECREATION.” By contrast, their new headquarters in the 90s had an edited version of the Second Amendment which omitted the first half about militias. The key moment in between these two mottoes happened in the late 70s when new leadership ousted the old in what was called the “Revolt at Cincinnati,” and the group became much more political. This change in the NRA coincided with a new interpretation of the Second Amendment. From 1888 to 1960, “every single [law review] article concluded the Second Amendment did not guarantee an individual right” (97). In the next 20 years, however, articles were evenly split, 27 apiece, for an individual right, but 60% of those for an individual right “were written by lawyers who had been directly employed by or represented the NRA or other gun rights organizations” (98). It should also be pointed out that law review articles are not peer reviewed. These articles cited each other and found tenuous arguments and often misunderstood or taken out of context quotes to bolster their claims. The NRA itself was not above trying to misconstrue the founders when it suited their purpose. For instance, a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to George Washington contained the quote “One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.” From context, it is clear that Jefferson is not speaking of firearms at all, but rather is asking for some letters back so that he can prepare rebuttals in his capacity as Secretary of State. This sea change in interpretation of the amendment culminated in the 2008 Supreme Court decision District of Columbia v. Heller which finally established a federal individual right to own a gun. Two years later, in McDonald v. Chicago, the right was incorporated to the states, thus overturning Chicago’s handgun restrictions. The late Antonin Scalia, a firm believer in originalism when it comes to interpreting the Constitution, wrote the Heller majority opinion. This is notable because the decision picks and chooses from the original context of the writing of the amendment, avoiding much of the history of militias. Then, it moderates somewhat by mentioning a list of exceptions to the absolute individual right to a gun (i.e. rights of felons and the mentally ill, carrying firearms into schools and government buildings, and allowing for conditions and qualifications for commercial sales), none of which have an originalist explanation. They are clearly in the opinion in order to secure the swing vote so that it could pass 5-4. The decision is not in the least conservative, either, as it overturns over 200 years of precedent. It is the very definition of an activist judiciary to find a new “true” meaning of the amendment that the courts had never before found. This inquiry into the change in interpretation of the Second Amendment thus serves as a good case study for why originalism does not work as an interpretive framework for the Constitution. The first question is whose intention counts when trying to figure out what part of the Constitution means? Do we side with those drafting the document (they certainly didn’t all agree; that’s why they debated it), or the new Congress, or the ratifiers in the states? Perhaps more to the point, a theory that rests on finding an original meaning does not keep pace with social progress. How could the founders, smart as they were, consider the principles that would shape our current more technological, globally connected, era? Each generation reads and interprets the document differently, applying it to the current dilemmas. Waldman has done a superb job explaining the history of a thorny debate. I highly recommend anyone interested in the Second Amendment to read it....more
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell is a terrifically fun history lesson on Puritan New England. While not a historian, Vowell has done the research iThe Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell is a terrifically fun history lesson on Puritan New England. While not a historian, Vowell has done the research in primary documents to get the story right. She focuses on the Massachusetts Bay Colony rather than the earlier Plymouth of Mayflower fame. The Bay Colony features interesting figures like John Winthrop, John Cotton, Roger Williams, and Anne Hutchinson. She gives the necessary background for why the Puritans were leaving England in the first place, leading to Winthrop’s sermon “A Model of Christian Charity.” The sermon is famous for calling the Massachusetts colony “a city on a hill,” an example for the world, but also the same watchfulness was a warning to live up to their ideals. The colony has famous religious freedom battles where first Roger Williams and later Anne Hutchinson are banished. Williams sets up the colony in Rhode Island known for its religious tolerance, which paves the way for the First Amendment’s protections more than a century later. But it’s not all religious squabbles in the early colony, there are also skirmishes with and slaughter of the Native population (after smallpox has already ravaged them). Particularly horrifying is the description of the Mystic Fort Massacre. A group of allied colonists and Narragansett and Mohegan warriors surrounded the Pequot fort and set fire to their homes, shooting anyone who tried to escape the walls. I was deeply disturbed to find that the destruction of the Natives was immediate and unrelenting. For the past few years, ever since I knew I would be living in South Dakota, I’ve been reading and learning about the decimation of the people who lived on the Plains. But that’s not where it started. It goes back to every first encounter with Europeans, including the Puritans of New England. While that is certainly a hugely depressing point in the book, much of the rest of it is made fun by Vowell’s sharp wit and humor. As a side note, I would point out that Vowell makes no secret that she is politically liberal, but that she is also a patriot (an earlier book of hers is called The Partly Cloudy Patriot, an apt self description). She spends time comparing the Puritan conception of what “a city on a hill” meant to them to how Reagan repurposed it during his presidency. She loves America and its history, but she’s also willing to looks at its faults and how it has failed to live up to its ideals. I would highly recommend this take on the Puritans. It’s made me want to read more on them in a way no other previous encounter in a history textbook has....more
The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession by Dana Goldstein is a helpful and even-handed look at education in America. By traThe Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession by Dana Goldstein is a helpful and even-handed look at education in America. By tracing the history of teaching, Goldstein is able to show how many ideas that seem new have been tried in the past as the country continually tries to improve our educational system. For instance, ideas like merit pay and complex teacher evaluations have been used in the past without seeing much improvement. Merit pay has been tried numerous times in the past 100 years, but the programs failed because of “excessive administrative paperwork, low funding, disagreement about how to judge good teaching, and strong opposition from teachers themselves” (174). Merit pay programs were often implemented as a way to cut overall teacher pay. Too often the programs pit teachers against each other, causing acrimony instead of harmony. Teaching should be a collaborative job, where teachers mentor each other and share materials that work. But most merit pay systems only reward a few top teachers, creating an incentive not to work together. The chapters each focus on a different time period or type of reform from the first common schools to the beginning of teachers unions to our own day of high stakes testing and charter schools and programs like Teach for America. Goldstein attempts to give the history straight, showing what teaching was like at the time and how it changed over time. But she does interject with what the research shows, like when she points out in a discussion about teacher quality (a current hot topic in school reform discussions) that “the current achievement gap is driven much more by out-of-school factors than by in-school factors” and that teacher quality differences amount to about seven percent of the equation. She withholds her own policy prescriptions for the end, where she recommends some commonsense ideas like focusing on principals as much as teachers because the work environment matters, or that testing is more useful as a diagnostic tool to let teachers know what they need to teach to students, not as a tool to evaluate the teachers themselves. Above all, teachers should be part of the equation whenever it comes to reform projects because they are the ones doing the job. Too often, outsiders with business experience or some philanthropist tries to impose strictures on teachers without their input. This is a useful book for anyone who is invested in the public education of the children of our country, which is basically everyone....more
Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future by Lauren Redniss is an extraordinary art book about the science and stories of weather. Melding heThunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future by Lauren Redniss is an extraordinary art book about the science and stories of weather. Melding her skills as an artist with her ability to present research in an interesting way, Redniss has created a unique and fascinating book. Chapters range from the history of lighthouses and fog off Cape Spear in Newfoundland to the shipping of ice from New England to warmer climes all over the world to forest fires in Australia and the American West to the science of weather prognostication especially as practiced by the Old Farmer’s Almanac. Redniss does it all: she created her own font for the text. The prints that accompanied the stories and interviews were made either by copper plate photogravure or photopolymer process. The art is impressive and draws attention before even reading the words. It’s hard to categorize a book as beautiful and interesting as this one. It’s not merely a science book, though it is that, too. In the chapter on wind, there’s the story of Diana Nyad, an endurance swimmer attempting to swim from Cuba to Florida but needing a period with little wind so the waves wouldn’t be too large. Interspersed in her story are pages with types of winds or mythology and an interlude on the attempt to introduce wind at Mecca during the hajj when millions of Muslims gather for pilgrimage because the site has been so built up to accommodate all of the visitors and cuts off the natural flow of wind. It’s a one of a kind book. I’d highly recommend it....more
A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World’s Extinct Animals with text by Tim Flannery and illustrations by Peter Schouten is a sobering look at the effecA Gap in Nature: Discovering the World’s Extinct Animals with text by Tim Flannery and illustrations by Peter Schouten is a sobering look at the effects of humanity on the animal kingdom. The book includes 103 species (mammal, bird, or reptile) that have gone extinct since the year1500, most of them in the past 150 years. Peter Schouten’s illustrations are beautiful and naturalistic. I was reminded of the Audubon calendars we had in our house growing up. It was rather haunting to see animal after animal that is gone forever. Some of the species are familiar, even famous for their extinction: the gigantic moas of New Zealand, the Dodo of Mauritius, the Great Auk in the North Atlantic, the Passenger Pigeon of North America, and the Thylacine (aka the Tasmanian Tiger). I didn’t know about Steller’s Sea Cow, a gigantic relative of dugongs and manatees. It was the largest mammal (besides whales) to live in modern times, at up to 30 feet long and weighing approximately 10 tons. They were all hunted until there were none left by 1768. The text by Tim Flannery, an introduction and commentary on each species to accompany the artwork, is informative on what was known about each species and its demise. Sometimes a bird would be hunted for food by humans. Such was the fate of the Rail (a kind of bird) on Wake Island during World War II—during hostilities between the Japanese and American forces, the Japanese soldiers faced starvation and ate the birds to survive. More often the reason for extinction was the introduction of some other invasive species that disrupted the life cycle. Black rats might eat the eggs, for example, of some other island bird. The rats came to shore from aboard the ships that explored the South Pacific and other faraway once diverse habitats. Sometimes people destroyed the habitat for these animals, usually for agricultural reasons. Flannery also notes that a few species went extinct when naturalists gathered the last few remaining specimens for natural history museums. Our knowledge of the species came at the expense of their extinction, a truly bittersweet result. This book is a good complement to Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction, showing example after example of humanity’s devastation of the natural world....more
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert is a sobering look at the effects humans are having on life on this planet. There haveThe Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert is a sobering look at the effects humans are having on life on this planet. There have been five major extinction events in Earth’s history, and we are currently living during the sixth. Previous extinction events have been caused by catastrophes like asteroid impacts. Not so for the sixth extinction, which we are currently witnessing. Human behavior, whether greedy or careless, has caused the extinction of untold numbers of species. In chapter after chapter, Kolbert details how species or larger groups have gone extinct or been threatened because of humans. The megafauna (such as mastodons, mammoths, and sabretooth cats) died out soon after contact with humans, possibly from overhunting. Large land animals to this day do poorly when in close proximity to humans because they reproduce so slowly and cannot make up for any population losses. Other chapters deal with the killing off of auks (similar to a penguin) or the Sumatran rhinoceros, which is not yet extinct but barely holding on (in fact, the rhino Suci who is highlighted in book died at the Cincinnati Zoo soon after the book came out). Still other chapters deal with how humans have made such an impact on different species. Habitat destruction, especially in diverse environments like rainforests, has led to untold numbers of extinctions of insects and larger animals in the foodchain. Ocean acidification, caused by global warming, is killing off corals and the many species which rely on coral reefs to survive. Humans also transplant species around the globe, sometimes unwittingly, which can cause all sorts of unintended consequences. The book opens with the fungus that is killing off many frogs and other amphibians. All sorts of invasive species are able to thrive in new environments when they have no natural predators. They disrupt their new ecosystem, outcompeting and/or killing the native species they encounter. The final pages offer up the possibilities of all of the mayhem humans have caused: either we will also succumb to the vast disruptions we have wrought to the planet or we will through our ingenuity overcome the looming disaster. It’s a bleak picture. Despite how depressing it can be, I still would highly recommend this book. Kolbert is a fantastic writer (the book won a Pulitzer Prize), and it’s important to think through the implications of human interaction with nature....more
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