This biography of Alex Dumas (as Tom Reiss calls him), the father of the novelist Alexandre Dumas (author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three MThis biography of Alex Dumas (as Tom Reiss calls him), the father of the novelist Alexandre Dumas (author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, among many other novels) reads like an Alexandre Dumas novel. Except it is meticulously researched and presumably true--or at least as true as any biography can be. It also addresses an interesting set of issues of the history of thinking about race in France around the the turn of the 19th century--given that Alex Dumas was half Black, born in what is now Haiti, but rose to be a general in French army at a time when slavery was being banned.
This is the first biography of Alex Dumas who was largely forgotten, in part because his military career was interrupted by an extended stint as a prisoner of war (which helped create some of the background for The Count of Monte Cristo). And also because he, sort of, crossed Napoleon. But mostly because the transition to Napoleon brought back slavery and a changed attitude towards what is now Haiti--and was Alex Dumas' birthplace. Reiss does extensive archival research, including organizing what is basically a break-in of a massive safe with Dumas' papers.
He starts from Alex Dumas' father, an aristocrat in France, chronicles his journey to what is now Haiti, his break with his brother, move to another town, birth of Alex, and then the story basically follows Alex from there as he gives up all connection to his aristocratic upbringing, starts as a private in the army and works his way up to general--and then prisoner.
Along the way Reiss does a great job of providing context and providing some of the deeper connections between the adventurous life and what is happening more broadly. So it is a mini history of the period as well, but all worn lightly and easily digestible amidst the novelesque story that is at the center of this biography....more
An energetic mostly military history of the battles in the Mediterranean between the Ottoman Empire and various combinations of Christians over the coAn energetic mostly military history of the battles in the Mediterranean between the Ottoman Empire and various combinations of Christians over the course of the sixteenth century. It provides some historical context with the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople on one side (which Roger Crowley previously wrote about in the very good Constantinople : The Last Great Siege 1453) and the shift in the center of gravity from the Mediterranean to the North and Atlantic after the events documented in this book.
I read this book because I was interested in learning more about the Battle of Lepanto which was a naval battle off the coast of what is now Greece between the Ottomans and the "Holy League" in 1571. I had only heard about it because of my interest in Miguel Cervantes who who fought and was wounded in the battle. I don't think it has gone down in history in a huge way but according to this book more people were killed per hour in the battle than in any battle up until World War I. It was also the end of a certain style of naval battles where oared galleys ran right up next to each other and the beginning of the use of artillery. It was a huge a defeat for the Ottomans that, together with their defeat in Malta a few decades earlier (the subject of about one-third of this book), helped freeze the Mediterranean between Islamic East and Christian Northwest.
Overall this is history in the grand style, full of striking anecdotes, lots of great men leading empires or commanding battles, and the smell of gunpowder and swords strongly felt throughout. At some point some of the endless discussion of the mechanics of the Siege of Malta got a little dull and I wished for a bit more historical context. But overall a fun and interesting read--even if it did not completely convince me that any of these events were hinges of history as opposed to being part of the lengthy back-and-forth across Europe over many centuries....more
A concise, informative, insightful, and readable introduction to the Second Reich. The book begins with the fallout of the Napoleonic wars and the defA concise, informative, insightful, and readable introduction to the Second Reich. The book begins with the fallout of the Napoleonic wars and the defensive nationalism it helped to created in the German-speaking peoples who had been weak, divided, and conquered by Napoleon. It then charts the next decades, eventually zooming in on Bismarck, as continued external threats--real and trumped up--are used to unify the German states under the reluctant Prussian Kaiser. Then it gives the development of this state, its debates over a constitution and liberalism, the rise of Kaiser Wilhem II, how it handled the rising threat of socialism by adopting a generous welfare state, and its increased militarization culminating in a disastrous war (which Katja Hoyer argues was an accident waiting to happen not a deliberate German plan). The writer is a British-German historian who grew up in East Germany and has a generally nuanced perspective on the issues she covers....more
My daughter and I listened to about the first third of this while driving from the former West Germany to Berlin. It was riveting. The opening and theMy daughter and I listened to about the first third of this while driving from the former West Germany to Berlin. It was riveting. The opening and then the first story of a couple who was being harassed by the Stasi, the husband's mysterious death in prison, the surveillance of the funeral, and all the lies surrounding it. We listened to the rest of the book on-and-off when we got back to the United States and none of it matched that first section. I don't know if that was our situation and mindset or the fact that the book (understandably) front-loaded the best material. Don't get me wrong, the rest of the stories were all pretty amazing in their own right, including many accounts by Stasi officers, an international love story, a couple that was forced to divorce, a sick baby and an escape attempt through tunnels to save it, a rock musician, the "puzzle women" (actually many men too) putting together the shredded files, and a decent amount of historical and practical background in the process.
Overall I'm very, very positive on the book--while I knew the general outlines of the Stasi reading some of the details was revealing. And it is important to chronicle for the sake of history as many of these stories as a possible. But as a literary matter, I think too many of the stories were too disconnected--or connected only by the author's first person narrative as she met the people and learned the story. And as a historical matter I worry that some of the stories were told because they were particularly extreme (e.g., in one case someone has their freedom bought by the West but the East renegs, which the author tells us happened in only 8 of the 50,000 times this happened)....more
I normally avoid books like this: a non-scholarly author, a publisher I haven't heard of, and a lurid title. But I was pleasantly surprised (although I normally avoid books like this: a non-scholarly author, a publisher I haven't heard of, and a lurid title. But I was pleasantly surprised (although some of the previous showed up, like the plethora of typos). There were a number of more scholarly books on the vikings but all of them were much longer and I wanted something about 200 pages long. I appreciated that The Sea Wolves put the vikings in the context of European and Byzantine history, both how they were affected by it and how they affected it. It also never missed the opportunity to tell lurid and possibly apocryphal stories but usually labelled them as such. And it gave some of the context that most of the vikings were not actually spending all their time on raids but instead were farming, fishing, and having a culture that was more orderly and possibly even more feminist than many of the others at the time. But mostly I liked the book because I always encountered the vikings in history books as coming from outside but this presented them from the inside and put their remarkable and discrete period in history in context....more
This book is a dramatically recounted narrative history of the fall of Constantinople in 1453. I appreciated the way the book provided context includiThis book is a dramatically recounted narrative history of the fall of Constantinople in 1453. I appreciated the way the book provided context including the role of Byzantium, its withering away, the rise of the Ottomans and, at the end, consequences describing the fallout over the years and centuries of the fall of Constantinople. The bulk of the book is military history: how artillery changed siege warfare, how the navy operated at the time, and the most novel and interesting, the dueling war of sappers digging tunnels into Constantinople and counter-sappers trying to deduct those tunnels and destroy them, ideally killing the sappers in the process. It also has a certain amount of political history and context, especially on the Christian side with the role--or lack thereof--of Venice, Genoa, the Pope, and other Christian states. All of which moves along in a brisk and entertaining manner.
Like narrative histories the author often speculates--without being clear that he is doing so--about the mindset of various characters and lends drama wherever he can to an, admittedly, rather dramatic event. At times he seems happy to pass along anything that is too-good-to-check but at other times he is very careful about the sources, applying a discount based on the biases and distance from the event of some of the chroniclers.
The book is well served by the many quotes from contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous accounts that give you a fuller understanding of the perspectives of those involved, although most of this is on the Byzantine side (an author's note states that primary sources from the Ottoman perspective are few and far between).
I also appreciated the the book emphasized the multiculturalism of both sides, did not paper over the brutality, but also understood the role that propaganda has played in some accounts of it.
Overall, highly recommended if this topic interests you--and you want a slice of world history with particularly vivid details about the moment-by-moment events of a few months of military preparations and battle in that history....more
A fantastic one volume history of Ancient Greece, exactly what I was looking for. It covers the Mycenean period through the height of Periclean AthensA fantastic one volume history of Ancient Greece, exactly what I was looking for. It covers the Mycenean period through the height of Periclean Athens and then Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic period, the relationship of the Greeks to the Romans and the relationship of the Greeks to the Christians. Edith Hall passionately argues for the uniqueness and importance of Ancient Greek civilization in helping to create what we have today, rebutting claims that this is somehow arbitrarily Eurocentric or an excuse for white supremacy. At the same time, she pays particular attention to women, slavery, Greek atrocities, and so does not herself use Ancient Greece in the way some conservative scholars do. The book itself traverses political history, cultural history, intellectual history, and more, with particularly sensitive and nuanced discussions of the development of ideas. At the center of all of this is her argument that a combination ten characteristics made the Greeks unique including seafaring, skepticism of authority, openness to ideas, love of pleasure, and more. These traits, she argues, lasted more than a thousand years and each of her chapters illustrates one of them in the context of a particular time and place.
Note, I did a combination of listening to the Audible recording and reading the book....more
Say Nothing is motivated by the famous quote (misattributed to Stalin), “a single death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.” The tragedy at the center of this book is the IRA’s abduction and murder of Jean McConville, a widow who left behind ten children. Patrick Radden Keefe starts his book with the abduction and then comes back to its aftermath later in the book. McConville is not the only tragedy Keefe shows, he provides painful color and background on a number of different individual murders by the IRA and the authorities, including several pre-meditated IRA “executions” as well as victims of terrorist attacks, victims of the British security forces and others (perhaps none more shocking than the British security forces protecting one of their double agents from being murdered by loyalists by instead getting the loyalists to murder another man who was picked solely because of the similarity of their last names, ending the life of a completely innocent father and grandfather).
Woven throughout the narrative are a few key characters that appear again and again: Gerry Adams (the IRA leader who becomes a political leader in Sinn Féin), Brendan Hughes (a top tactician for the IRA), Dolours Price (the scion of an IRA family, she starts out on a non-violent path but ends up joining the IRA), Frank Kitson (a British general leading counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland), McConville, and her children, and a few others characters—along with many thumbnail sketches along the way.
Almost everyone is presented without judgment, with lots of nuance and multiple perspectives—with the possible exception of Gerry Adams where Keefe pays lip service to the importance of his role in peace but emotionally the core of his portrayal is much more negative, a shady character who lies about his past with the IRA.
The story moves propulsively, almost like a thrilled with numerous twists and turns. For the first two thirds of the book you don’t even realize how all of the different people will end up being tied together in ways that I won’t spoil.
It also covers a lot of history but does it lightly, interspersed and woven in, that charts the phase of non-violent resistance modeled on Martin Luther King Jr. giving way to violence and then joining with a political struggle and finally turning into a pure political struggle—all juxtaposed against the deepening involvement of the British who sent troops, established internment camps, engaged in torture, and allowed their informants latitude to continue committing major crimes. (The book provides a lot of context and detail for the hunger strike that killed Bobby Sands and nine other men, an event that made a huge impression on me at age 10—like it did many people around the world.)
Perhaps most interesting, however, is the way that Keefe discusses the challenges of memory and accountability. About one-third of the book takes place after the violence largely ends and it is about how people explain to themselves what they did, how they explain to each other, and whether and how they seek accountability. Northern Ireland did not have anything like South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission that gave amnesty in exchange for an honest accounting of past crimes. In fact, ever having been a member of the IRA remained a crime and the charges hanging over people forced them into lies and contortions, but not holding them accountable has its own problems too.
Say Nothing mostly feels like it is about the past, a violent period of intense sectarianism that is at odds with the way one thinks of Ireland, and even Northern Ireland, today. It ends with a new generation taking over, people more prosperous and less focused on sectarian divisions, but still haunted by the past—and the possible destabilization of the fragile detonate by the new borders that are being set up as a result of Brexit.
Overall, this is a work of meticulous and seemingly fair-minded reporting, great story telling, both a particular time and place but also about humans and their relationship to violence and moral questions like whether the means justify the ends, all of it done by showing not telling. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
(I listened in rapt attention to the audiobook on four long drives, it was excellently narrated by Matthew Blaney who has a strong Irish accent that adds to the atmosphere of the book.)...more
A relatively traditional history of Imperial Spain, J.H. Elliott's book takes us from the union of Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand and Isabella thrA relatively traditional history of Imperial Spain, J.H. Elliott's book takes us from the union of Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand and Isabella through the almost accidental joining of Spain into the Hapsburg empire, its becoming the seat of the Hapsburg empire controlling the Netherlands, Portugal, much of Italy, parts of Austria, and then its shrinking again as it loses wars with England and elsewhere, goes through financial and economic crises. The book was originally written in 1960 and reads that way--a focus on leaders, politics, wars, and the like, but also a decent amount about the economy, society, and church. The conquest of America is discussed only briefly and largely in heroic terms one would not read today and the expulsion/conversion of the Jews and Muslims is treated as lamentable but not dwelled on either. Culture gets relatively short shrift as well, with only passing mentions of Cervantes and Velázquez. I say this more for context than as criticism, in many ways reading a traditional, linear history of the rise and fall from greatness was refreshing and a story that filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge....more
A well written history that focuses on Hitler's first year in power as seen through the eyes of the new American Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, A well written history that focuses on Hitler's first year in power as seen through the eyes of the new American Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, and his family. Dodd was Roosevelt's fourth choice, a liberal history professor who wanted to live within his salary in Berlin, a strong contrast to the power-obsessed Nazi's. He arrives in mid-1933 when there was still, inexplicably, a debate about Hitler's true intentions and you see his thoughts in real time as they evolve. He also brings his family and the book also includes extensive descriptions of his 20-something daughter Martha's life as she is involved with high-ranking Nazis, Russians, and others, experiencing the social life of Berlin as she goes from pro-Nazi to anti-Nazi as she witnesses the escalating violence of the SA. The book does a suspenseful and detailed presentation of The Knight of the Long Lives, Hitler's violent purge that consolidated his power and was, inexplicably again, not even condemned by the United States.
Overall, the book has the feel of well-told journalism that probably unveils new information about Dodd and his family in a reliable way but does not claim to add much to the broader history of the time. ...more
Just about as much fun as you can have with nonfiction, A Spy Among Friends has a page turning plot, great characters, breezy writing, and it is all tJust about as much fun as you can have with nonfiction, A Spy Among Friends has a page turning plot, great characters, breezy writing, and it is all true (probably). It reads a lot like John Le Carre--in part because Le Carre based his outlook on this history and in part because history is written differently post Le Carre.
A Spy Among Friends tells the story of Kim Philby and the Cambridge spies--documenting how they were recruited by the Soviet Union as students in the 1930s and rose to high levels in intelligence and the foreign service--including Philby serving as head of Soviet counterintelligence and the MI6 liason to Washington while still an active Soviet agent. It documents the cost that Philby imposed, speculates some on character and motivations while largely rehabilitating a conventional reading of the history over the more exotic conspiracy theories.
The book centers around Philby's role as a member of an old boys club that protected its own without suspicion, focusing most on his relationship with his lifelong friend and defender--Nick Elliott--who ultimately after a mounting amount of proof ends up being the person who gets the confession from him. How Elliott when from fooled to pursuer is an interesting story in its own right and one that Macintyre tells well....more
This Kindle Single was a good, short introduction to the Dreyfus Affair for someone who previously knew next to nothing about it (i.e., me). Although This Kindle Single was a good, short introduction to the Dreyfus Affair for someone who previously knew next to nothing about it (i.e., me). Although it claims to present new archival discoveries/evidence, it seemed like a relatively standard account--which was fine with me--about how and why the captain was framed with minimal broader interpretation/reflection on French society at the time....more
An excellent single volume history of Venice (not that I have any others to compare it to), it goes from the foundation of Venice by a bunch of refugeAn excellent single volume history of Venice (not that I have any others to compare it to), it goes from the foundation of Venice by a bunch of refugees from Attila the Hun and the Fall of the Roman Empire to the hordes of cruise ships and tourists that descend on Venice today. In the course of the narrative it tells an amazing story I had never known about how the Venetian Republic lasted for roughly a millennium, essentially a continuation of the Roman Empire, up until it was dissolved by Napoleon Bonaparte. And he tells an interesting history that it exploits being at the intersection first of the Eastern and Western Roman empires, then of Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire and then of the Ottomans and Great Western European powers. Venice would alternate between various alliances, neutralities, and trading relationships. to prosper and expand without ever being absorbed into one of the sides. But then it ended up caught between Napoleon and the Hapsburgs--which it could not survive.
Madden also tells an interesting story about how as essentially a landless city-state Venice could never develop the same type of feudalism that dominated in much of Europe, so instead based its economy and society on merchants--which were inherently somewhat less stable and more changeable/meritocratic overtime (although one presumably would not want to overstate the point). But that the discovery of the New World, the improved navigation around the Cape of Africa, shifted the locus of trade to the Atlantic powers like Spain, England and France--and away from Venice's strategic trading position at the intersection of East and West.
The book also does a good job of covering everything from the crusades to the renaissance in Venice to Venice's role in the Grand Tour to literature about Venice. And it does it all in an enjoyable, readable way.
But the downside of the enjoyable, readable manner is a painful awareness of how it sometimes transforms the story into something overly crude, generalizing about the Venetian people and character (without drawing distinctions within Venice) and being overly defensive of Venice (it is invariably the barbarians/French/Turks/Napoleon or whoever else that is being tyrannical, inhumane and imperialistic while the Venetians are more justified and civilized in everything they do). But that is a minor flaw and it is hard to imagine a better comprehensive history of Venice....more
Reads like something between a novel and a Shakespeare play, Foundation is the first a planned multivolume history of England. It covers pre-history tReads like something between a novel and a Shakespeare play, Foundation is the first a planned multivolume history of England. It covers pre-history through the beginning of the Tudor's. It is good old fashioned history that alternates between essentially a Royal-focused story and shorter chapters on various aspects of social history. It has essentially no historiography or attempts to grapple with other histories or even present any specific thesis or organizing principle. But I'm perfectly happy without one, especially once it got to the Medieval monarchs from Edward III onward and the story really took off.
I'm looking forward to the next volume on the Tudors, although I'm not positive that this style/presentation will work as well after that period....more
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