Category: History

I bought this book at a local used book store (Redeemed Music and Books, if you must know) on one of my local history sprees.

The author is an attorney, the progeny of a pretty successful businessman in the first part of the twentieth century, and it covers the attorney’s formative years in school, college, and the military during World War II. The first chapters jump around a bit, and I thought it reminiscient of Over the Hill and Past Our Place (also by a successful man looking back on his life from almost the same time period). The recollections in the beginning are rather pasted together willy-nilly, but the book improves as it goes along and as the boy reaches an age where he can remember the stories better.

As I said, he was the son of a successful businessman, so his experiences in the depression years are mostly recognizing that the depression is going on. The lad goes to the University of Missouri and then goes on to become a lawyer before joining the military in World War II. It’s not high history; it’s more of a vanity project where the fellow put his story down for his family. But the glimpses of the cities around Springfield in that era and the college experience make it very interesting in spots. So it’s worth it if you’re looking for that sort of flavor amid a whole lot of name-checking people who mattered eighty or ninety years ago.

The book has a date range on it, 1915-1945. The author has another book about his time as an Ozarks lawyer after World War II, and I’ll keep an eye out for it.

Books mentioned in this review:

After reading the book on Sweden, I guess I got onto a bit of a roll reading this sort of book. This book is a short (150 pages including the index) history of Sicily. It starts about the Greek colonization mingling with the natives (the Sicils) and goes through the height of Sicily, which is right about the beginning of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire period gets short shrift because Sicily was just an exploited province at the time.

A second flowering occurs under the Normans. You know, I’ve mentioned my history bent has been toward English history, so my understanding of the Normans comes from William and his line. Although history books I’ve read mention the Norman holdings in the south, they didn’t go into how and why they were on Sicily. This book does, so I’ve added a bit to my knowledge.

Sicily is about the seventh of the size of Missouri, to give one perspective. It is a big area, and it was not united for much of its history. Fascinating. Of course, its position in the middle of the Mediterranean offered it some advantages early because it was a waypoint for trade, but once the bigger continent-based powers ramped up, they dominated it and it was controlled by bunchs of what the Romans would have considered barbarian tribes and later the Spanish. Huh.

I’m glad I read it. But I realized that most of the books I’ve read so far this year have been library books. That’s not cleaning out the fabled Nogglestead library’s To Read shelves. The last couple of times I’ve been to the library, I’ve asked my beautiful wife to keep me from the stacks. True story.

Books mentioned in this review:

Ever since I read Warriors of the Way (what? Four years ago? Already?), I wanted to read a history of the Finns and the Norse, but I never found anything in the library that fit those needs. Finally, (four years later), I found this book which is almost close enough.

It’s written by a Swedish economist (so I gather), so it comes from a modern political viewpoint which comes through in a couple of ways.

First, the things I learned about Sweden that I think are interesting: First, when the Norse Vikings moved west, the Swedish equivalents went eastward and ended up setting up trade routes and whatnot through the rivers of Russia and the inland seas there all the way to the Middle East. I did not know that. Also, Sweden really punched above its weight in the middle ages, becoming a sort of military superpower that had holdings and almost a bit of empire into the heart of Europe. Unfortunately, the homeland was a small patch of land in a very cold place that could not support a vast army that was not pillaging the rest of Europe, so it faded.

Another thing: In the book The Barrabas Creed, a Swedish prime minister is assassinated. That actually happened. In 1986, the prime minister was indeed killed. My beautiful wife also tells me this is mentioned in the Steig Larsson books. I guess that weighs heavily on the little country.

Something about Sweden that is interesting, and not flattering: it has a studied neutrality to it that it takes as a point of pride, but the book does mention treaties and defensive pacts that Sweden has gotten into throughout the centuries and particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries where its treaty parties get attacked, and Sweden says, “Sucks to be you. We’re neutral.” This continued into the middle of the last century where Sweden wanted to head up a Baltic defensive alliance, and Norway and Denmark said, “Uh, thanks, but we’ll join NATO. Those mongrel Americans tend to honor their commitments.” Or words to that effect.

The book also gave me a bit of insight into the European mindset. Here in the United States, our political system has never, really, had a king. Sure, there was that guy in England way back when, but the transition from monarchy to constitutional republic was relatively quick (yes, I know it was almost fifteen years from the revolution to the Constitution). In Europe, the gradual erosion of the monarch’s authority to the parliament lasted for centuries. That has to affect your outlook and your traditions some.

As a contemporary bit of scholarship, as it is, the book lauds the left political parties and their triumphs in building a welfare state. The author tries to trace when Sweden became Sweden, and it’s not at the height of its military prowess or that. No, Sweden became Sweden in 1920 with the creation of its welfare state. Additionally, the United States is only mentioned a couple of times in the book, and the mentions don’t salute the United States. Basically, we get pegged for creating a world-wide depression in the 1930s and for causing famine when we entered World War I along with a couple other minor offenses to the world order. Well, one could hardly expect a professor to not ding the United States if it was a professor in the United States, so this should be expected. But it’s dings are just little snipes.

At any rate, I was glad to read this book. It’s from a northern European perspective which is different from the England-centric or classical-centric histories I’ve read a bunch of. As this is an “In Outline” book, it’s short and high-level (although the Parliament-loving is lovingly detailed). So I have a smattering now, and if I get a chance to read another like it, I’ll take it. Hopefully something with a bit more popular history in it and a little less political science.

Books mentioned in this review:

This book is a brief (fewer than 100 pages) military history of the Mongols, starting with Genghis Khan. It’s part of a series of short, topical books by Osprey Publishing that look pretty interesting; I’d look for them myself at book fairs, but I recognize that these days, I’m just sniffing among the trash left by Internet-device-enabled book dealers who will find these things before I do and will try to then sell them to me at more than $1 each. Look down there at the price of this one, for crying out loud. It’s almost enough to make me consider not returning this book to the library (but I did).

At any rate, it focuses more on the military conquests of the Mongols starting with the consolidation of their central Asian power base and continuing through their campaigns in Europe, the Middle East, China, and Southwest Asia. Its focus, as I might have mentioned, is on the military strategies and tactics of the Mongols, and the focus really, er, focuses on how brutal they were. This slender volume does not have any of the leavening effect of their administration, religious tolerance, and other homer bits that run throughout Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.

Still, it’s a quick read, with lots of images and maps helping to fill the pages. So it’s more like a long encyclopedia entry than a scholarly book. But a good read and a good primer. Man, I’ll have to seek out some more of these Ospery books.

Books mentioned in this review:

This book tells some of the early life of Harold Warp. Who is Harold Warp? He was a farm boy who grew up on a farm in Nebraska in the very early 20th century (no electricity, no internal combustion engines). After he his father died when he was three, his mother ran the farm until she passed away when the boy was eleven. The book collects memories from that era, an era that saw radical changes to the farm. In those eight years, the house got a telephone, animals were replaced with gas engines, and his brother got a car. It’s a fascinating read.

In his 20s, Warp patented Flex-O-Glass and started a company to manufacture it. That went very well. The company, Warp Brothers, is still in business. Warp did so well with it that he donated the land and materials to start Pioneer Village, which is still in operation, near his old homestead.

Warp’s story, included as a couple of photocopied things in the back, is as fascinating as the book. Especially when you think in the sheer number of technological changes wrought in the fifty years between Warp’s birth and the book’s initial publication. I mean, he started out in an environment where his mother spent all night repairing clothing by the light of a coal oil lamp and where he and his slightly older brother were allowed to get their own rifle when they were about 10 as long as they would hunt jackrabbits to eat. When I think about the changes I’ve seen since my early days in the 1970s, we’ve got, what? Oh, the “Internet,” which is an extension of computer networks I was using when I was twelve. So we’ve got all the LOLcats we want, but on the 1970s, men were walking on the moon. It doesn’t seem fair, does it?

At any rate, the writing and presentation of the book are a bit slapdash in spots. Sometimes, the chapters collect unconnected incidents and musings where stray sentences of unrelated memories just sort of drop in and then go, almost as though this was dictated while his mind wandered and no one edited it. But overall, it’s a cool book, and at 73 pages, it’s an easy read in one sitting. The book was published and kept in print in association with the Pioneer Village, so you can probably pick one up if you’re in Minden, Nebraska, on vacation. Which I have considered, briefly, on the weight of the book.

Books mentioned in this review:

This book is a brief biography of General Patton written not long after he died and with input from his family. So it’s completely laudatory, a homer bio, but, hey, it’s Patton. What’s not to like?

The book, as I mentioned, is very short (like 150 pages), but if you don’t know anything about the man, you’ll learn the basics. He came from a well-to-do Western family from the old West. He chased Pancho Villa. He rightly equated the tank with cavalry. And he beat a soldier who said he just couldn’t handle it, when the soldier was also stricken with malaria instead of just shell shock. He held his men to a high standard, and they ended up loving him for it. You know those signs in foreign lands saying, “George Bush, help us”? In the 1940s in Europe, they chanted for Patton to free them.

The book is too thin for a Management Lessons from George Patton piece (sorry, Jim), but worth reading just for the overview of an American icon.

I had hoped that this book would be something like Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, but alas and alack, this was not to be the case. Where the book on the Mongols was dymanic and narrative, this book was rather academic and stretched out what little we know about Attila the Hun, mostly anecdotal, into chapters.

Attila the Hun ruled the Huns for eight years, which means basically eight campaigns (although he shared rule with a brother for some time before that). Since he ruled in the 5th century, in the Dark Ages, in an illiterate tribe, there are no Hun records themselves, and all accounts–such as those spare ones are–come from exterior sources. So the elements of the book that are about Attila are sparse anecdotes stretched into chapters. Kind of like how this report is stretched by repeating itself.

The author throws in a goodly number of name-checks of the other rulers of the era, which is after the split of the Roman Empire and before the final collapse of the Western Empire, so you get a summary history of the era, but the book lacks flavor.

I dunno; this book is subtitled The Man and the Myth, and I get the sense that Attila really punches above his weight in historic notoriety based on a couple things: he came along at a time when both remnants of the Roman Empire were weakening, the papacy was strengthening, and they needed a scapegoat or common enemy. He appears more in fictional accounts of his life or other lives than in actual history accounts, for hundreds of years after his death. Face it, he was the early middle ages equivalent of Hitler: if you needed someone in your opera who was archetypically evil, you threw in Attila. For millenia. Why, George Patton called the Germans Huns in the 20th century. If we didn’t have Hitler and Nazis these days, movies would have asiatic horsemen detonating nukes at the Super Bowl.

I mean, he couldn’t conquer France for crying out loud. A couple kickball teams allied together could conquer France, and I don’t mean the children’s gym class kickball teams; I mean the real sissies: the adult kickball league kickball teams.

It’s a pretty short book (187 pages of text), though, and it is a good primer on fifth century southern Europe. And, apparently, it gives one enough confidence to spout off on the relative weight of the Hunnic “Empire.” I mean, with an Empire, you sort of expect that it will last over a couple decades and maybe a couple generations of successful leaders.

And I did get two blog posts from it: this one, and Management Lessons from Attila the Hun.

This book at the Republic branch of the library had been teasing me for some time. When I’m there with the children or when my beautiful wife needs to pick up a book, I look over the regional history shelves. I picked up this book on a couple of occasions and put it back, vowing to read my own books before I check another out of the library. But as you know, gentle reader, I’ve been a little susceptible to library books recently, and I fell for this book.

From the title, one might expect some encyclopedic or list-based review of place names. That is not the case. This book covers, broadly, Missouri area history from the Indians in the area to the French, then Spanish, then French, then American settlers and the industries that moved through the area and how each impacted the naming of areas. Then the book gives a couple examples of it. Many of the names come from considerations when it came to creating the Post Office for each one.

So it wasn’t what I’d hoped for, but it’s a nice little read that’s more of a high-level history of Missouri than a real in-depth study of place names. I got a couple ideas for pieces out of it, which is really all you can ask for any survey book like this.

Books mentioned in this review:

I said I was going to start reading comic books to make my quota this year. Almost. This is a book of maps and is a just a couple crayons short of being a coloring book.

The maps center on the Mediterranean and each map depicts, in chronological order, different elements and aspects of history, such as the extent of empires and whatnot. It’s a good reference to how the Assyrians rubbed against the Babylonians and whatnot. Emphasis is given to Greek and Roman historical concerns, so you get to see different parts of those periods, including things like where the mints where, what regions produced different products, and what part of the world select individuals hailed from. It’s interesting to me how many of the major writers and thinkers actually hailed from the region we now call Spain.

The other thing that struck me was how small the world was then, at least this portion of them. You know about the Greek city states kinda in your mind, but they’re just names and whatnot until you see them (again) on a map and realize that Athens and Sparta were about 100 miles apart, about the distance between Springfield, Missouri, and Rolla, Missouri, and that Athens and Thebes is half that. Fascinating. Sure, you can say, “Duh!” But it’s there in black and white which is a stark reminder of common knowledge you sometimes don’t acutely know.

So it’s a good reference book to have on my shelves for when I’m doing deep studies of history instead of ceaselessly scanning the Internet headlines for something to blog about. And something quick and easy to look at to make your quota.

Books mentioned in this review:

This book is an Ozarks History of the Yoachum family that was responsible for the Yocum Dollars, which were briefly used in currency in the Ozarks in the early part of the ninteenth century. Of course, as it’s an Ozarks history, only the first part of the history talks about the three brothers who purportedly traded some horses, soaps, and blankets to some departing Delaware for the location of an old silver mine and then mined the silver, minted coins, and exchanged them among their neighbors. Given the bank failures and the dearth of other currency, the money caught on amongst Ozarkers and went on until a homesteader tried to pay the government for his land with these unofficial dollars. Government officials called the proferred dollars and sent it to Washington for analysis, where they determined the silver was purer than that in actual US coins. One of the Yocum brothers died in a cabin fire, perhaps sealing the mine forever, and the bulk of the Yoachum family moved out of the area.

It might be a myth, or it might have happened. Records are sparse, and I don’t think any of these dollars actually has come to the present day.

As an Ozarks History, though, this book then goes into general stories of days gone by in the Ozarks. Read how the author’s mother’s experience as a mail carrier. Learn about the Wilderness Road hangin’ tree. And so on. So the book is more a collection of stories than a true investigation of the Yocum Dollar. The Yocum/Yoachum/Yoakum family and the searches for the silver mine do crop back up, though.

Unfortunately, some of the stories are untold. The author mentions his father found a cache of these in the 1920s and searched for the mine all his life, but that story is underrepresented. Then, in a chronology in the back, a simple line reads 1975 – Two hundred thirty-six Yocum Dollars found buried in a metal box South of Branson, Mo. No account of this discovery is given.

Still, an interesting read if you’re into regional history.

Books mentioned in this review:

Well, I read about the rise of one Khan, so it lends itself to a certain symmetry if I were to follow pretty closely with the rise of another. And so I have.

This book is an overview of the rise of Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire and the empire after Genghis Khan’s death. The author is a homer, but I prefer that: someone who writes positively of the subject of the book. That’s not to say that the Mongols were not brutal when they were; it just doesn’t stand athwart history, shouting, “Naughty!” and condescending to historical figures with the sensitivites of a modern academic.

The book is a pretty good primer on Asian history from the 13th century and serves as a reminder to a Western reader who has been steeped in Western Civilization that there’s a whole wide world out there with history of its own, and that history went on even during the dark ages. The Mongol Empire was the largest empire in the world, ever. In the 13th century. Also, the Mongols had a pretty large number of Christians among them. The Christians among them were helpful when the Mongols sacked Baghdad, the capital of the Islamic world at that time. The Moslems have not forgotten it.

The Mongols spared Western Europe from most of their predations for two reasons: The heavy forests were not ideal terrain for their horsemen, and Europe didn’t have anything worth sacking relative to China and the Islamic nations of the time.

So it’s chock full of new perspective and whatnot, but unfortunately the last chapter kinda weakens the book. It follows the youth of Ghengis Khan, the rise of Khan, the aftermath of Khan’s death, and Kublai Khan’s rise in China. After the actual history part of the book, the author tacks on a conclusion that talks about how Genghis Khan came to be a symbol of Asiatic man and its inferiority to the West with all the proper sentiments expressed. Then the author LARPs an event out of Khan’s life by riding swiftly on a horse on the Mongolian plains while wearing a deen, the traditional garb. I could really have done without that. Also, as the book progressed, it occurred to me that the legal and civilizationary triumphs of the Mongols that the author celebrates align liberal policies (public education and women’s rights come to mind).

That being said, I feel the need to compare the Mongols under Khan to other personages I’ve read in the last couple of years. The Mongols would have eaten John Hawkwood (100 years later) for lunch. The Aztecs (200 years later)? Not even a snack. They were pretty good at their version of warfare and their administration of the conquered lands. But the book posits the ultimate downfall of the Mongol empire came from the Bubonic Plague, which it carried from its origin in China to the whole populated world at the time.

I enjoyed the book, the last chapter aside, and recommend it. As a side note, I paid full price for this book at a real book store. I’d read an article in the September 2010 History Magazine about Genghis Khan’s law and wanted to learn more, so when I had some time to kill in a mall, I browsed the book store and this book was in it. Kismet. A sign. A worthwhile purchase.

Books mentioned in this review: