U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1957 Book Reviews

Class of 1957 Book Review Site. ©2007. To add a Book Review, or to comment on a book already in this listing, send your material or review to Sam Coulbourn at Persnav@shore.net. Photo at top of each page shows ENS Arleigh Burke beneath 14-inch gun aboard Battleship USS Arizona, 1923. Revised 27 March 2008.

Text Box: United States Naval Academy Class of 1957 Book Reviews

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Text Box: pOEtRy ROBERT BLY Johnson’s Cabinet Watched by Ants I It is a clearing deep in a forest; overhanging boughs Make a low place. Here the citizens we know during the day, The ministers, the department heads, Appear changed: the stockholders of large steel companies In small wooden shoes: here are the generals dressed as gamboling lambs, II Tonight they burn the rice supplies; tomorrow They lecture on Thoreau; tonight they move around the trees, Tomorrow they pick the twigs from their clothes; Tonight they throw the fire-bombs, tomorrow They read the Declaration of Independence; tomorrow they are in Church. III Ants are gathered around an oak tree. In a choir they sing, in harsh and gravelly voices, Old Etruscan songs on tyranny. Toads nearby clap their small hands, and join The fiery songs, their five long toes trembling in the soaked earth. (1967) pOEtRy Good Poems for Hard Times Garrison Keillor, Ed., 2006. A compact eclectic selection with a delightful introduction by our modern man of many talents. Excellent for bedside, guest room, suitcase or pool side. Here’s one: pOEtRy ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Where go the Boats Dark brown is the river, Golden is the sand. It flows along for ever With trees on either hand. Green leaves a-floating, Castles of the foam, Boats of mine a-boating- Where will all come home? On goes the river And out past the mill, Away down the valley Away down the hill. Away down the river, A hundred miles or more, Other little children Shall bring my boats ashore. pOEtRy The Ode Less Traveled By Stephen Fry, 2006. Another multi faceted writer has produced a unique work that provides for the craft of writing poetry a handbook similar to those readily available for woodworking, oil painting or any of the other activities pressed on those in the second halves of their lives. A delight to read, a very interesting challenge to do the work. “It is not too late. We are all opsimaths. Opsimath, noun: one who learns late in life” pOEtRy William Butler Yeats: Selected Poems and Four Plays (4th Ed) Rosenthal, M.L., Editor, 1996. Many consider Yeats the greatest poet of the twentieth century. Reading this volume goes a long way toward confirming that proposition. Rosenthal has greatly aided the process with an excellent and comprehensive introduction, a section of notes that explain the meaning of many Irish terms, history, and legends, all of which densely populate Yeats’ works. There is also an extremely useful glossary of names and places, without which many of the poems would constitute looking through a glass darkly. Reviewed by Paul Roush. pOEtRy The Complete poems of Emily Dickinson Johnson, Thomas H., Editor, 1960. Dickinson’s 1,775 poems are all here, presented chronologically. They are in her peculiar style, essentially without any punctuation. Her brilliance eclipsed that of her contemporaries and most of those who followed. She was very sophisticated theologically, and wrote many critiques of the ways she perceived God to be failing. Much of her writing explored the mysteries of eternity, and she contemplated death with a starkness and boldness that amazes the reader. To grapple with Dickinson’s poems is to engage in a mind-expanding panoply of erudition, insight, and utter unorthodoxy. Reviewed by Paul Roush. PHILOSOPHY PHILOSOPHY The Road to Serfdom By Friedrich A. Hayek, 1944. Hayek, a Nobel Laureate in economics and student of Ludwig von Mises, wrote Serfdom before the beginning of WWII, but could only get it published in America toward the end of WWII because of its indictment of collectivism, a popular concept among the intellectual elite. Hayek, an economist, discovered the indissoluble link between politics and economics early in his career, leading to this careful analysis and rejection of the collectivist mind set. Collectivism fails because no government agency, only a free market, can respond in a timely and effective manner to all the variables influencing the economy. As a collectivist government moves to assert control over variables outside its influence, bringing them under its control, it moves toward totalitarianism. History affirms Hayek’s analysis. This is a fundamental reference for everyone investigating the pathology of collectivism. PHILOSOPHY The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism By Michael Novak, First published in 1982 and updated in 1991. The author, a Catholic theologian, has written a remarkable book. He offers a thoughtful analysis of the moral and ethical aspects of economics, capitalism, and democracy. It is a wonderful blending of politics, economics, and religion in a single volume. He considers the market versus command economies, Roman Catholic versus Protestant views of democratic capitalism, and, along the way, offers a comprehensive theology of economics. He compares developmental results in countries that have opted for democratic capitalism versus those who tilt toward one or another of the various forms of socialism. The book includes a splendid analysis of liberation theology, an economic approach with Marxian overtures, which has made substantial inroads in Latin America among a not-inconsequential number of Catholic clergy. This is one of the more important books I have read. Review by Paul Roush.
PHILOSOPHY Voltaire Almighty By Pearson, Roger, 2005 Pearson, a Professor of French at Oxford spins an interesting biography about Jesuit educated Voltaire. As a major force behind the European Enlightenment in the 18th century, Voltaire's plays and verse made him the toast of European society. His personal life was as colorful as his intellectual life. HEALTH HEALTH How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter By Nuland, Sherwin B., 1994. Sherwin Nuland is a surgeon who teaches surgery and the history of medicine at Yale University. He has written this book to describe not why we die (e.g., cancer, stroke, heart attack, etc.) but how we die, i.e., the physiological processes that culminate in death. This is not a morbid book. This book is not written to frighten, but to make the process of dying understandable. Since “no one gets out of this world alive,” it can be helpful to understand what is happening and why it is happening as the end of life approaches. Nursing home staffs and hospice workers recognize the symptoms; Nuland supplies the physiology to “demythologize the process of dying” and undergird the dignity of those reaching end-of-life. Not everyone will appreciate what he has done, but those who do can benefit from the material he has provided. Reviewed by Paul Roush. SELF IMPROVEMENT SELF IMPROVEMENT Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation By Lynne Truss, 2004. It may be equally appropriate to list this book under humor rather than self improvement. Certainly the author makes it fun to learn how to write with the additional clarity that proper punctuation bestows on any text. Here’s how Publishers Weekly describes the book. “Who would have thought a book about punctuation could cause such a sensation? Certainly not its modest if indignant author, who began her surprise hit motivated by "horror" and "despair" at the current state of British usage: ungrammatical signs ("BOB,S PETS"), headlines ("DEAD SONS PHOTOS MAY BE RELEASED") and band names ("Hear'Say") drove journalist and novelist Truss absolutely batty. But this spirited and wittily instructional little volume, which was a U.K. #1 bestseller, is not a grammar book, Truss insists; like a self-help volume, it "gives you permission to love punctuation." Her approach falls between the descriptive and prescriptive schools of grammar study, but is closer, perhaps, to the latter. (A self-professed "stickler," Truss recommends that anyone putting an apostrophe in a possessive "its"-as in "the dog chewed it's bone"-should be struck by lightning and chopped to bits.) Employing a chatty tone that ranges from pleasant rant to gentle lecture to bemused dismay, Truss dissects common errors that grammar mavens have long deplored (often, as she readily points out, in isolation) and makes elegant arguments for increased attention to punctuation correctness: "without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning." Interspersing her lessons with bits of history (the apostrophe dates from the 16th century; the first semicolon appeared in 1494) and plenty of wit, Truss serves up delightful, unabashedly strict and sometimes snobby little book, with cheery Britishisms ("Lawks-a-mussy!") dotting pages that express a more international righteous indignation.” SELF IMPROVEMENT Message to Garcia By Elbert Hubbard, 1899. In all this Cuban business there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion. When war broke out between Spain & the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness of Cuba- no one knew where. No mail nor telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly. What to do! Some one said to the President, "There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can." Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How "the fellow by the name of Rowan" took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, & in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail. The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?" By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing- "Carry a message to Garcia!"