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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 VADM C. Turner Joy (1895-1956). Joy was Commander Naval Forces Far East for most of the Korean War, presided over Armistice Talks with the North Koreans, and then came to Annapolis to serve as Superintendent. He was our Supe during our plebe year. Revised 3 August 2008. |
![Text Box: POLITICS
Dirty Little Secrets: The Persistence of Corruption in American Politics
By Larry Sabato and Glen Simpson, 1996.
Sabato, a respected political scientist from University of Virginia, and Simpson, then a reporter for the WSJ, have provided a most informative account of realpolitik with particular emphasis on the 1994 elections.
For reference, Sabato uses definitions from political scientist V.O. Key:
Graft -- abuse of power for personal or party profit.
Corruption -- produces personal enrichment and political control with the latter normally necessary to produce the former.
He further elaborates. 'Corruption: has no ideology or partisan coloration… .is inevitable and constant with precise manifestations ever-changing…. flourishes in secrecy...reflects human nature (survival instinct)...cannot be eradicated but can be controlled and limited...'.
It's a real eye-opener. I'm almost convinced that there are at least 535 varieties of the 'pox' among our elected Senators and Representatives--and others. Some show no outward symptoms and others seem afflicted with many strains.
No mention of lobbyists, but some PACs and consultants are addressed, along with ways in vogue to skirt legislative restrictions up to '94.
pOEtRy
pOEtRy
The Oxford Book of American Poetry
David Lehman (Ed.), 2006.
This big new handsome instant heirloom is a bargain at its list price of $35.00 and even more so from Amazon.com at $23.00. It deserves its rave reviews as a very accessible and not stuffy collection as these excerpts show:
[from the introductions] CHARLES BUKOWSKI
“…Robert Frost described himself as one who was ‘acquainted with the night. In the same sense Bukowski was ‘acquainted with prostitutes, bars, racetracks, bums, skid row and wage slavery. . . .According to unofficial bookstore records, more of his books are stolen than any other writers.”
[and from the poems]
Yosuf Konunyakaa (Vietnam, Bronze Star)
Tu Do Street
Music divides the evening.
I close my eyes & can see
Men drawing lines in the dust.
America pushes through the membrane
Of mist and smoke, & I’m a small boy
Again in Bogalusa. White Only
Signs & Hank Snow. But tonight
I walk into a place where bar girls
Fade like tropical birds. When
I order a beer, the mama-san
Behind the counter acts as if she
Can’t understand, while her eyes
Skirt each white face, as Hank Williams
Calls from the psychedelic jukebox.
We have played Judas where
Only machine-gun fire brings us
Together. Down the street
Black GI’s hold to their turf also.
An off-limits sign pulls me
Deeper into alleys, as I look
For a softness behind these voices
Wounded by their beauty & war.
Back in the bush at Dak To
& Khe Sanh, we fought
the brothers of these women
we now run to hold in our arms.
There’s more than a nation
Inside us, as black & white
Soldiers touch the same lovers
Minutes apart, tasting
Each other’s breath,
Without knowing these rooms
Run into each other like tunnels
Leading to the underworld.
(1988)
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.](image425.gif)
