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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. |
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HISTORY The Dark Valley
By Piers Brandon, 2000
This extraordinarily readable history is a panorama of the 1930's, the decade in which all of us were born. Available in paperback, it has five stars on Amazon.com. The problem with most light journalistic style accounts such as Shirer's Decline and Fall of the Third Reich or some popular Civil War books is that they view events through hindsight as if everything were an inevitable march toward the known conclusion. Good history like this lets the perceptive reader find alternative courses as events unfold. There are also hundreds of fascinating but forgotten facts. The Great Depression scarred so deeply that the Royal Navy even had a mutiny. Olympics prior to Germany's familiar 1936 production were big track meets with speeches and the Nazis were the first to make them a political showcase, changing Berlin from a drab, undistinguished city. They built an exact replica of the difficult equestrian cross-country course a safe distance away where the German equestrian team practiced for 18 months, duly winning the Gold in Berlin. (I'm sure this sort of thing is happening now in China.) The head of the German general staff reviewed the Italian armed forces in 1938 and told an aide, "The winner of the next war will be whoever has Italy as an enemy."
HISTORY The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China’s War on Foreigners That Shook the World in the summer of 1900
By Diana Preston, 2000.
China at the start of the year 1900 was in danger of being carved up into spheres of influence for western nations. Just like Africa, western nations and even Japan looked at China as a nation of backward people who could be exploited. For over a century, western missionaries had been operating there, converting Chinese to Christianity. In Peking (now called Beijing) eleven nations maintained diplomatic legations, all closely clustered in one district. Eighty miles to the east, and near the coast, lay Tientsin (now called Tianjin), another enclave of westerners. The Manchus, from Manchuria, ruled the country; the leader was a 65-year-old Empress Dowager, Tzu Hsi, a woman of unimaginable sexual appetites and political ambition, who had been on the throne for nearly 40 years. Tzu Hsi and other highly placed Chinese had long been uneasy with the growing western influence, and with the thousands of Chinese who were being converted to the religion of the west. At about this time an obscure peasant movement began in the north of the country, called I Ho Tuan, or Boxers United in Righteousness. This was translated “Boxers” because of the physical exercises they practiced. Its formation was influenced by two earlier organizations. One was a group of vigilantes, made up of land owners, farmers and peasants with property; another was a group of poor men from Shantung province called the Spirit Boxers. They set up public boxing rounds and indulged in mass spirit possession. It didn’t take a lot of urging to get I Ho Tuan stirred up with anger at foreigners. Foreigners had brought the telegraph and the railroad to China, both which caused Chinese to lose jobs. It was widely rumored that Christian missionaries were cutting out orphan children’s hearts and eyes to make medicine. The frenzy began to build rapidly, and resulted in attacks on Chinese Christians nation wide, and then attacks on western missionaries, and then business people and diplomats. Ms. Preston tells the story of the siege in Peking, as well as Tientsin, and how westerners, and Russians and Japanese lived during some two months it lasted, and how they fought to lift it. It is a story of heroism and brilliance, of sloth, laziness, cowardliness, as well as incredible brutality and cruelty, with the spotlight always on the small groups of westerners huddled under constant attack in both cities. The author draws heavily upon some delightful journals and diaries to tell this story, mostly from American and British sources. The rebellion ends with many westerners still alive, but all over the west, the image of “The Yellow Peril” is very persistent. The events of the summer of 1900 brought on the end of the Manchu rule; but they affect China today, and doubtless they affect those nations who were represented there.
Review by Sam Coulbourn
The Epic of New York City (A narrative History)
By Edward Robb Ellis, 1966.
A very well written, lively history of NYC (as well as the development of our country). Ellis breaks this 600 page work into short vivid chapters describing what happened behind the scenes as the Big Apple became the center of World Commerce.
HISTORY Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
By John W. Downer, 1999.
This book begins on August 15, 1945, when, all across Japan, the people heard their emperor’s voice for the first time. He announced that Japan had capitulated. It was the end of a “holy war” for the Japanese. Victory for the United States and her allies had come, but the Japanese people were shattered. Not only were Hiroshima and Nagasaki devastated by two atomic bombs; other cities were heavily damaged by allied bombing; Japan’s Imperial Navy had been wiped out, and its army, spread out all across Asia and the Pacific, was demolished. The Americans came shortly after the war and began to install a parallel government, headed by Gen. Douglas MacArthur. It’s hard for us to recall, or to visualize the despair and the destitution of the Japanese people after the war. They were exhausted. Those who could, pillaged military and government supplies and stole millions of yen. For the rest, there was starvation. People were eating rats and sawdust, acorns, grain dust, peanut shells. Magazine articles cheerfully showed how to catch grasshoppers. People sold whatever clothes they could to eke out an existence. People died of dysentery, tuberculosis, and alcoholism. MacArthur was a very detached, insular figure. He was good at talking, but not good at listening. He did not attend many social events with the Japanese or even with Americans, and he didn’t make any effort to get around the country or to learn more about the Japanese, so that after he left and returned home and testified before Congress, he described the Japanese people as “easily led… good followers… like a 12-year-old boy….” [Note: Pres. Truman dismissed MacArthur on April 11, 1951, which precipitated his appearance before Congress.] We were introducing democracy to a country that had never known it… but we were doing it autocratically. We had heavy censorship, and permitted only obedience. Young Americans who spoke only English were administering, and joked about the pidgin-English of the Japanese. We saw white supremacism in full flower. This book, published in 1999, highlights the end of the Showa era, the reign of Hirohito (b. 1901, ascended throne Dec. 1926) which ended with his death in 1989. This historic epoch began with Japan quickly ascending in world importance and power; defeat by the U.S., then “victor and vanquished embraced Japan’s defeat together.” This year—1989—marked the bursting of the “Japanese bubble” of technical and industrial supremacy.
Review by Sam Coulbourn, July, 2006.
Why Geography Matters -- Three Challenges Facing America:
By Harem de Blij, 2005. The Dutch author, a Distinguished professor of geography at Michigan State University, wrote the book to confirm "...the vitality and utility of geography as a way to understand our complex world". He does an excellent job of bringing geopolitics forward as an accepted term once again. (It was long-tainted as Hitler's big issue.)
HISTORY Darwinism under the Microscope By James P Gills, M.D. and Tom Woodward, PhD., 2002. “Intricate, beautiful and replete with many interconnected dependencies that display the irreducible complexity of an intelligent design, the tissue repair process shares the faculty of demonstrating God's handiwork with a variety of other specialized cells."
Review by ____________.
HISTORY China Shakes the World: the Rise of a Hungry Nation
By James Kynge, 2006. The author does a nice job of discussing China, its successes and
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