Robert Caro is my hero. I hadn't been conscious of having any heroes, but I surprised myself, when we were watching the introductory film presentation at the LBJ Library...
... when — momentarily — a clip of Robert Caro appeared on screen. The film was loaded with adulatory material and many opportunities for Doris Kearns Goodman to enthuse about LBJ. But suddenly there was Robert Caro and heard myself say out loud: "He's my hero."
Posts
109 comments:
Writer hero, I assume.
For me, Tom Wolfe for fiction and Michael Lewis for non-fiction. I suppose biography could be a separate category but I read Caro years ago. For history, Victor Davis Hanson.
I just hope Caro lives long enough to finish volume Five. I saw an amusing exchange with his editor, who is even older, telling Caro to hurry up so he can survive long enough to edit that volume.
How did one very literate historian becomes so obsessed with One Texas politician?
"I just hope Caro lives long enough to finish volume Five. I saw an amusing exchange with his editor, who is even older, telling Caro to hurry up so he can survive long enough to edit that volume."
I'm sure the volume exists in some form. How he could work at a pace that left so much of the work to be finished — at his painstaking pace — in old age... it's just so impressive, so touching.
"How did one very literate historian becomes so obsessed with One Texas politician?"
By seeing the story of LBJ as the story of everything about 20th century America. By understanding how much is to be found by going deep and realizing how no one has gone deep in the way that he saw it was not only possible but necessary to go deep.
Caro is too syrupy sweet for me for my taste.
Listen to Caro explain how he gained the crucial insight into how power functions, here. He figured something out about how power was exercised by witnessing something Robert Moses did, and that insight gave him a mission to show something that no one else had shown about politicians and I'm afraid that no one else will. Look how hard it has been to explain what LBJ was doing!
There have been some recent efforts to rehabilitate LBJ. Not a chance. There's no coming back from Caro's biography......Not every President gets the biographer he deserves but LBJ did.
Caro's book about Robert Moses is masterful, and his books about Johnson are even better. The less said about Doris Kearns Goodwin the better.
Does the LBJ Library have a room called "How LBJ Did It," explaining the murderous means that he used to get himself behind the big desk in the Oval Office?
I think "The Power Broker" is his best work.
The second volume of the LBJ story is way too much "good vs. evil" set-up. Coke Stevenson may well have been a wonderful man, but as a two-term governor of Texas he must surely at least have heard of such a thing as corruption in the state government.
Is the audio version of his LBJ biography good? (i.e. a good reader)
It takes a long to write a history book, a good one that is, especially if you do all the research and writing yourself.
Unlike, say, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Stephen Ambrose, who hired battalions of underpaid grad students to do so much of their work...
...and who proved to be flagrant plagiarists.
I wrote two books of history, award-winning and critically acclaimed, each took me about five years to write, and I did all of the research and writing myself.
Unlike flagrant plagiarists like Doris Kearns Goodwin and Stephen Ambrose.
DKG is the personification of fake news.
You do remember that JFK and brother Bobby were the nemesis of LBJ. They used him to win in 1960 and planned to get rid him in 1964 over LBJ's connections with legendary Texan con man Billy Sol Estes. And then along came a crazy lone gunman who shot the President down from three sides at once. And LBJ moved along, was elected and approved the Viet Nam insanity based on a False Flag by his handlers, as ordered.
Roughcoat
Which books?
By understanding how much is to be found by going deep and realizing how no one has gone deep in the way
Yes, his history of LBJ was a history of post war America. The first volume was about FDR and the 30s but the rest was about the post war world. His description of Kennedy was almost as interesting.
Coke Stevenson was pretty honest from what Caro came up with. He has been vilified by Johnson apologists and was lost to history until Caro spent half the book resurrecting him. The Scott Brown election is a modern example that the old fashioned campaigns that Stevenson ran could still work. It helped to Have a figure like Martha Coakley, a despicable person, as opponent but Johnson was not much better.
They used him to win in 1960 and planned to get rid him in 1964 over LBJ's connections
The Life Magazine had a whole issue ready to go to press on LBJ's corruption (Estes had little to do with it) on November 23, 1963. The editorial board was meeting that morning on the issue but that afternoon all was cancelled.
"many opportunities for Doris Kearns Goodman to enthuse about LBJ"
And progs tell us we should worry about Trump's character.
Character and morality, like anything else, are strictly tools to them.
Blogger Ken B said...
Roughcoat
Which books?
Yup. What books ?
I wrote one history and one memoir. Both are on Amazon. The first still selling after 15 years.
Well it's a,little more complicAted than that, op 5420 which prompted the Tonkin response was like valuable redcap Mongoose inserts into enemy territory.
Lbj wound down operations in Cuba and enlarged them half way around the world, in part in response to the aftermath of the disastrous coup against diem.
Michael K
I feel like we're in a loop. :). What books?
(It's what books all the way down)
Eudora Welty "One Writer's Beginnings" struck me as good long ago, but that's the last book of the "thoughtful" genre that has interested me.
If it doesn't fit in a maxim, it's not worth bothering with.
Doris Kearns Goodwin?
Did Robert Caro have to sleep with LBJ?
Have to might be the wrong way to ask..
But can he repair bicycles?
My dad used to complain about NC gov Terry Sanford switching his votes from LBJ to JFK at the convention. Odd that an Irish Catholic Yankee could outfox Johnson with a fellow Southerner.
narciso said...
Well it's a,little more complicAted than that, op 5420 which prompted the Tonkin response was like valuable redcap Mongoose inserts into enemy territory.
OP 5420?huh?
Narciso, you say interesting things but the fragments are impossible to piece together. Does anyone but you know about this "op?" nothing in Google. Redcap? Mongoose? WTF?
While Goodwin did, IMO, an excellent job with Team of Rivals [Lincoln], her LBJ bio was fawning, as was that of Merle Miller. Caro's series was great reading but I thought him a bit too critical, failing to capture the undeniable charm of LBJ. Certainly, his bios were the most well-researched and valid. No question of Johnson's sociopathic tendencies.
William Mancheseter's The Last Lion [Churchill] was excellent, at least the first volume or two. It's been a while but I seem to remember the quality petered out in the later volumes, as often happens when writers run out of steam.
failing to capture the undeniable charm of LBJ.
The charm of LBJ is not undeniable. I, for one, deny it. Few of the men I served with in the military in that era thought he was very damn charming. It must be a gender gap.
Lincoln is a magnet for biographers. Same with Napoleon. They're the most written about historical figures......I've read a fair number of Presidential biographies. Some Presidents simply lead boring lives. Shlaes' book on Coolidge wasn't much of a page turner. Teddy Roosevelt certainly had an interesting early life and the Norris book recounted his adventures in an appealing way. The McCullough bio on Truman wasn't hagiography, but it certainly made Truman out to be a brave and admirable man. Truman was very fortunate to have such a biographer.......Eisenhower has had the worst luck with biographers. He was a good man who made the right decision at some of the fulcrum points of history. He deserves far more celebration than he has received. He doesn't, however, seem to capture the imagination nor even the attention of historians. It sucks to be a Republican.
I want to visit Austin to see the LBJ library and travel to his home sometime in the future. That's one of the few places in the world that I now want to see and it's all because of Caro.
I've read the Power Broker and all 4 LBJ volumes, which are among the best history books I've read. Like others here, I hope he lives long enough to finish volume 5. I suspect that's what's keeping him alive and he's not going to rush finishing it.
"Is the audio version of his LBJ biography good? (i.e. a good reader)"
Yes!
I decided to read (ie, listen to) the first Caro book after finishing "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and really admiring the reader. I think I have a post about this. The voice has just the right edge to it to convey the seriousness of the text. The meaning really comes across, but it's not overdramatic. He lets the text speak for itself and maintains a sense of pain and outrage without being wearisome.
Here's the old post.
I quote Caro saying "[Y]ou know, someone else records my books; an actor with a better voice." And I say: "Yeah, I know, I love that guy. Grover Gardner. I started listening to Caro's LBJ books because they were read by Grover Gardner, whom I'd listened to — it took me all summer one year — reading "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.""
Let us not forget what Caro said his aim was in researching Robert Moses' and LBJ's careers.
5420 involved Landing Vietnamese nationals on hainan island, followed by macvsog, valuable involved landings in Albania, which philby compromised as mi6 representative, the other was operations inn the former Soviet union and east germany.
It's been a while but I seem to remember the quality petered out in the later volumes, as often happens when writers run out of steam.
Manchester died and it was finished by another writer using his notes.
The audio version of Caro's bio is terrific and my wife and I have listened to it twice,
I'm now listening to Pat Buchanan's book on "Unnecessary Wars" and it is good although I disagree with most of his opinions. I did buy "The Sleepwalkers", a history of the war that is much more sympathetic to Germany than "Dreadnaught," for example.
The author is British and suggests the Brits were partly at fault. For example, The Kaiser was sympathetic to the Boers but was threatened with war if he tried to help them.
It is extremely critical of the Serbs, who seem to be everyone's villains.
The charm of LBJ is not undeniable. I, for one, deny it. Few of the men I served with in the military in that era thought he was very damn charming. It must be a gender gap.
Did you know the man, tcrosse? From all accounts there was a magnetism about LBJ that attracted not just women but men, as well, though they may have hated his guts. This is often the case with sociopathic leaders. Hitler, I understand, could also be quite charming. Charm is not something GOOD. It is a tool of manipulation.
Well it's a,little more complicAted than that.The excess spending which seems modest now prompted Nixon to take the country off the gold standard and simultaneously impose wage and price controls when they were removed there was high inflation exacerbated by the oil shocks and spiking rates as Volker did was seen as the only way to solve that problem.
I agree, Ann. Great author. I've read all his books, some multiple times. Currently about halfway through Means of Ascent (PORTAL!) which I "read" via Books-On-Tape around 1990. Enjoying it immensely.
Thanks to you or whoever it was that tickled my mind about it a few weeks ago.
Someone asked about the Audible version of the book. As I said, I first listened to the Books-On-Tape version long ago and it was great. If Audible has the same version, I would highly recommend it. In general, having "read" a dozen or so Audible books I find them to be shit. So if an Audible production, I have no recommendation.
I loved Books-On-Tape and probably listed to 150 or so books over a 10 years period (A new book every 3 weeks. I generally listened to each one twice) and found them to be very well done. I don't remember a dud in the bunch and they had a great catalog of known and unknown authors in every genre of fiction and non-fiction, current and classic. They sold the catalog to Audible but, sadly, Audible doesn't offer a lot of the old BOT books.
I find Audible books to be way over produced. What I want, generally, is a basic reading of a book. I don't want it acted out.
Someone else said that even if Caro dies before completing volume 5, it is probably mostly done and someone else can finish. Perhaps, but it may not be the same.
William Manchester wrote a great 3 volume bio of Winston Churchill. I highly recommend it. Sadly he died leaving volume 3 unfinished. Someone finished it, basically combining his stuff into a book, last year. It is not bad but it is definitely not Volume 3 of Manchester. Nowhere near as good as Manchester, either.
I also cannot recommend Caro's bio of Robert Moses highly enough. Great book.
John Henry
For those who like audio books but, like me, do not like Audible, there are some alternatives. For books, the best is probably Librivox. Public Domain books read by volunteer authors. Some are really professional. One who I corresponded with because I like his reading so much, is a professional auctioneer and also reads for Audible. On the other hand, there is a Polish or Ukranian lady who pops up occasionally for whom English is a second language. Even she is OK after I got used to her. Librivox readers tend to do straight reads which is how I like it.
They have a really extensive catalog, just not much written after 1923. But if you like writers like Anthony Trollope, Jack London (Burning Daylight, his most commercially successful book is terrific), Dickens, Carnegie, Sinclair Lewis and other classics, it is pretty good.
Librivox.org
Also, there are several longform podcasts that I like. Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is 3-5 hour episodes, often multiple episodes, covering Persian wars, WWI & WWII, The US war in the Philipines, the Knipperdollings, Ghengis Khan and more. Really, really great stuff.
https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/
I mentioned last week that I am currently listening to Madison's own Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast series. There are 7 series right now and I have listened to Cromwell, The US Revolution, Haiti, and South America. 30-40 episodes each ep about 30 minutes. Currently abotu 20 episodes into the French Revolution. The Guillotine has just chopped it's firs head.
He also did a previous series on the Roman Empire that I have not tried yet.
I cannot recommend him highly enough.
revolutionspodcast.com
John Henry
Blogger Bad Lieutenant said...
Narciso, you say interesting things but the fragments are impossible to piece together. Does anyone but you know about this "op?" nothing in Google. Redcap? Mongoose? WTF?
Don't know what he meant by redcap but Mongoose, which was undercover CIA operations to overthrow Castro are pretty well known. Secret at the time but I've known about them since at least the 90s'
They may have come out in the Church Committee hearings of the 70s, though I don't specifically remember.
John Henry
John Henry
Michael K and Ken B:
"Lala's Story: A Memoir of the Holocaust" (Northwestern University Press)
"Faithful Warriors: A Combat Marine Remembers the Pacific War" (Naval Institute Press)
There others which I mostly wrote and for which I received editor credit; and which I essentially wrote/rewrote and for which I received no credit except an acknowledgment by the putative author. But those are the two main ones.
Now I see Ann has said Grover Gardner read the LBJ book. I remember him from BOT, but don't remember specifically if he read the LBJ book. It is quite possible.
Grover Gardner was one of my favorite BOT readers. I'd listen to books I might not have listened to otherwise just because it was him.
I take back my non-recommendation of the Audible version if it is him.
John Henry
Charm is not something GOOD. It is a tool of manipulation.
Charm's cousin, Charisma, might have been more apt.
Duncan has a new book about the Roman army and the end of the republic out now.
"There are others"...
Currently writing a book on chariotry and chariot warfare in the Bronze Age.
A book on the Polish Resistance (Armia Krajowa) in World War II in the queue.
Also, probably, a book on the Provisional Tank Group in the Philippines 1941-42.
Articles, essays, papers on military subjects.
Reporting on Christian Assyrians in Iraq and related stuff.
Noodling around with fiction trilogy on warfare in Late Bronze Age.
"NO RETIREMENT FOR YOU!" exclaims the Soup Nazi.
Thanks, Roughcoat.
I have ordered the Audible version of "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," which I had not thought was on an audible version.
John Henry, I think you are referring to the accents on some of the Audible books. They were difficult in some of the Cromwell books in the "Sharpe" series. Still, impressive acting. If you were as old as I am you might remember the radio theaters.
I wonder if old Fred Allan shows are available on audio?
"There are others"...
Currently writing a book on chariotry and chariot warfare in the Bronze Age.
Are you into the "Indo-Europeans ?" I read Reich's book on ancient DNA and Greg Cochran's blog is basically summarizing the book.
The IEs were probably pre-Bronze and maybe Copper Age, like the Iceman.
You can really blame on degaulle he sent expeditionary force back to Indochina, lbj didn't want to get involved after down bein phi, Nixon wanted to use nukes after the partition many clef to the south, and lansdalr helped diem establish himself, much of those details are in max boots bio.
Fled phu lansdale they fled the red river massacres ho instituted.
Many of the top and middle ranking French officers Salan challe Eller trinquier ausseresse would put in another 8 years in Algeria
I wonder if old Fred Allan shows are available on audio?
Ask and you shall receive.
Thanks, Roughcote
I am thinking I saw a mention of Lala's Story somewhere in the past few weeks. Not here, I don't think.
I just downloaded the sample of Faithful Warriors.
I would recommend Michael K's books too. Well, the memoirs book. I'd like to be able to recommend his history of disease book but, alas, paper only which I can no longer read. (C'mon, Michael. I'll keep niggling you until you do it.)
I would also recommend my Packaging Machinery Handbook which took me 7 years to write and my Secrets of Buying Packaging Machinery, with Rich Frain, which took me 6 months from concept to release.
Currently editing and compiling into a single edition, John McConnell's 4 book series on the Deming approach to quality.
John Henry
Mark moyars victory forsaken relies on Russian and Vietnamese archives to tell us,how diems regime really operates and why the coup was an incalculable loss.
Michael,
I don't remember the accents bothering me. If I can put up with the Polish Librivox reader I can put up with anything!
My problem with Audible is that they seemed to sort of act out the books. All I want is a straight reading. A bit of expression, not a mechanical reading like Kindle does with some books but basically just a straight read.
I forget how Audible does their files but I found them hard to manage. I would go to sleep and could not get back to approximately where I was when I fell asleep.
BOT was 45 minute per side cassettes so I would never get too far off. Librivox has a separate MP3 file per chapter.
Maybe Audible has changed but I no longer need them so don't really care.
John Henry
Dear Narciso,
If you will tell me your technical setup and give me contact info I will send you a keyboard, or money for a keyboard, or whatever you need to communicate in sentences and paragraphs. You're a gold mine of esoterica, but it's like you're speaking in tongues.
I used to get the CMA's audio series of journals. They were cassetes that arrived every month (or week, I can't recall) but they have gotten way too expensive.
I read "Victory Forsaken" and that is what convinced me VN was lost by the Kennedy/Lodge coup against Diem.
I'm now on Lansdale's bio by Boot. He just finished in the Philippines. I'm surprised that has has not mentioned Eugene Burdick's "The Ugly American," which was about Lansdale.
I keep trying to get organized to put the medical history book on Kindle. My daughter's boy friend promised to do but then they broke up.
The problem is converting pdf files to Word and all the formatting has to be stripped.
Bought the Kindle version of "Faithful Warriors."
Now I have five books to read. One in the bedroom (Kindle). one in the living room, one on the back patio and one in the car (audio).
The Kindle book with have to wait for the true crime one.
Does Caro mention the hookers and bags of cash in LBJ's White House?
Boot is too arrogant to have looked at moyars research, which first reexamined cords (operation phoenix) which was the closest we got to the Malaya strategy.
"Lala's Story: A Memoir of the Holocaust" (Northwestern University Press)
"Faithful Warriors: A Combat Marine Remembers the Pacific War" (Naval Institute Press)
Thanks. Will take a look.
Michael,
That was McConnell's reason too, except he didn't even have pdfs of 3 of the books. I had too ocr them. I have a guy in bangladesh recreating all the charts and tables in Corel Draw for editability.
Send me the pdfs and I'll convert them to word just for a chance to read the book.
John Henry
Send me the pdfs and I'll convert them to word just for a chance to read the book.
John Henry
I might just do that. Be careful what you ask for.
It's about 540 pages. The biggest problem is that the pdfs have the printer format markings on them.
They were final draft pre-publication proofs.
Charm's cousin, Charisma, might have been more apt.
I don't think so. You can charm a cobra. Or you can charm a quark ;-). Try doing that with charisma. Charm implies almost supernatural force.
He did a hit job on Robert Moses. Without Moses, NYC and surrounding areas would be in gridlock today. Sometimes we need leaders. Caro choose to be a critic.
Try doing that with charisma. Charm implies almost supernatural force.
My experience of LBJ was of having my arm twisted. No charm or charisma involved. His Uncle Cornpone act was not persuasive.
You're a gold mine of esoterica, but it's like you're speaking in tongues.
I have a decoder apparatus available for $10,000. You can get it through the Althouse Portal.
You should read him at JOM if you want to be truly confused.
I have a decoder apparatus available for $10,000. You can get it through the Althouse Portal.
Will it decode n.n. too ?
one year — reading "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.""
Oh, that's my office book, as that's the book I read while the computer systems are down, or being upgraded. Great book. I hope to finish it by the time I retire.
As a chart-holder, one of my dad's Marine friends witnessed LBJ rip the Joint Chiefs a new one when they suggested a new strategy and many more troops to actually win the war. They were completely cowed and he was flabbergasted. I forget if that was before or after the second big escalation, but I've got a copy of his memoir Cheers and Tears (available on Amazon) somewhere.
The Marine was later a battalion commander, a few of whose men allegedly committed a war crime. Ollie North and James Webb were both involved in the legal defense of the men at different times, according to The Nightingale's Song. After a sputter in his career, he made LTGEN.
love that guy. Grover Gardner.
I like him too. He did Shelby foot's civil war. Of course, the Southerners complained he sounded "too Yankee".
Hey, that's what happens when you lose a war, Johnny Reb.
I've noticed that Caro seems to have gotten to like LBJ more as he's gone along. I'm looking forward to new volume, even though my interest dipped after volume 2.
Its interesting the RFK and LBJ hated each other, blah de blah, but politically they were two peas in a pod.
Everyone likes "Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich" - which annoys me to no end.
Bill Shirer was a commie asshole. He was the 1940s version of Bill Moyers.
But don't mind me.
Marcus said...
He did a hit job on Robert Moses. Without Moses, NYC and surrounding areas would be in gridlock today. Sometimes we need leaders. Caro choose to be a critic.
5/5/18, 2:36 PM
Oh absolutely. Robert Moses is a hero. He should have statues.
Blogger rcocean said...
Everyone likes "Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich" - which annoys me to no end.
Bill Shirer was a commie asshole. He was the 1940s version of Bill Moyers.
But don't mind me.
5/5/18, 3:35 PM
So, Hitler got a raw deal? I'm seeing some of what you say, but works on that level are not ten a penny. Incidentally, note Shirer's now-unPC distaste for the homosexuality and sexual deviance portrayed.
Oh absolutely. Robert Moses is a hero. He should have statues.
His monument is the Cross-Bronx Expressway.
Not clear about Moses. All that public housing is a continuing disaster, and he arguably caused the demise of the South Bronx. Plus, if he’d had his way he would have put a highway through Greenwich Village.
Caused? Like it used to be a nice place?
I can think of nothing I should like better than an eight lane highway through Greenwich Village.
He didn't create the slums. He had excellent ideas to deal with the problem but by that time he had lost power and was just another guy writing letters to the editor.
Everyone likes "Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich" - which annoys me to no end.
Bill Shirer was a commie asshole. He was the 1940s version of Bill Moyers.
But don't mind me.
Maybe Shirer was a commie asshole. I don't know. And I don't care. The book was a tour de force. I've re-read it several times.
I went through a stage where I read a lot of David Horowitz books; now I seem to be on an Anne Applebaum kick.
"So, Hitler got a raw deal? I'm seeing some of what you say, but works on that level are not ten a penny."
LOL. That's what Bill Shirer would've said.
Anyone who didn't like Bill Shirer was a Nazi-lover.
Per Bill Shirer.
Plus for the rest of his life, EVERYONE he disliked was "reminded him of Hitler" - Even CBS news when they fired him in 1948. Not to mention, Reagan, Nixon, Bush, Eisenhower, Dewey, Hoover, McCarthy, Hearst, Agnew, LBJ, the waitress who forgot his order, and that young man with a mustache who charged him to much to repair his car.
Shirer was in Nazi Germany for a couple years, then moved to Austria in 1937, and then Switzerland when he was with CBS news. When WW 2 came, he went back to Berlin until Dec 1940.
He then posed as THE expert on Germany and Nazi for the rest of his life. Over 50 years. His attacks on the German people would get him banned as a racist, and his German Pop History would've gotten him kicked out of a Community College History of Germany 101 Course.
Maybe Shirer was a commie asshole. I don't know. And I don't care. The book was a tour de force. I've re-read it several times.
Shirer's books, also the "Fall of the Third Republic," were good. I just downloaded it to Audible for the car. I'm almost finished with Boot's book on Lansdale and I have to drive to Phoenix Monday.
I also found a Word manuscript of the history book. I'll proof read it and maybe upload it next week.
Oh, Shirer was a lefty but his books are goo.
I really liked the series collier and horowitz did of family bios.
Kennedy ford, Rockefeller, Roosevelts.
They did one on the fondas that I always wanted to read but never did.
In the 90s I subscribed to his magazine which I thought very good
John Henry
Michael
Bookend Lansdale with McMasters Dereliction of Duty.
Superb
John Henry
Shirer's book was terrific. The real tragedy is that no historian has laid out the tragedy of the Bolshevik Revolution with such force and drama. I've read some of Applebaum, Figes, and Solzhenitsyn, but none of the books I've read match the narrative drive of Shirer's book.......It might just be a fact of life that capitalist and fascist oppression inspires better writing than communist oppression.
Richard pipes is very good, at understanding the motivation and method of lenin.
Michael K., John Henry, Jim:
Thanks, guys. Hope you enjoy the books.
Michael K., I haven't read your books, but they are on my list. I have followed you on Chicago Boyz, however.
As for Indo-Europeans: hoo-hah, don't get me started! I've written at length (maybe too much length) about them on this blog. They invented chariots and chariot warfare. The Hittites and Mitanni were Indo-Europeans, as were Iranians and northern Indians, Greeks, Celts, Germans, etc., etc., etc., All European apart from the Basques are Indo-European. You and I are mostly Indo-European.
As for Shirer: Never much liked him. His book on the Third Reich is obsolete, and historiographical artifact. It was one of the first of its kind but is no longer relevant or useful as a work of history.
The third and finAl volume of soltzenitsyns red wheel is hard to find, the first volume suggests that stolypin could have prevented it, if not for their deep state.
Shirer was really more a journalist and less an historian. That's not necessarily a bad thing except he didn't seem to realize this about himself. "A man's got to know his limitations," and Shirer didn't know his own. Essentially he was a bigoted liberal journalist.
William:
I recall reading some very good books about the Russian revolution and civil war, all with anti-Bolshevik slant, some fairly recent, but I can't recall titles. They're out there.
Michael
Bookend Lansdale with McMasters Dereliction of Duty.
I read McMaster's book years ago. I was amazed he got promoted.
The Lansdale book is good but we are now into Vietnam and I am beginning to sense Boot's dislike of the Diem brothers.
I found a Word file of the medical history book in an obscure old folder. It looks complete except for the preface . I'm going to go through and edit this weekend.
Yes they always find diem Chiang Batista sirik matak somoza unsatisfactory isn't it.
I would bring up Lon nil, but Mark was the major figure, same with the Laotian figure.
Lon Nol, wasn't it?
But perhaps he was nil.
No it was nol, I first heard of him through 'swimming to cambodia' then the shawcross book then the truth.
I have spent the last two hours with "spell check" which finds every foreign language word but also finds an occasional misspelling so I can't ignore it.
No it was nol, I first heard of him through 'swimming to cambodia' then the shawcross book then the truth.
I know. I was making a [feeble] joke.
I consider Caro's 'Means of Ascent' to be a classic that deserves reading. And rereading.
Will he live to finish the LBJ series? Gosh I hope so.
I also wish his book on Robert Moses, "The Power Broker," had a Kindle edition. I suspect that I'd find it revelatory on the related subjects of power, politics, and real estate in New York during the era in which our current POTUS' daddy was a secondary player, during which the POTUS' own (spectacularly shoddy) values and morality were formed.
"Master of the Senate" is the single best book about American politics that I've ever read, and remains spectacularly relevant to understanding the current dysfunction on Capitol Hill.
Terrific writer and historian. It is terrible he can make mistakes because with his greatness they can have lasting impact.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2012/05/robert_caro_s_new_history_of_lbj_offers_a_mistaken_account_of_the_cuban_missile_crisis.html
I also wish his book on Robert Moses, "The Power Broker," had a Kindle edition. I suspect that I'd find it revelatory on the related subjects of power, politics, and real estate in New York during the era in which our current POTUS' daddy was a secondary player, during which the POTUS' own (spectacularly shoddy) values and morality were formed.
5/6/18, 2:05 PM
I've read TPB-excellent book-and recall nothing about the Trumps. Robert Moses' primary achievements, IIRC, were in the field of transportation-roads and bridges-and parks & rec eg Jones Beach. His timeframe is also much broader than you seem to estimate. Moses first worked under Al Smith.
As for values, all I get out of you is a hate-on for a man you've never met and probably couldn't understand. Give me an unlimited budget and investigative powers and I could probably find out stuff about you that you would regret being found out. One thing Trump isn't, is a whited sepulchre.
Post a Comment