2016 – Justin Daniel

This is a list of the books I read in 2016. All the reviews were written in 2016 and are archived on this site in (roughly) the order I read them in.

Book Reviews 2016

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Neil Postman

January 14, 20202016Neil Postman wrote this book in the 1980s, possibly the heyday of television before the rise of the internet and the culture of social media and google. But what makes his book on the critique of television so powerful is that it intimately connects to the present in a way that is both prophetic and frightening. The thesis behind Postman’s argument is essentially that television is inculcating Americans with a preoccupation with entertainment. The first part of the book focuses on epistemological mediums. Epistemology is, literally, the study of knowledge. How we gain knowledge then, is our epistemological base. In ancient Greece, the way people learned things was through speech. In later times, the written word was how people predominately learned things. These two mediums have their advantages. Speech was probably some of the first ways people were able to garner knowledge and writing is an extension of speech by putting it down in a form that can last much longer. This base became radically changed in the 20th century with the rise of two different mediums: the radio and the television. But unlike reading books, these had a different focus. That is, on entertainment. Television is largely a product of the show business culture, as Postman argues. What is frightening is that since the epistemological base has shifted, people have stopped reading in favor of watching television. Thinking through this, the “news” is a type of communication that has been directly influenced by show business. Coming out of the Presidential election this season made this point particularly poignant. Postman contrasts the Lincoln-Douglas debates with modern day expressions of policy. The debates were some seven hours long with a dinner break in the middle. In today’s debate format, candidates have some two minutes to make arguments for a total program run time of under two hours. Clearly our attention spans have shortened, but it also is catered to the show business industry. News channels feature interviews that last just a few minutes; the focus is not on fleshing out a meaningful discourse, but to entertain people. This has vast implications for the present day as well. Social media has become a treasure trove of misinformation. It is now easy for people to form opinions because of what they’ve seen on Facebook rather than taking time to make sure their quotations and statistics are accurate. The medium of reading has gone by the way side in a way that is unprecedented in American history (Postman makes this argument as well). We’d rather spend our time being entertained rather than delving through pages and pages of data to form our own opinions; now we have it handed to us in a succinct way by someone who has formulated an opinion of it already. There is an entire chapter devoted to Christian teachers as well. Networks like the Trinity Broadcasting Network and other perpetuate a kind of Christianity that is focused around producing a show. There is no scholarship on these programs, no worries on whether the interpretation is correct or if there is any inherent problem with making entertainment out of church. This, of course, resonated with me personally quite a bit. This is a necessary book for us to read in this internet age. Even though it is dated, it still has application well beyond its years. [...]

The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, David McCullough

January 14, 20202016I’m on a McCullough kick after reading the acclaimed 1776. This book piqued my interest because I visited Paris last Spring. It looked interesting and I wondered at what treasures it contained. It is a little bit deceiving, I think however. While this is a history of Americans in Paris in the 19th century, it also works as a history of Paris and even larger, France, in the 19th century. It coincides with my Western Civilization II class I’m taking nicely however. We just made it into the mid 19th century so I was pleasantly surprised to find some correlating information between the two sources. The book essentially is about how artists, painters, sculptors, writers, inventors, and politicians made their way to Paris and as a result, were impacted in a way that changed the course of their lives and of the nation that they represented. I’ll give you an example: Samuel Morse was a painter who made his way to Paris in the 19th century. He had painting gigs at the Louvre. Popular at this time was creating miniatures of famous paintings in the Louvre. He developed a friendship with James Fenimore Cooper who wrote the famous book “The Last of the Mohicans.” His time in Paris led him to think up an extraordinary invention: people could type out messages via an electrical current to be received, decoded, and given to the recipient from miles and miles away. He called this, the telegraph. He invented his own system of dashes and dots called “morse code.” Much of this book, at no surprise, focuses on great artists who found their stride in Paris. Among these were sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, painters Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent. But the impact of Paris on artists in the 19th century reaches beyond this. For example, Harriet Beacher Stowe wrote one of the most famous pieces of American literature, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and was a guest in the great city for a period of time. An early portion of the book focuses on medical students who came to Paris for training. At this time in America, the collegiate opportunities for medicine were limited and Americans came to Paris to further their studies quite often. The first female doctor in America was trained in Paris. Politics also take up some portion of the book. Elihu Washburne was the American Ambassador and lived in Paris through the Frano-Prussia war and the siege on Paris. What I enjoyed about this book was that it is not simply a history of Americans in Paris, but a history of Paris. Each story is a microcosm of a larger picture that needs to be explained. What we tend to forget about history is that the siege at Paris by the Prussians was a real, historical event that affected real, living people. It’s easy to read a sentence or a paragraph about how terrible things were, but it’s quite another thing to look at a particular human being, tummy growling, cooking rats for food, that brings history to life; it is not merely concepts or big pictures, but how events transpired and affected people. I like that about this book, and I like it even more because I’ve been to this great city and I can picture some of the images presented. For the historian or the layman, I think this is an intriguing book worth your time. [...]

Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee – A Look Inside North Korea, Jang Jin-Sung

October 10, 20192016I think there are few who are unaware that North Korea is a nation that has been a blight on the earth due to its leadership and is a secretive nation. It is exactly because of this second reason however, that many do not know why it is so bad. This book is partly about this: why North Korea is such a nasty regime, but also it is a story of a man who escaped. Jang Jin-Sung was a high ranking member of the North Korean elite. He began life very poor in North Korea, living the rural areas outside of Pyongyang. As he grew, the most precious possession he owned was a piano given to his family by Japanese immigrants. He developed a gift for piano playing and went to the Pyongyang School for the Arts where he finished his degree in music. Around this same time, he developed a love for literature, particularly poetry. So when he eventually got his job at the propaganda department in Pyongyang, he was a poet and a rising star. His claim to fame was a poem that Kim Jong-Il himself loved and invited Jang out to dine with him. It was here that Jang discovered that not all is as it seems. Kim Jong-Il was revered in North Korea as the supreme leader, and therefore it was a criminal offense to speak ill of him (pun intended) or the North Korean government. Punishments for this sort of thing would be considered high treason and would land you at the end of the barrel of a gun. Yet, not many were able to see and converse with him, so the picture the people had was idyllic and probably not a good representation of who he really was. For example, during the dinner, Jang saw Kim Jong-Il cry. This is was so controversial because it was said that Kim Jong-Il only cried once: when they laid his father to rest after he passed away. This is the story of North Korea: propaganda and a half-truth caricature. Jang’s job was to construct poetry from a South Korean perspective that cast a negative light on South Korea. He was allowed to read books, magazines, and newspapers that were otherwise forbidden in North Korea. This is in part why he had to defect from North Korea. His friend, Young Min, illegally borrowed one of the books Jang was allowed to read and left his bag with the book on the train. After finding it missing, the government began to take Jang into questioning. Before they could get very far, both Jang and Young Min left, using their party status as a way to get to the Chinese border. From here, they crossed the border and were aided by a farmer. Jang then details a harrowing account of how he finally made it to South Korea. It was not an easy journey. This book was hard to put down. Between the narrative of the account of Jang’s defection, North Korean life is intermixed. You get a picture of not only what North Korea is like, but how corrupt their government is. One section of the book, Young Min and Jang are at a Chinese couple’s house who entertain other North Korean refugees: women. These women, after they cross the border into China, are scooped up by the Chinese and sent into a life of prostitution. Jang laments that the “dear leader” doesn’t really care about North Koreans, as he not only does not want people to get out of North Korea but he is unwilling to help those who are already gone. Further, you get a sense of the poverty and the starvation. The sanctions that went on in North Korea around the time Jang is writing from crippled the North Korean economy and left many thousands dead from starvation. This bleak picture is a grotesque account of the horrible tragedy of North Korean. Pick up this book if you want to hear a good story. But be wary: the sickening images of the travesty of the North Korean government will, at times, leave you sick to your stomach. The worst part of this book was when Jang sought refuge in a South Korean Church. He was turned away fiercely and almost left to die of starvation in the cold Chinese winter. That kind of behavior is perhaps some of the most stomach wrenching moments of the entire book. Jang is obviously an incredibly talented writer. I felt as if I was reading a book full of his poetry rather than an autobiography. Let me leave you with a quote, one of his actual poems: ‘The most delicious thing in the world. “Three months ago, my brother said, the most delicious thing in the world was a warm corncob. Two months ago, my brother said, the most delicious thing in the world was a roasted grasshopper. One month ago, the most delicious thing in the world was the dream he ate last night. If my brother were alive today, what would he say this month, and next, was the most delicious thing in the world?” [...]

Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War, Charles B. Dew

January 14, 20202016This rather short book is packed with a ton of information regarding the Southern reasons for secession. Dr. Dew recounts many of the same kinds of stories that we seemed to be faced with in the introduction. For example, on the citizenship test for becoming a United States Citizen, a question is asked “Why was the Civil War fought?” The answer could realistically be either because of “states rights” or over slavery. Dr. Dew seeks to understand the reasons for secession better in this book; he wants to give clarity that the Southern states did not secede over states rights, as Southern revisionist historians in the 19th century suggested and that became mainstream as Southerns attempted to assuage their guilt over the war, but over the nasty topic of slavery. Dr. Dew demonstrates this quite skillfully in looking at a little studied piece of history in the Southern Commissioners. After Abraham Lincoln was elected President, South Carolina seceded soon after. They gathered up prominent statesmen to take their case to other Southern states to secede just as South Carolina did. The Southern Commissioners took the message of disunity to Alabama, Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, and other states. They talked most often in front of the states leading members including the governor and the legislature’s assembled body. Dew says, “From December 1860 to April 1861, they carried the gospel of disunion to the far corners of the South” (Dew, 18). What ensues is a book full of the highlights of the commissioners reports. These are public documents of their speeches, and they are candid in their explanations. There were a number of reasons for Southerns to be alarmed at the abolition of slavery and these arguments are heard in the speeches. For one, they believed that freeing of the slaves might cause an uprising amongst them, killing the slave owners and their families. They also thought that the freeing of slaves would decimate their economic progress. But at the core of it, they would be considered just plain racist in our day. They believed that white supremacy would be quashed if slaves were free. So they took to preserving their way of life by separating from the very same people who threatened them. I think the title of this book is so brilliant: the Apostles of Disunion. That’s essentially what the commissioners were. Dr. Dew says, “And by helping us to understand the ‘why’ of secession, these apostles of disunion have gone a long way toward answering that all-important question, ‘The Civil War was fought over what important issue?’” (Dew, 21). And Dr. Dew makes a convincing argument: if indeed these commissioners were making the abolition of slavery an apologetic to get other Southern states on board with secession, then it would put the argument that the states seceded on the issue of state’s rights on precarious ground. But alas, I believe we will continue to fight against this notion because in our time, it’s just not an issue that we would like to rehash. We are comfortable with the idea of state’s rights which is put in a much better light than white supremacy. Uncovering these documents and looking into what these men actually said is almost frightening and goes a long ways in explaining the fall out of the complete abolition of slavery and the systematic racism that ensued in the South for decades to come. We are still feeling the reverberations of such arguments today in one way or another. So this is an important book and an important topic that we will continue to explore. [...]

This Great Struggle: America’s Civil War, Steven E. Woodworth

January 14, 20202016I have never been particularly interested in Civil War history. To my chagrin, I had to take a Civil War and Reconstruction class for my degree this past semester. And I actually am really glad that I did. To my great amazement, the Civil War is an intriguing part of American history, and much misunderstood as well. What Dr. Woodworth (consequently, also my professor for the course) attempts to do in this volume is speak about the causes of the Civil War, a history of the war itself, and reconstruction in 400-some pages. This is an incredible feat and this one volume condensed version of a history of the Civil War is a miracle unto itself. Most works that try to do what Dr. Woodworth has done in this one book would span 900+ pages. What is also enjoyable is this is a fairly easy read as well. Some of the older versions of a history of the Civil War are marked with language that is incomprehensible to the modern reader. The pictures scattered throughout also do much to give an exposition of the study. There is much too much information to discuss about the Civil War, but this treatment is vast in scope. Beginning with the slavery issue in the early 19th century, Dr. Woodworth succinctly describes the problems the country was facing toward the midpoint of the century. Putting the slavery issue again and again off the table with the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act only fueled the outrage of the abolitionists and the pro-slavery Southerners. Presidents, legislators, Congress, and a morass of other influential leaders did nothing to solve the problem either. When Abraham Lincoln was elected to the Presidency in 1860, the straw that broke the camel’s back had been laid. Starting with South Carolina, the southern states began to secede from the Union. What is interesting in those early years of the war is the incompetence of what would become known as the Army of the Potomac in the Eastern theater. The wily General Lee would go head to head against several Union Generals including the disastrous General McClellan (who would later go on to run against Lincoln in 1864 for President). By refusing to chase Lee and enact a defeating blow against the Confederate army, the Union generals probably prolonged the war past what it could have been. McClellan and others believed if the Union army could take the Confederate capital of Richmond, the war would be over. They were never able to coordinate an attack that even got close. On the opposite side, the Western theater saw many more successes. Early victories by Ulysses Grant put the Confederates on their toes and never let off. The Union won resounding victory after victory. Eventually, Grant would take the fortress of Vicksburg after a long siege. He would leave to command the ailing Army of the Potomac while his protegee, William Sherman, would go on to lead the army in the west. Grant was able to go head to head with Lee and eventually the two armies met at Petersburg, Virginia. They were stymied and set in for a quasi-siege. In the meantime, Sherman took his army and marched all the way to Atlanta. Conquering this city from the capable but aggressive Confederate General Hood, Sherman led his famous “March to the Sea” to Savannah, Georgia, enacting his “total war” theory which had his soldiers scavenge for food, set fire to certain buildings, and demoralize the southern Confederates. Similiar tales were told of his Carolina Campaigns. It all came to a head when Grant and Lee finally broke the siege. Grant’s army was able to take Richmond while Lee made off toward Lynchburg. Eventually, the two sides agreed to meet. Lee was trapped and peace was signed at Appomattox, signalling the end of the war. Such a brief overview does no justice to the book or to the Civil War, but it gives you an idea of what I’ve gleaned from the last eight weeks of reading this text. The strategy and logistics of the Civil War are fascinating and I recommend a thorough study be given to them. The political and social storylines are equally intriguing. Some argue that there still persist today. [...]