The North won the Civil War for many reasons: more manpower, greater industrial strength, tremendous capital, a better idea. They also won because they had three generals who believed in total war. It was not enough to defeat an enemy in the field; no, one had to tear the insides out of the enemy. Bring war with its flames and cruelty to the very hearths of the enemy to make them realize what war really was and is to this day. Those three generals are Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Philip H. Sheridan. These men knew that with the material, industrial and manpower strength of the Union, they could win and were determined to ensure that there could be no future Civil War.

Having previously read Goldsworthy’s biography of Augustus Caesar this biography is in my opinion, much better; perhaps it is because Julius Caesar led a much more active life being involved directly in years of military campaigns, writing massive volumes of poetry, literature and laws as opposed to Augustus Caesar who was not as robust (physically) and had the invaluable help of Marcus Agrippa for decades to share the burdens of rule.

Severus is sometimes called the last of the “Good Emperors” for his ability to bring stability and success to the mid-Roman empire (he was emperor A.D. 193-211).  Born in Tripolitania in North Africa (no, he was not black), he was of that stock from which sprang Carthage and Hannibal.  He has also been called a typical cosmopolitan Roman bureaucrat, the destroyer of the existing social order and (by Gibbon), the principal author of Rome’s decline.  Take your pick.  But he did represent the ability of the empire to pull on its subjects to infuse new blood and energy into its body from time to time and this kept the empire from fading away for an extra hundred years.

A restless man, he traveled across the empire and early on, name one of his sons and trained him to succeed him.  Unfortunately, that son, later know as Caracalla also known by historians as “the enemy of mankind”.  But Severus coming after Commodus and Pertinax brought a period of peace, often by simply scaring the corrupt Senate and the power of his personality.

This book is a bit heavy for the casual reader interested in this period and unless you are familiar with the period, may not be a good read.  Yet there are excellent passages, and the author feels free to criticize other historians, arguing that they have misrepresented or misunderstood various facts.

There are a couple of interesting side notes about Severus.  As he lay on his death bed, his sons asked him what they should do; his words in this book were “Do not disagree between yourselves, give money to the soldiers and despise everyone else”, although other translations quote him in a more “earthy” manner. 

Another tidbit I have often thought that F. Scott Fitzgerald plagiarized when he had his main character in The Great Gatsby say: “I have been everywhere and seen everything, god oh god am I sophisticated”.  Although this author disputes the accuracy of Severus’ quote, I remember reading it when I was in my early 20’s and feeling a bit depressed, for he said, “I have been everywhere and seen everything and it is not really much”.  If a Roman emperor could say that what hope was there for me!  But Birley says the quote (again, disputed) was that “I have been everything and what has it profited me”.

“You shall not press down upon the brow of labour this crown of thorns; you shall not crucity mankind upon a cross of gold”-William Jennings Bryan, July 9, 1896

Bryan was a Presidential candidate in the 1896 election, and his speech has gone down in history as a rallying cry of the poor man against the big money of the day.  The fight was those like Bryan who believed in “bimetallism” where silver and gold would be the standard for the U.S. dollar as opposed to only gold which was seen as an attempt to keep down the masses.  Bryan went on to lose the election and his case when the way of the dodo bird.
Four years later, Frank Baum wrote and publised the world famous “Wizard of Oz” which became a huge best seller.  Little did Baum realize how popular his book would be and certainly he never envisioned the famous movie.  There are those who believe that his book is an allegory for Bryan’s fight over bimetallism.  There is no documentation for this theory, but let us take a look at some of the players:

Time can be cruel as it leaves behind many important things. This book, The Cruel Sea is on such loss for it is seldom read any longer. Set in the Atlantic during World War II, it is a story of ordinary men called upon to do extraordinary deeds. Most of the men are young, a lieutenant of twenty who is called upon to be second in command, other junior officers who a few weeks earlier were bank clerks or shoe salesmen. The recruits don’t have any experience, and many cannot remember port from starboard but are responsible for staffing guns, handling depth charges and being on call to fight fires. At the top, on the bridge, is a retired captain who must mold his crew into a fighting unit while patrolling the hostile north Atlantic.

During the Second World War, Allied bombing was responsible for over 500,000 deaths in Europe. The bombing was one part of a war to defeat Nazi Germany and is little appreciated for its impact on the course of the war.  Stalin constantly wanted a second front to help his war, and little understood how the air war contributed to his ability to defeat the Nazi war machine.  As usual, Richard Overy has provided us with the one book we would recommend for anyone to understand the Allied air war.

In the year 1683, a vast Ottoman army is laying siege to Vienna, the heart of the Hapsburg Empire. The Ottoman army was subsidized in part by the king of France, who although Catholic, opposes the also Catholic Hapsburg Emperor. Then, from the wooded heights, the famous Polish winged hussars smash into the Ottoman army and from another direction troops from Franconia, northern Italy, Bavaria, and Saxony break the Ottoman flank. Vienna was saved and from that day forward the Ottoman Empire begins to degenerate and weaken until at the end of World War I it finally falls.

For anyone who has read books which deal with how men react in wartime, this novel is often referred to as a realistic description of military life. In a sense, it could in certain parts, be an English version of Joseph Hellers novel, Catch-22 with better character development and a darker form of humor. Evelyn Waugh is best known for his novel, Brideshead Revisited, but this novel is a semi-biographical account of his war time experiences as well as his relationship with his Catholicism (he converted to Catholicism in 1930 after the failure of his first marriage).

Harrison Salisbury was the first NY Times correspondent stationed in Moscow after World War II and wrote a number of both fiction and non-fiction books about life in the Soviet Union, including a classic on the siege of Leningrad, The 900 Days. Unlike Walter Duranty, the besotted and compromised NY Times reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Soviet regime, Salisbury was not compromised by the system and was often criticized by the Soviets.

This novel tells a familiar story; a young Soviet citizen who somehow runs afoul of the Soviet system. He is pulled from front line service against the Germans and run through the hands of the Soviet secret police (including at Lubyanka prison, also known as the gates of hell) and the Gulag system. Along the way, his life is destroyed; his wife (at his request), divorces him so she may continue her schooling (being married to an enemy of the State would hinder her), his best friend after serving his time becomes a supporter of the State, his dreams of a better world are destroyed.

Despite it all, the main character survives and becomes a major dissent against the system. With the publication of his main book outside of the Soviet system, and, given the timing of its publication, he manages to salvage his dignity and resurrect his dreams of a better world.

Is this book a thinly covered version of the life of Solzhenitsyn (written in a clearer manner than Solzhenitsyn would have ever done)? More likely it is a composite character of survivors of the Gulag system who were able to maintain their humanity and hope for the future.

If you are not familiar with novels about the Soviet system, this is an easy read and should give you an idea of the brutality and craziness of a system which promised utopia but neglected to remember human nature.

In December 1936, the United Kingdom was rocked by the abdication of King Edward VIII.  Shortly thereafter, he married a twice divorced American woman, Wallis Simpson. For decades, the former King was viewed as a weak-willed man, dominated by a self-centered gold digger who thought she could marry the King and become Queen of England.  The story is much more complex, and Anna Pasternak takes a much different view of the entire episode; fortunately, she provides excellent support to her contention that Wallis Simpson was battled to keep the King, who was weak willed, on the throne.