Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis

A series of relatively short vignettes on various members of the "Revolutionary Generation" (Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington, Burr, Franklin & Madison) and their relationships with one another, particularly their rivalries, friendships and (in some cases) hatreds. The first chapter deals with the long, bitter political rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr that culminated in their famous duel in 1804. The last chapter, fittingly, details the rise, fall and rebirth of the remarkable friendship between Jefferson and Adams, ending with their mythic deaths only hours apart on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In between, we see how James Madison was the Karl Rove of his day, how even mentioning the slavery issue in Congress nearly destroyed the Republic, that George Washington (and only George Washington) could have led the nation after the ratification of the Constitution, and how the French Revolution almost ended the American Revolution. All in all, this short work (248 pages) is a reminder of how human, frail and fallible the Founders really were, and what a delicate and fragile creation the early Republic was, nearly collapsing several times into civil war or military dictatorship. It's length correctly reflects that this is not a very deep volume, but the stories are engrossing, some of the details remarkable (Hamilton's plot to lead a military coup; Washington's dream of bringing Native Americans into the nation instead of forcing them to the margins) and the writing brisk and clear. Recommended, possibly as a companion to actual full biographies of the Founders.

President Kennedy by Richard Reeves

Reeve's book is really a policy wonkish nearly day-by-day case study of JFK's Presidency, focusing less on the events but how they were managed (and in some cases stage managed) exclusively from the perspective of the White House. Though somewhat prissy and snarky concerning Kennedy's mistresses (and even offering a rather far-fetched medical explanation for his behavior), the book is more about Kennedy as a leader. His famous "collegial style" of leadership, for example, actually comes across as ad hoc and chaotic, and very limited by Kennedy's unwillingness to trust many people outside of a close circle of family (i.e., Bobby) and friends. Although, given the problems he had with military leaders (verging on outright mutiny in the case of Curtis LeMay) and the CIA (which evidently regarded him as an amiable dunce at best), JFK's suspicious nature is maybe understandable. Kennedy also had weaknesses due to his lily-white, rich, comparatively sheltered upbringing, such as his utter bewilderment at the Civil Rights Movement ("What do these people want?" he exclaims in frustration at one point). I was also surprised to read just how heavily involved the White House was in orchestrating the March on Washington, which JFK had initially opposed, even going so far as to pay for it with funds raised and laundered by Bobby. There are modern lessons to be learned; Kennedy owed his presidency to one emerging media (television, which he worked hard to master) muscling out older media (newspapers); today's politics sees the eclipse of broadcast television and the surviving newspapers by the Internet and cable news, though we don't yet have a president who owes as much to the Internet as JFK did to teevee. Vietnam is even more of a cautionary tale for Iraq than I had thought, with the White House trying to maneuver through a recalcitrant, corrupt and dictatorial local government that seemed determined to doom itself; and American policy hopelessly ham-handed due to a near-total ignorance of local culture (it's truly frightening to consider how much of US policy towards Vietnam was shaped by a work of fiction, The Ugly American by William J. Lederer). Overall, it's an excellent read, though 1963 feels rushed and glossed-over compared to the lavish detail shown to the first two years of Kennedy's abbreviated term.

Conquest by Law, by Lindsay G. Robertson

Most people with even a passing knowledge of Native American history know the story of Worcester v. Georgia, the famous Supreme Court case where Chief Justice John Marshall heroically upheld the sovereign rights of the Cherokee Nation against the State of Georgia, only to have that decision ignored by the Indian-hating, land-lusting Andrew Jackson, leading to the Trail of Tears. Few people (myself included) know that in Worcester, Marshall was trying to atone for a disastrous earlier decision, one that directly precipitated Georgia's attempt to legally erase the Cherokee Nation, and which has plagued Indian Law in America ever since: Johnson v. M'Intosh. With a novelist's flair for characters and description, Robertson (an Indian Law professor at the University of Oklahoma) describes how his discovery of old documents abandoned in an attic enabled him to unravel the complex story of how early 19th Century politics, proto-capitalist land speculators, the beginning of the State's Rights movement, and Revolutionary War veterans led to this disastrous decision and the pernicious Doctrine of Discovery, the legal principle that white people gain fee title to land inhabited by non-white people just by looking at it. Chief Justice Marshall, the original activist judge, invented the doctrine (and its spurious history) out of whole cloth to justify the results he wanted; allowing Revolutionary War veterans to have valid title to land grants they received for their service and trying to induce the State of Virginia to support the infant Supreme Court. It was not until much later that he realized what his monster had accomplished, depriving all Indians in North America of any claim to valid title in their land, reducing them to mere "occupants" of territory they had inhabited for millennia. To his credit, Marshall realized his error and tried to correct it, all but overruling M'Intosh in the Worcester decision, but by then it was far too late. All the many ethnic cleansings that followed, from the Trail of Tears to the Long Walk, to Wounded Knee, the Dawes Roll and Termination, trace their bloody ancestry to M'Intosh. The Discovery Doctrine has even been used by other nations, to justify dispossession of First Nations in Canada, African tribes on their own continent, and Australia's genocidal policy against the Aborigines. It is a sad story of the sad need of racists to somehow make their crimes seem just and right by giving them the force of law. Robertson is a very good history writer; the book flows nicely, includes intriguing sketches of the characters involved, both famous and obscure, and avoids legalistic jargon. I recommend Conquest to anyone interested in Native American history in general, and Indian law in particular.

The Journey of Crazy Horse, by Joseph M. Marshall, III

A slim (294 pages) but engrossing biography of the great Lakota war leader Tasunke Witko ("His Horse is Crazy"), Marshall's book is subtitled "A Lakota History," and indeed the book is written by a Lakota author from a uniquely Indian and Lakota perspective. By placing Crazy Horse's action firmly within the context of a Lakota culture being slowly transformed by contact with the Long Knives, Marshall is able to introduce readers to the man, not merely the legend. For example, I learned that "Crazy Horse" was a family name, belonging to his father (a well-respected medicine man who changed his name to "Worm," as a sign of humility) and his grandfather; and that Crazy Horse himself was a Contrary, or Thunder Dreamer, which explains much of his later life. Like the story of Tecumseh in A Sorrow in Our Heart (written by non-Indian Allan W. Eckert), Journey assumes as valid oral history traditions and takes as true the spiritual experiences of its subject (of course Tecumseh caused the New Madrid Earthquakes by stamping his foot on the ground; of course, Crazy Horse had a vision of his life and eventual death as a young man). The account of the Battle of the Greasy Grass may seem somewhat hard to recognize, until you realize it is being told from the perspective of the victorious Indian alliance, not George A. Custer or his hagiographers. Likewise, Marshall does not over-sentimentalize the Lakota, or red-wash the complicity of certain members of the tribe (particularly the Laramie Loafers) in bringing about their own defeat. He concludes, and rightly so, that the Lakota defeated themselves by surrendering to the materialism of white civilization. Overall, Journey (which includes personal anecdotes from the author's life) has the feel of a story the elders might tell over a campfire. Very satisfying.

Book Review: "1491" by Charles C. Mann

An excellent new work by non-Native American, non-archaelogist Charles C. Mann. Aptly subtitled "New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus," 1491 is a compendium of new (and not so new but underreported) research on the history of the Western Hemisphere before the European Conquest. Among the more fascinating discoveries: human beings likely began arriving in the "New World" some 30,000 years ago; the population of the Americas before the Conquest was greater than that of Europe (making the Smallpox Holocaust all the more horrific; perhaps one out of every five human beings on the planet died in the century-and-a-half after Columbus); In 1500, Tentochtitlan (capital of the Triple Alliance or Aztec Empire) and Qosqo (capital of Tawantinsuyu, the Inkan Empire, the largest empire on Earth at the time) were larger, more advanced and more populous than any cities in Europe; pre-Conquest American history was a fascinating tapestry of empires that rose, achieved greatness and fell, only to be replaced by others; that Indians had a profound impact on their environment, from the genetic engineering of maize to the use of controlled burns to maintain and expand the Great Plains as a vast hunting preserve and to turn large areas of the Amazon Rainforest into orchards to support large population centers in the jungle. Along the way, Mann also discusses how racism and paternalism clouded archaelogical research on Native American culture and history, all presented in a brisk, enjoyable style. I highly recommend this work to anyone interested in history or Native American issues.

Review of "Hellfire Nation" by James A. Morone

Subtitled, "The Politics of Sin in American History," Morone's book describes the historical cycle in American history of moral crises driving politics, beginning with the Puritans. His thesis is that these crises follow a fairly predictable repeating pattern: moralizers denounce some social evil, the general public is rallied both by opposition to the evil and to the demonic "others" that profit by or are seduced by the evil (and this usually ties into patterns of racism and sexism), the authorities are compelled to take action and typically overreact with draconian and sometimes disastrous results. Morone begins with the Puritans themselves, who originally rallied "The City on the Hill" against evil Indians with their demonic ways and seduction of white women. Once the Indians were all killed or driven off, the Puritans turned on themselves with the famous witch trials. An interesting point I hadn't realized: Tituba, the slave woman who eventually became the focus of witch hysteria was not, as commonly portrayed, African; she was actually a Native American from the Caribbean, though still a slave.
The book then recounts numerous instances of this pattern of moral outrage repeating itself throughout American history, from the Abolitionist Movement and the Civil War, to the Suffragettes, to Prohibition, the War on Drugs and (briefly, since this book was only published in 2003), the War on Terror. The other theme involves the tension between Puritanism (with its focus on moral condemnation of sin) and another American meme, the Social Gospel (focusing on the causes of sin, rather than merely punishing the sinner). For Morone, the high water mark for the Social Gospel as a driving force in politics came in the brief period from 1933 (The New Deal) to 1973 (as the 'Sixties came crashing to an end, and Roe v. Wade transferred the force of moral persuasion in public life from the Left to the Right, where it firmly remains to today). One of my complaints, however, is that the author does not further develop the differences between the Social Gospel and classic liberalism, though to be fair, at 497 pages (not counting the extensive notes) this is already an exhaustively-researched work. Nevertheless, it is a surprisingly easy read for an academic work (Morone is a professor of political science at Brown University). I was frankly shocked (though I should have known better) by some of the grotesque detail on the truly venal and cruel nature of racism in America, from wars of genocide against Native Americans to the terrorist state of the post Civil War pre Civil Rights South. I don't like to constantly harp on the long and sad history of racism, but often the reality of how bad things really were is glossed-over with feel-good rhetoric, particularly at this time of year when white politicians dutifully trot out press releases praising Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when the vast majority of them would if he were still alive be bitterly denouncing the theories of economic justice he was exploring just before his assassination.
In short, I recommend "Hellfire Nation" if you are interested in political history and especially if you want to explore the origins of the Culture Wars that actually stretch back to the very beginning of America.