Category Archives: Reviews

Bridge of Spies

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bridge-of-spiesThis is a wonderful book that describes what is portrayed in the current movie with the same title starring Tom Hanks . I thought Mark Raylance’s portrayal of Soviet spy Rudolph Abel stole the spotlight from Hanks, who was admirable in portraying James Donovan. Donovan was the lawyer who defended Abel and later was the intermediary who arranged the swap of U-2 pilot Gary Francis Powers for Abel and Frederic Pryor, a hapless young intellectual who was snared in Cold War politics.

An interesting aspect of the book is how Powers was treated after he had taken the risk of flying over the Soviet Union to take photographs of secret military facilities. John F. Kennedy as a candidate for Presidency of the United States had successfully used the “missile gap” as a campaign issue against Richard Nixon. The planned Powers flight would have delivered the evidence that the Soviets in fact only had four ICBMs. Powers and his U-2 were shot down instead of presenting the evidence that would have disputed Kennedy’s campaign rhetoric. Kennedy “…promised as a candidate to close a ‘missile gap’ that did not exist and declined to meet Powers on his return to the United States.”

A fascinating bit of theory for dedicated “Conspiracy Theorists” is that the Power’s mission was intended to fail. Eisenhower and Khrushchev had intended to launch a new era of détente until Powers and his U-2 was shot out of the skies. The Paris summit was wrecked and “…threw into high gear the arms race that took the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and did not end until the collapse of the Soviet empire nearly three decades later. From the moment Powers was reported missing, there were well-places skeptics on both sides of the cold war who suspected that his entire mission had been planned to fail, and in doing so to prevent the outbreak of superpower peace. It is a theory that lingers to this day.”

The real name of the spy who is the central character in the drama was William Fisher, and he had been born in Britain. There is no doubt he was a brilliant man, since he could speak five languages and was a math genius. “Fisher’s main task was to rebuild the Soviet spy network in America. Perhaps the most interesting part of the Fisher story is that he was completely ineffective as a spy. “There is no evidence that Fisher recruited any useful agents who have not been identified or transmitted any significant intelligence by those who have been. This did not stop both sides colluding in the creation of the legend of Willie Fisher—by another name—as the most effective Soviet spy of the cold war.”  The “Fisher myth” was perpetuated by Soviet officials because he became famous for his loyalty and refusal to betray the USSR to gain personal benefits. Continue reading →

Crow Killer

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crow-killerThis is one of the books recommended to me by a Great Nephew who is studying to be a high school history teacher. The subtitle of the book, “The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson” by Raymond W. Thorp and Robert Bunker provides a hint about the descriptions of brutality. I’ve often said flippantly that one of my favorite moves is Jeremiah Johnson because it was a role for Robert Redford in which he seldom spoke. The first observation is that the book refers to John Johnson or John Johnston in Veteran’s Administration records. I don’t recall reading Jeremiah anywhere in the book. The book was published in 1983, and I wonder whether it could be published in the world of today with the radically racist language and many instances of complete disrespect to Native Americans (called Indians throughout) attributed to Johnson and other “mountain men.” The terms “red coons” and “red n…..s” (I decided to not even type that one) are used freely. Johnson and others were willing to act savagery toward hostiles, apparently because that was what was expected by “…the code of the mountain man.” There are several references to shooting foes in a manner that disabled but didn’t kill and then mutilating them before they died and then were decapitated so that their heads could be displayed on stakes. It was taken for granted that foes would be scalped either alive or dead.

The Foreword describes that the sources for the stories were primarily “Del” Gue and White-Eye Anderson (who apparently had one white eyebrow). It’s made clear that the myths about Johnson probably based on enough facts to cause them to spread. However, the mountain men were proud of their ability to embellish stories. The book is described as “…the personal history of Liver-Eating Johnson from 1847 to his death in 1900, pieced from oral legend.” One fact that stands out is that Johnson was a large and powerful man who could break a man’s neck with his hands. He is frequently described as being able to crush a man with a kick. He is even described as fighting off both a grizzly bear and a mountain lion with a frozen leg he had earlier wrenched off a Blackfoot. Even his horses were legendary. “Crow Killer’s big black watched over his master, scented Indians, and allowed none but his master near him.” Continue reading →

Librarians – More Like the TV Series than You Thought

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black belt librarianI read one of a series of similarly-named books by Warren Graham and was surprised by how much I liked it. The Black Belt Librarian – Real-World Safety and Security is intended for professionals. It’s a short book, with a detailed table of contents and index – perfect for quick reference. I think Graham’s advice would apply to anyone who deals with the public as customers.

Indeed, Graham started in security for retail and theme parks. Midway through the book, the title is explained. As a boy, he was “passive, introverted, and emotional.” Encouraged by a grandfather, he got involved in martial arts. He says the mental discipline and self-control allowed him to become confident and effective dealing with the public. He assures librarians – who can be too introverted and passive – they can master his skills. He also notes that those who are extroverted and aggressive also need training to de-escalate situations.

What could go wrong in a library?

If you’re wondering why librarians need to be mental black-belts, read about the members of the public they deal with – what Graham calls “behavior problems… that run the gamut from the innocuous to the insane.” Restrooms are a nightmare – from patrons who strip to wash clothes and themselves to unwelcome sexual encounters. I now understand why restroom doors are usually within sight of the circulation desk and even then may be locked. My childhood hometown library makes you check out the key.

Warren spends some time convincing librarians who think being welcoming to everyone is their job that allowing disruptive behavior drives many patrons away – that indulging behavior problems denies many patrons use of a library they can’t tolerate. Some of his assessments of patrons may seem harsh at first: “All the nuts are not in the nuthouse,” and “some folks will try to tell you there is no such thing as a stupid question. Obviously, they never worked in a library.”

But he goes on to emphasize librarians must speak about behaviors and avoid terms or actions that show prejudice. Appearances can deceive – Graham once broke up a fistfight between two elderly, well-dressed gentlemen who both wanted the same business reference book.
Continue reading →

Maximalist: America in the World from Truman to Obama

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maximalistAn early quibble about the book is that it did not lead off (at least that I found) with a definition of Maximalist. From reading the book I’m guessing it means taking an extreme foreign policy position. The problem with that simplistic definition is that Truman took an extreme position in several foreign policy matters, to include the “Truman Doctrine” that kept Turkey and Greece out of the clutches of the Soviets and the Marshall Plan that rescued Europe. Reagan also took extreme positions in standing up to the Soviets, or, in Reagan’s words, “the Evil Empire.” Those “extreme positions” presented America as an aggressive world power.  Obama could also be called a “Maximalist” by my simplistic definition. He took extreme positions that resulted, in my opinion, in sending a message that he is disinterested in the U.S. being a world power.

Despite my quibble, the book does describe the major foreign policy positions of the Presidents from Truman to Obama. Truman had given up on cooperation with the Soviets by 1947. He went before Congress to ask for emergency economic and military support to Turkey and Greece to countermand the “Iron Curtain,” as originally named by Churchill. Marshall expanded Truman’s policy of countering the Soviets while helping desperate people in Europe when he announced what would be known as the “Marshall Plan” at a Harvard commencement in June 1947. Marshall attended meetings with the Soviets fearing that the U.S. language had been too strident. He returned convinced that the criticism of the Soviets had been accurate and appropriate. He said in a nationwide radio address that the Soviets were “…clearly adapted to absolute control. They could only lead to dictatorship and strife.” The message from all sides of U.S. foreign policy became the rallying cry originated by Robert Murphy, senior diplomat to Germany, “The United States must run this show.”  Stalin made a huge strategic blunder by ordering all Eastern European diplomats to pull out of the “Marshall Plan” talks. That decision allowed the plan to focus on the countries the U.S. really wanted to support and significantly reduced the costs.

The U.S. policy of “containment” of the Soviets caused them to be more aggressive. They brought down the democratic government of Czechoslovakia in a Communist coup in February 1948 and began the Berlin blockade. One prominent dissenter of the containment policy was George Kennan, who had warned of Soviet intentions in his “Long Telegram” to the U.S. State Department. Kennan had changed his mind and wrote an allegedly anonymous article under the pseudonym “X.”  That article advocated that, “The State Department’s best-informed and most brilliant Soviet expert believed there was no real Soviet military threat to speak of. There was, in turn, no need to do anything about it.” Continue reading →

Islam’s Golden Age of Science

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House of WisdomJonathan Lyons’ book House of Wisdom is about the most splendid period for science in Islamic – and particularly the Arab Islamic – history. This corresponded with Europe’s Dark Ages when a “great struggle between faith and reason was about to come crashing down on an unsuspecting Europe.”

The arrival of Arab science and philosophy “transmuted the backward West into a scientific and technological superpower.”

Too many Westerners think of Arabs as mere guardians of ancient Greek scholarship, holding it safely until it could be recovered by its rightful European heirs. Lyons wants you to see that Muslims made vast additions to this ancient base, and that the religion of Islam was a driver for many of their efforts.

Lyons feels the “Western consensus… that Islam is inherently hostile to innovation” is a “persistent notion” that is wrong. Because of this, Lyons tells the story from the viewpoint of Arabs – invaded by brutal, ignorant, and unsanitary barbarians (they tended to call all Europeans “Franks”) as the Crusades began.

Anyone clinging to a romantic of the Middle Ages will be disgusted by accounts of the People’s Crusade, fueled as much by political machinations as religious furor. A rabble swept towards the Middle East, killing and sacking through Christian Europe as they went, only to be slaughtered by Muslim troops. A few years later, a Crusade of troops had better luck in war.

The first couple chapters cover this period and amply document its horrors, but I was more interested in Muslim science.

“Early Islam openly encouraged and nurtured intellectual inquiry of all kinds,” which was encouraged by many sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad.

Caliph al-Mamun was anxious to collect knowledge from Hindu, Persian, and Greek scholars, and initiated the House of Wisdom, “the collective institutional and imperial expression of… intellectual ambition.” But they didn’t simply translate and copy the works of others.

Here’s what I found most interesting – how the religion of Islam encouraged science. Continue reading →

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed

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so youve been publicly shamedJon Ronson has written a fascinating book that may scare you off the internet. It’s about the cliques (perhaps they should be called gangs) on social media, and how each becomes an “echo chamber where what we believe is constantly reinforced by people who believe the same thing… ‘It locks people off… trapped in a system of feedback reinforcement.'”

The topic is timely. I’ve read, for example: It’s “almost as if the Web had been calibrated from the very beginning to allow a bigoted harassment campaign to flourish,” from Slate.com; and that abusive behavior on Twitter is causing people to abandon it and could even kill the company.

Ronson examines the plight of several individuals who posted something that made them the target of attacks – “public shamings” that ruined their lives, at least for a while. The attackers claim to be punishing racism or other anti-social behavior, but I think the internet term that applies is “troll.”

When shaming is good
Ronson set out to “chronicle how efficient [social media] was in righting wrongs.” There were “recent social media shaming I’d enjoyed and felt proud of.”

  • Following an anti-gay item published by The Guardian, the “collective fury” of people on Twitter led to companies pulling their advertising from the paper,
  • When the Daily Mail mocked a food bank, Twitter users led a campaign for donations to the charity,
  • LA Fitness refused to cancel the gym membership of a couple who lost their jobs until a blizzard of tweets shamed them into agreeing.

“These giants were being brought down by people who used to be powerless [by] the weapon: online shaming.” Continue reading →