Book Haul

During 2020 I probably purchased fewer books that year, other than on kindle, than in any year since 1982, the year I graduated from law school.  The book sales that I frequent were canceled and the book stores were closed in Illinois for much of the year other than for curb side pick up.  That has changed and I have begun to do the usual used book purchases I normally do when on vacation.  (I am on vacation this week, except for two real estate closings I am doing for the law mines today.  As I noted to one of my secretaries, I would find it odd to have an entire week of vacation when the law mines did not intrude, at least once.)  Here are the books I have picked up pretty cheaply, except in one instance, thus far:

1. The Crisis of Rome:  The Jugurthine and Northern Wars and the Rise of Marius, Gareth C. Sampson, (2010)-Hailed as the Savior of Rome for his defeat of the Cimbri and Teutones who were a potentially deadly threat to the Roman Republic, Gaius Marius began the destruction of the Republic with his unprecedented seven terms as Consul, and the firm injection of military force into the politics of Rome.  Married to a paternal aunt of Julius Caesar, his nephew completed the process begun by the brilliant military career of his uncle.  Looking forward to reading this.
2.  Trajan, Optimus Princeps, Julian Bennett, (1997)-Among the best of the emperors of the Roman Empire, Trajan’s unsuccessful campaign against Parthia demonstrated that the Empire had reached the limits of its ability to extend its power, and thus early in the Second Century the Empire could be seen as fighting at best a holding action on its frontiers and such holding actions usually have one ultimate result.
3.  The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise, Dario Fernandez-Morea, (2016)-This book is a useful antidote to much ahistoric rubbish written recently claiming Islamic occupied Spain was an oasis of tolerance and science.
4.   A History of Modern Germany, Volumes One and Two, Hajo Holburn (1959, 1964)-Ah Germany, that problem child of European history, home of almost every bad idea that has impacted the world over the past five centuries, including, but not limited to, the shattering of Christendom, Marxism and the Nazi variant of fascism.  A geographic expression, once Germany became a political reality with the Second Reich, it played a central role in bringing about World War I, followed two decades later by World War II initiated by the Third Reich.  Professor Holburn, who passed away in 1969, was a refugee from Nazi Germany who taught at Yale until his death.  The two volumes go from 1500-1840.  I will keep my eyes peeled for the third volume that ends with the capitulation of Nazi Germany.
5. In the Presence of the Creator:  Isaac Newton and His Times, Gale Christianson, (1984)–My one indulgence.  A pristine collectors edition copy from The Easton Press.  I normally could care less what a book looks like, but the superb condition of this one caused me to pay more than I should have.  Biographies of Newton are not scarce but good ones are.  To write a biography of Newton one has to understand his math.  Those who can do so often cannot write to save their souls.  Thus far this biography looks to have dodged that bullet.  Newton lived a very long time, 84 years, for his time period and was a public figure for most of it in a very turbulent period.  I hope this tome will do justice to that life and that time.
6. The Sword of the Republic:  The United States Army on the Frontier 1783-1846,Francis Paul Prucha (1969)-This is the tenth volume I have acquired in the Macmillan Wars of the United States series.  The series is uneven, as it could never seem to make up its mind as to whether the subject was the wars of America or the United States Army.  It is also incomplete in that some of the projected volumes were never forthcoming, most notably the one on the Civil War.  Like most such series, the quality of the volumes differ widely, dependent upon the abilities of each author.  However, I was quite pleased to find and purchase this volume for $2.00.
7.   Polk:  The Diary of a President, edited by Allan Nevins (1952)-Polk kept a comprehensive daily diary during his Presidency.  Opening it at random I found myself reading a passage where Polk was blasting the anti-Catholic bigotry of a gentleman who complained about Polk appointing the first Catholic chaplains in American military history during the Mexican War.  I was of course pleased by the sentiments but I was also pleased by how well written the passage is.  Very strong language advisory as to the below humorous video salute to Polk, who kept all his campaign promises and had the good manners to die shortly after he left the White House:http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISO2KVQPGeg

   The editor, Allan Nevins, was a prolific historian who authored fifty books.  He has suffered the fate of most historians and fallen into obscurity since his death in 1971 as the fads in historical writing ceaselessly shift to and fro.  This is unfortunate since his eight volume Ordeal of the Union series, 1848-1865 is the best, and most granular, look at that period in our history which almost destroyed the nation.

8. They Died to Make Men Free:  A History of the 19th Michigan Infantry in the Civil War, William M. Anderson, (1980)-Well, it wouldn’t be a book haul by me without some Civil War books.  Regimental histories come in two categories:  an immense number written by participants, and comparatively few written by historians since the Civil War.  Often these later histories focus on famous regiments, like the 20th Maine.  The 19th was a fairly undistinguished outfit.  The entire regiment was captured at the battle of Thompson’s Station on March 5, 1863.  By the end of the month the regiment was exchanged and resumed service in the Union army in the West.  Their service was perfectly honorable and perfectly humdrum, and I praise the author for expending the effort to give us a chronicle of a regiment that would be otherwise largely unknown.
9. Return to Bull Run:  The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas, John J. Hennessy. (1993)-Looks like a good solid study of this campaign which too often gets brief attention, sandwiched as it is between the Seven Days and Antietam.
10. Lee’s Tigers:  The Louisiana Infantry in the Army of Northern Virginia, Terry L. Jones, (1987)-Troops from Louisiana who fought in Virginia were known for their riotous conduct off the battlefield and being hard hitting shock troops on the battlefield.  A tale of these valorous scapegraces.
11. The Decisive Battle of Nashville, Stanley F. Horn, (1956)-The battle of Nashville on December 15 and 16, 1864, gets my vote for the most ignored major battle in the Civil War.  I assume this is because by that time the Union had the War all but won, and the outcome seems foreordained.  However, the battle was important.  It reduced the Confederate Army of Tennessee to an impotent shell of itself, largely brought the War in Tennessee to a close, and freed up the Union Army of the Cumberland for further operations in the unlikely event that additional campaigns occurred in the West.  Besides that, the well thought out plan of General George Thomas to crush Hood’s army deserves attention simply from the standpoint of the military art.
12. A Shelf of Lincoln Books:  A Critical Selective Bibliography of Lincolniana, Paul M. Angle, (1946)-Even in 1946 the written material on Lincoln was immense and Paul M. Angle winnowed that paper mountain down to what he considered the 81 most important works.  Many of the secondary biographies, not written by individuals who knew Lincoln, he cites would now be regarded as very obscure even by Lincoln scholars.  However, we are now 76 years since the date of the book, and the book was written 81 years after the end of the Civil War, with ever new Lincoln biographies effacing earlier studies in the memories and perceptions of students of Lincoln.  One has only so much time to allot to reading.  Angle was a significant Lincoln scholar, and my guess is that by the time he died in 1975 he would have found the task far more onerous with the avalanche of Lincoln material published up to that time.  Since then the avalanche has only grown, much of it repetitious drek.  Now it is not a simple task to keep track of the published works on Lincoln in a single year.  I think I am among Lincoln’s biggest fan on the internet, but this has gotten well out of hand.
13. Rorke’s Drift, Adrian Greaves, (2002)-What most people know about this battle is from the 1964 film Zulu.  The book looks like a decent study, but it could use more maps, the failing of almost all books on military history.  My favorite scene from the movie:http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUq8gXhI0y8
14. Jews, Wars and Communism, two volumes, Zosa Szajkowski (1972, 1974)-A study of the attitudes of American Jews to the Bolshevik Revolution and Communism up to the end of World War II is the topic in Volume I.  Volume II looks at the impact of the post war Red Scare of 1919-1920 on American Jewish life.  Written by a Jewish scholar who was a Communist for a portion of his life, the books seem designed to refute the notion that Communism is a Jewish conspiracy.  The raw antisemitism of virtually all Communist regimes should have long ago put paid to that notion.
15.  Stalin, Leon Trotsky, (1941)-One of the few Jews in the upper echelons of the Bolsheviks, Trotsky is a prime example of how a gifted intellectual can be taken to the cleaners almost every time by a thug with street smarts.  Trotsky was working on the unfinished manuscript at the time that Stalin put an end to Trotsky’s literary career with an ice pick to the brain.
16. Stalin as Revolutionary, Robert C. Tucker, (1973)-Almost all books written on the Soviet Union before the fall of the Soviet Union suffer from a simple lack of relevant documents.  I doubt this book will differ from that drawback.
17. The Stillwell Papers, edited by Theodore H. White, (1991)- General Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stillwell was a curmudgeon’s curmudgeon.  Making him chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek, over Stillwell’s strenuous objections, was one of the worst appointments of the War.  In a post which required a master diplomat, the Army’s most abrasive officer was a flat failure.  He alienated the Chinese, the Brits, Chennault, and almost all of his Army subordinates.  In the sixties and the seventies he became something of a hero among Leftists, who he would have despised, as an enemy of the China Lobby.  Rubbish.  Stillwell was a proponent of a stronger Chinese war effort against the Japanese.  Chiang, correctly, knew that anything that happened in China, outside of the complete collapse of China, would have little impact on the War in the Pacific, and that the Communists were the true threat to his regime.  Stillwell’s tenure in China was full of sound and fury but accomplished almost nothing.
18. The Soviet Home Front 1941-1945, John Barber and Mark Harrison, (1991)-This should be a trip through Dante’s Inferno.  All you need to know is that we are still unsure how many Soviets died during the War.  A current popular figure is twenty- seven million.  It could be as high as forty-three million.  No one was keeping count at the time, and mass death was all about, both among civilians and the Soviet military.
19. Seven Firefights in Vietnam, John A. Cash, John Albright and Allan W. Sandstrurm, (1970)- One in a series of books put out by the Army while the Vietnam War was in progress.  The analysis and objectivity of the books are impressive.
20. Fighting in Vietnam, James Westheider,(2007)-A look at the experience of the troops in Vietnam.  Book looks as if would be an introductory volume on the subject.
21. Hugh Trevor-Roper:  The Biography, Adam Sisman, (2010)-A noted British historian, but the only thing most people recall about him is his absurd endorsement of the fake Hitler diaries in 1983.