socraticgadfly's reviews
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Some reviews say this book is primarily a bio of Salmon P. Chase as Secretary of the Treasury, but it’s not even that. Congressmen such as William Pitt Fessenden and Thad Stevens have major spots as well. (The subheader is wrong in one way: The rest of Lincoln’s Cabinet is less mentioned than the key Congressional players.) 

 

What it really is, is a “biography” of how the Union achieved the financial organization necessary to fund winning the war. Along the way, it shucked most of the Jefferson-Jackson shackles not only of finance in the narrow sense, but the broader issues of federalization behind that. As part of this, Lowenstein notes the number of times Republican leaders used the word “nation,” instead of “Union.” He also notes (which may have been also a part of a shift within American vs British English to treat collective nouns as singular not plural), phrasing such as “the United States is” rather than “are.” 

 

And, the scope of the Hamiltonian shift was vast. Lowenstein notes that the 27th Congress was arguably the most “activist” and successful in history. 

The meat:

 

1.     The Pacific Railway Act 

2.     The Homestead Act 

3.     The Morrill Act for land-grant colleges 

4.     The original Internal Revenue Act 

5.     The Legal Tender Act that gave us greenbacks 

 

And, those are just the highlights. The 28th Congress expanded on these, and also gave us the National Banking Act plus America’s first explicit immigration act. (Sidebar: For the pseudohistorians like  Scott Berg claiming Wilson’s first two year were the biggest act of presidential effort in history, think again. Lincoln may not have been personally as active in pushing a program as Wilson, but he was elected on the broad outlines of this program and most pushing would have been against a largely empty door. Besides, LBJ did more in the first two years of his full term than Wilson anyway.) 

 

Within all of this, you have Chase selling bonds via Jay Cooke and his brother, fighting for authorization to sell more greenbacks, trying to stave off depletion of US gold reserves (he would have been Grover Cleveland had he lived 30 years later) and between Cooke and his brother, and some of his patronage appointments, and turning a blind eye to Spoons Butler and his colonel brother in New Orleans, having a number of ethical challenges. 

 

Lowenstein also puts this into today’s context. He notes inflation, and compares prices then to today. On 2 and 3, he notes the land coming from American Indians on homesteads and at least part of it from then on colleges. (He adds that a second Morrill Act came along in 1890, the racism of the South with separate HCBU colleges for it, like Prairie View A&M here in Texas, and that tribal colleges were finally added in the 1990s.)

 

Couple of minor notes. 

 

First, per the opening paragraphs, if you are familiar with Civil War history, there’s very little new about Chase the Cabinet member and his politics playing. 

 

Second, hile not cutting Lincoln counterfactual slack on colonization, unlike Oakes and Reynolds among others, Lowenstein doesn’t get into the issue too much. And, while Halleck may have been as much to blame as McClellan for Second Bull Run, “more to blame” might be too much. 

 

 

In one sense, it's too bad this book wasn't published 6-9 months later. I'd love to have the COVID part of her bio go more into the recent contretemps over deaths "with" COVID vs deaths "from" COVID. (I personally agree with her much more than disagreeing, and it's sad to see some of the attacks on her.)

But, no matter. This is a great book anyway, and plenty of bio before that.

Imagine being an immigrant child, with your parents leaving China separately because they both can't leave at once. And, you're leaving in part because of your father's political activism, which Wen doesn't discuss in detail, presumably for the obvious reason of relatives still in China.

Because your mom has an in for a Ph.D. program, you land in lily-white, wall-to-wall Mormon land of Logan, Utah. And, you're so broke you're on food stamps. Your parents and you don't know to ask for free lunches at school at first. Your parents physically split for a while as your dad feels frustrated and useless there. 

Len gets her yen for public health from her own background, in case it's not obvious.

From here, we go into her navigating further family difficulties, fitting in to America, and eventually landing in med school, then finding her calling as the city of Baltimore's health commissioner.

Then, she sees room for her next career move — head of Planned Parenthood.

Unfortunately, this doesn't work out, largely because of Planned Parenthood. (Note: I'm in the "muddied middle" of Americans on details of abortion rights as far as when in pregnancy, etc.) PP's tribalism, not just on abortion rights, but, as Wen notes, intruding into many other Democratic Party positions. (That includes, like the modern national neoliberal Dem Party, in a point Wen doesn't mention, being against organized labor. And, many other "progressive" activist groups, like environmentalists, have that problem with organized labor, ie, unions.) Add in PP twice throwing her under the boat in issues related to her resignation.

THEN, after landing back on her feet at George Washington University, plus guest columns for the Washington Post, comes COVID.

That should be enough to whet your appetite without being a spoiler.

 

An interesting book. No, a disappointing book, with a mixed 4/1.5 star rating. 

 

First, Vince is rightly “hardheaded” that we’re likely to hit 4C by 2100, then reminds us that this is overall global temperature, including the slower-rising ocean temperature. Land temps will surely be higher yet. 

 

From there, it’s into a long history of migration. Next comes a list of benefits of immigration, as noted by international development organizations, etc. Some mighyt be overstated, but not bad overall. 

 

Then, after an earlier basic discussion, comes info on details of climate change and how it’s going to force migration out of tropical and near tropical areas, and the reasons why — desertification, floods, extreme weather events, and unliveable wet-bulb temperatures. 

 

Then, the clunkers. NO, not clunkers. Just downhill, first mildly, then badly. 

 

Clunker? She talks about how climate change will allow more development of northern latitudes, noting it’s already allowing for more oil exploration in  and near Greenland. True. Russia’s already eyeballing massive new offshore in its Arctic. Shell and others may revisit the Alaskan Arctic. 

 

We CAN’T HAVE THAT!!!! And, she nowhere says that. 

 

Then there’s the issue of modern migration necessitating entire new cities. If these are all Westernized cities, there’s more climate-change-inducing energy expenditure. And, there’s the techno-optimism about how easily this will be done. There’s also the techno-optimism that the economic boosts of relatively small-scale immigration today would come even close to translating to mass migration. 

 

She also has little discussion of climate denialism and minimalism, which is prevalent across the developed world, not just the US. Ditto for climate action minimalism, which is prevalent across the neoliberal “consensus” of non-deniers in the developed world. 

 

Disconnects like this make this a weird book. 

 

But, here, we go from clunkers to straight downhill. 

 

But wait. The techno-optimism gets worse. 

 

She assumes that we can somehow, within just decades, make the global migration much easier when she notes that, in the “developing” world, the rural to urban migration there is fraught and problematic. 

 

But wait. The techno-optimism gets worse. 

 

From there, it’s on to meat replacement. She doesn’t discuss how much energy it takes to make a veggie burger, nor ask if this will scale up. (She also doesn’t note that veggie burgers are higher in sodium than actual meat, and otherwise not totally the bee’s knees on being healthier.) She then goes to lab meat, and assumes, laughably given its many push-back dates, that it’s going to be commercially in play by 2025 or so. I quote: “The next generation of lab-grown meats will reach mass market later this decade.” Having read plenty about delayed launches, and also knowing the humongous amounts of energy it will require to go commercial, I laugh. 

 

But wait. The techno-optimism gets worse. 

 

Next, she calls for an expansion of nuclear fusion. She doesn’t talk about long-term waste. She doesn’t talk about how France, with a top-down national government, used a mix of bullying and bribes to foist that issue on rural eastern France. Nor does she ask about more and more difficulty in mining and refining uranium ore. 

 

But wait. The techno-optimism gets worse. 

 

She believes the British government’s claim to have fusion plants by 2040 and even says, I quote, “The first fusion reactors could start entering grids by 2030.” 

 

We’re at the point of either willful ignorance or self-delusion, and I grokked the last 30 pages before the conclusion. 

 

It’s no wonder a neoliberal environmentalist like Bill McKibben favorably blurbs this book. 

 

And, now, the mixed rating should be clearer. It’s 4.5 for the climate honesty, 4 for the migration impact honesty, and 1.5 for everything else. Scratch that; I combined the first and second into a single 4-star rating, as while it’s “nice” that she’s that firm on 4C, she’s far from alone. 

 

And, with that, I’ll offer a “recommend against” further reading of Gaia Vince. And, how she got to a position like news editor of Nature, I have no idea. 

This is a decent, yet somewhat superficial, look at the problem of what's all wrong with American colleges. Bunch's subhead is right that college as it is today "broke the American dream." He's right that anti-intellectualism of many Republicans has played a part in this, as well as making educational levels a political bright line division.

He doesn't delve a lot into college as big business, though, and not just for-profits. He skirts at the edges of this, with things like colleges upscaling amenities to attract students, but doesn't talk about the collegiate equivalent of CEO pay. Here in Texas? Former University of Texas system chancellor Bill McRaven drew 1.5 million; current A&M system head John Sharp gets 1 million. 

 No, it's not Musk or Bezos, but it's not nothing, either. And, at big state universities, what of the role of athletics?

And, on this issue, how much are modern neoliberal Democrats to blame as well? (Bunch does talk about how "woke" on campus isn't always so good, citing the likes of Todd Gitlin, but doesn't ask if, for national Democrats, that can often serve in part as a distraction from class-based left-liberalism or beyond.)

And, as far as blaming anti-intellectual Republicans? It's interesting for Bunch to note Nixon (and all the campus protests against Vietnam), then Reagan, then Trump, and somehow skip this guy named Dubya. 

 The solutions? Not bad. That said, Bunch doesn't ask if America's weak K-12 system, compared to other developed nations, is part of why college degrees have morphed into credentialism in the first place. (It IS weak; it's not only that US teachers are both underpaid and undertrained, it's that the US doesn't have a 200-day school year and other things.)

This is excellent, well-researched book from the beginning, through the epilogue. 

(Muhammad Ali’s quote about Thorpe in that epilogue, when a fan recognizes him when he stops at Thorpe’s grave, shows well both the depth of research by being included, and the power of the Thorpe story in all its Olympian — both senses — tragedy.)

As for the body of the book?

David Maraniss has an excellent, sympathetic biography of Thorpe — the whole man, not just his athletic peak years — that never whitewashes, within that sympathy.

Take the issue of his amateur status. Maraniss shows that Pop Warner, his Carlisle coach, almost certainly knew about his two summers of semipro baseball well before Stockholm. So did Carlisle superintendent Moses Friedman. Most likely, so did AAU head James Sullivan.

He also shows how thousands of other college athletes did the same. Like a West Point cadet from Abilene, Kansas, who played against Thorpe in college football. But, unlike this certain cadet, and all the other thousands, Thorpe never used an alias.

Why? Thorpe apparently never said so, but per Maraness’ overall portrayal, it was surely Thorpe’s guilelessness.

And, that’s the central theme of the sympathetic, but not whitewashing, treatment.

Thorpe’s alcohol problems were surely part of his post-athletic semi-penury. So too was his guilelessness in helping out people he thought in greater need.

The societal problems Thorpe faced as an American Indian were bad — but not as bad as African-Americans (Fritz Pollard and Paul Robeson both played football against Thorpe) — and Maraniss notes all angles of this. The guielessness, as well as the alcohol, and a disordered family of origin, were surely all factors in why Thorpe didn’t “succeed” the way some other Carlisle alumni did. So, too, was Thorpe’s somewhat Ruthian-like lack of discipline and lack of professionalism, as well as a wanderlust that seems fueled by more than just alcohol and the latest make-a-buck idea.

In addition to that “certain cadet” at West Point also violating his amateur status, there were a few other things I learned. One was that American football at time of Thorpe was 110 yard field and 3 downs. So, US football changed, not Canadian.

That said, there are a couple of minor baseball errors. 

While it was new to me that Ty Cobb was in the “Gas and Flame Division” in WWI, along with Christy Mathewson and Branch Ricky, he didn’t retire until 1928. Doubtful any gassing in WWI hastened that. And, he didn’t miss major time in 1918, and won a batting title then. (His last was in 1919.)

It’s a myth that Charles Comiskey was penurious, at least by MLB standards of that time. White Sox were paid median or above of MLB average.

And, while Babe Ruth may have gotten his big break as a position player due to WWI thinning MLB rosters in general and Boston ones in particular, he had been pushing for it since the year before, in part by complaining about pitching so much, and Ed Barrow first experimented with it in 1918 spring training.

Because of the tidbits being wrong on baseball, I put it at 4.75 stars not 5 over here.

Solid telling of a lesser-known essay into Arctic exploring and one of the first attempts by the United States. I had heard the Jeanette mentioned before but had never really read about it.

I had heard plenty about August Petermann and this was kind of a capper on some of his kookier ideas, held in the face of ever-increasing evidence to the contrary.

A small backdrop story is with the Jeanette, as with other "lost" Arctic explorations, the effort expended on search-and-rescue follow-ups, which themselves sometimes ended problematically.

Human resilience is documented well in this book, as is the fact that, contra Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, let alone 20th century dictators, the power of human will does not always conquer all.

As at Goodreads, this isn't quite as high as the stars I give it, even when considered as just a sports book. But, it's underrated by others.

Summary: Dominguez was a Boston PD cop who eventually became a "resident security agent" for the Red Sox. All MLB teams have them; other major team sports have similar, whether under this title or another. They're generally, like Dominguez, cops or detectives with the local metro or major suburban PDs who monitor team security in and around the clubhouse and stadium. They may go on selected road trips; Dominguez regularly went with the BoSox down to Yankee, and also on road postseason games, etc.

Well, a few years later, the Mitchell Report shit hit the MLB fan. And then-commissioner Bud Selig formed a "Department of Investigation." Thanks to connections with NY cops and other things, Dominguez was asked to join the initial team. He was hesitant, being near his 30 years or whatever with the Boston PD, but eventually signed on — if the DOI remained truly independent.

Well, by the time of the investigation of Biogenesis and Alex Rodriguez' roiding supplier Tony Bosch, that independent was being more and more eroded, by Selig and even more his left-hand man (he's not good enough to be a right-hand man), today's commish, Rob Manfred.

Manfred was in a hurry for MLB to finish busting A-Rod and otherwise polishing up Bud's image on roids before he retired, so that Manfred would be guaranteed the succession. He worked on getting DOI folks to stop cooperating with the federal DEA on Bosch so as to expedite baseball's case on A-Rod. If you're a baseball fan, you probably know the bare bones at least of how MLB set Bosch up, and not set him to fail, but set him up as in propped him up. Dominguez has more details, as well as further undercutting of the DOI after Manfred officially took over MLB.

MLB soon thereafter fired the original DOI team. They, in the spirit of Manfred and Bosch, were all offered sizable severances if they'd sign non-disclosures and hold up omerta.

Dominguez was the only one who did not.

Fantastic book of a series of mainly disgusting human events piggybacking on a natural disaster.

Before reading, I'd heard of the Great Bhola Cyclone, and knew that it was believed to be the world's greatest natural disaster, though I didn't realize the death toll was that bad.

I knew the bare bones of Pakistan's President Yahya Khan being Nixon's secret emissary to China. I knew the Cold War tie-ins with Pakistan and India. I knew that East Pakistan was restless and would eventually achieve independence, in fair part with the help of the Indo-Pakistani War.

I had no idea that West Pakistan was that racist toward the Bengalis of East Pakistan (as well as "religionist" toward the Hindu portion of its population). Nor did I realize that a full genocide was committed toward it, along with a sabotaged parliamentary election.

The authors interview many people who were on the ground, whether teens or full adults, in the Ganges Delta and Dacca, at the time. This is what really brings the book to life and makes it more than just a couple of Americans writing a history book. 

They also talk about 1970-state hurricane monitoring, whether West Pakistan deliberately undercut warnings for the East, and then at the end, loop this back to climate change, and how the guy who went on to lead the National Hurricane Center not too long after this, and went to Pakistan in the aftermath of the cyclone, became a climate change denier.

Sidebar: No, George Harrison and Ravi Shankar didn't save Bangladesh. Most that money didn't get there for more than a decade. And, while a tragic nation, post-independence Bangladesh is little better than Pakistan in many political ways.

That's enough. I won't get close to spoiler alerts on this book. Suffice it to say that Nixon and Kissinger deserve to rot in hell for their role in this even more than for bombing Cambodia.

Simply fascinating book. The title is a pun, covering both the "war" to get Picasso accepted by philistine Americans, even in NYC, and even on the board of MOMA to put up a Picasso-focused exhibition and buy his paintings, and the Spanish Civil War, which led Picasso to Guernica, which broke the ice.

The first half of the book is also a mini-bio of John Quinn, a man of whom I'd never heard before, and arguably the United States' top pre-1920 acquirer of Picasso, along with many other A-rank modern artists such as Matisse. But, I had heard of the Armory show, of which he was an organizer

There was no MOMA at this time. Quinn pushed for one, using the analogy in Paris of the Luxembourg to the Louvre as a push. Unfortunately, he died of colon cancer in his 50s, in the early 1920s. From there, the book picks up with the eventual creation of MOMA.

Among the ironies is that, 20 years before it was built, Americans were calling Picasso et al, but especially him, "degenerate art," as in exactly the phrase the Nazis used. (Stalin didn't use such a phrase in calling for "Soviet realism," but the idea was there, too. Pre-authoritarianism, Kaiserine and Weimar Germany, and Tsarist Russia, were actually the top two countries in the world, overall, to appreciate modern art pre-WWI, even more than France.)

That's plenty to whet the appetites of any general modern culture lover let alone art history person.

Cutting to the chase? In the third-to-last page, in the epilogue: “I hope I have convincingly argued that all animals have consciousness.” (As he has shown up to that point, “all animals” includes insects.)

 

Survey says, “No you have not.” And, while vaguely stimulating here and there, this book is just not that good.

 

260 pages in what appears to be 18-point font is not a full book, first.

 

Second, while I as a journalist and editor use the occasional sentence fragment, it’s done too often here.

 

Third, he comes off as a quasi-ev psycher on “death wisdom.” Sees too many things as polarities, not gradations. Much more at the Storygraph review.

 

Third, his take on “death wisdom” at least approaches, if not going full in, on an ev psych “just so” story. That includes claiming that understanding what death is, is itself an evolutionary adaptation. Tosh.

 

Views animal-human differences, in too many cases, as polarities with two ends, rather than a sliding scale. “Death wisdom” is a huge example of this and that’s not the way evolution exists.

 

Too credulous about the intelligence of cephalopods.

 

Views animal-human differences, in too many cases, as polarities with two ends, rather than a sliding scale. “Death wisdom” is just one example of this and that’s not the way evolution exists.

 

Claims “many scientists” (and philosophers) think bees are conscious. Not any that I’ve read, including personal friends. This is also another area where he tends to polarities more than sliding scales. As far as specifics? The “central complex” of the brain idea of consciousness is controversial at least. The claim that some insects “want” mind-altering substances is framing the debate in advance, of course.

 

The claim that we don’t have more consciousness, just that we’re conscious of more things, also tosh.

 

The fun doesn’t stop there. In going into behavioral economics/psychology, he cites Jonah Lehrer while ignoring his plagiarism and Dan Ariely while ignoring his various scandals.

 

And, he way overuses the idea of qualia.

 

It's not quite pablum, but I would recommend against reading any further books by Gregg.