Temptation to Battle

Nolan, Cathal J.  The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost.
          New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.  ISBN: 978-0-19-538378-2

Are you looking for a military history examining how the idea of "decisive battle" has shaped politicians, military commanders, and scholars actions and writings.  Cathal Nolan provides just such a history in The Allure of Battle.

Nolan opens The Allure of Battle with a defense of military history in general and the role of battles as specific events in his introduction.  He then, in Chapter 1, sets the role of battle, especially the concept of "decisive battle" in a historical context.  He also discusses how scholars and humanists portrayed the role of battle versus what the historical record shows regarding the role of battle.  Chapters 2 to 16 provide a summary of the role of  battle in various historical periods beginning with the Hundred Years War and ending with World War II. Some chapters provide more details of particular battles/campaigns than others, but all the chapters have enough detail for a general reader to follow Nolan's arguments on how battles influenced the winning of wars.

The Allure of Battle is a sweeping look at battle in a historical setting and the number of pages in the book provides Nolan enough depth to flesh out his argument and give details to support it.  The coverage of lesser known campaigns/wars such at the Seven Years War or the campaigns of Louis 14 of France and the Duke of Marlborough provides insight often given short shift in standard military histories.  Unfortunately, Nolan does not include the English Civil War, the American Civil War, and non-European wars/campaigns/battles that do not include a European combatant.  However, the reader of military history will find much to ponder in Nolan's The Allure of Battle.

An Off-Kilter Look at the 2016 Election

O'Rourke, P. J.  How the Hell Did This Happen?: The Election of 2016.  New York: Atlantic
          Monthly Press, 2017.  ISBN: 9798-0-8021-2619-1

How the Hell Did This Happen? is only the latest treatise dealing with politicians that P. J. O'Rourke has inflicted upon the willing reading public. In the past he has skewered Congress, politicians, and Republicans, but this time he aimed carefully at making sense of the 2016 U.S. Election cycle.  And what he found out surprised him (and us)!

P. J. O'Rourke composed much of How the Hell Did This Happen? during the election cycle and the book reads that way.  The focus jumps from one topic/group of candidates/concept to another with no rational rhyme or reason present.  Looking back over the book as he was trying to make sense out of the contents of book and the 2016 Election, he realized that there was no rational continuity.  He had thought that the monumental Clinton would be out in the electoral desert surrounded by Republican "Gaza gerbils" fighting over who would run.  While he was prepared for surprises, he was not prepared for what those surprises turned out to be.  Strange and weird candidates, sudden sweeping changes in polls, Bernie Sanders, political gaffs, and bizarre behavior.  It makes a voter hum/sing the Capitol Steps song "Brand New Pair of Candidates" before it all comes crashing down.

P. J. O'Rourke enjoyed writing the book and the reader is likely to enjoy at least parts of the book.  Highly recommended are the Author's Note, the Preamble (especially the opening paragraph), the descriptions of the candidates (rabid squirrels anyone?), and especially "The Letter to Myself in 1968" where P. J. wishes time travel or at least communication to the past existed so as to fix the situation early!  If you are trying to figure out what just happened, How the Hell Did This Happen? is a place to start.

Hitch and the Movies

Ackroyd, Peter.  Alfred Hitchcock: A Brief Life.  New York: Doubleday, 2016. 
         ISBN: 978-0-385-53741-4

So you want to investigate the life and movies of Alfred Hitchcock, but do not want a "tell all" book that details every camera shot in every movie?  Well, you are in luck!  Peter Ackroyd provides a nicely laid out biography that provides a balance between the details and the big picture of  Hitchcock's life in movies.

In eleven chapters, Peter Ackroyd takes your from Hitchcock's birth (13 August 1899) in England to his death in America (29 April 1980).  After a quick examination of Hitchcock's early life and home situation, Ackroyd focuses on his life in film, documenting his climb from general help to assistant director to director.  He also lays out the relationship between Alfred and his wife Alma whom he met on the movie set. The rest of the book meanders through his life in movies outlining his planning, layout and directing of the numerous movies he produced while referencing his home life and trips in relation to those movies.

In Alfred Hitchcock: A Brief Life, the reader will gain a superficial knowledge of the movie director and his movies, enough to satisfy many a bar question while only whetting the appetite of film buffs. 

Why Baptist? Why in America?

Kidd, Thomas S., and Barry Hankins.  Baptists in America: A History.  Oxford, UK: Oxford UP,
         2015.  ISBN: 978-0-19-997753-6

Who are the Baptists?  Why did they migrate to America?  What role have they played in American history?  These and other questions are what Kidd and Hankins seek to answer in Baptists in America: A History.

 Kidd and Hankins open Baptists in America with the whipping of Obadiah Holmes in 1651 for the crime of being a Baptist in Puritan Massachusetts.  They proceed to describe the Baptist experience during the colonial period, the Revolutionary War period, antebellum early United States, the Civil War, the post-war period and through the twentieth century.   They discuss the periods of growth, the times of dissension, and a bit of how Baptists in all their various incarnations have played a part in American history up to recent days,

The first five chapters convey the history of Baptists during their time often with quotes from documents, speeches, and diaries of individuals.  Kidd and Hankins also does a very nice job of covering the African American Baptist experience.  They provide decent coverage of events in the Northern/American Baptist wing during the later half of the 19th Century and during the 20th Century with very few mentions of other Baptist organizations such as the General Association of Regular Baptists.  The major focus of the later chapters are on the Southern Baptists Convention and its struggles.  If the reader is looking for an complete overview of Baptist history in the United States, they will not find it here.  However Kidd and Hankins do try to set the story of Baptists in all their forms in context of the culture of the United States.

Hunting for Savage Demons

Franklin, Ruth.  Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life.  New York: Liveright Publishing, 2016
       ISBN: 978-0-87140-313-1

When Shirley Jackson's name is mentioned, people either think of her haunting horror tales such as, "The Lottery," or The Haunting of Hill House, or her tales of "domestic bliss" gathered in Life among the Savages and Raising Demons.  But there is much more to her complicated tale than horror or domestic life.   In Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, Ruth Franklin tries to open a window on this complicated tale.

Using all the available sources (unpublished diaries, papers, story sketches/drafts, book reviews, publishers records, etc.), Franklin works to bring Shirley Jackson into focus as a fully-rounded person rather than just as a writer.  She spends several chapters on Jackson's early life as well as her husband's (Stanly Edgar Hyman), documenting the underlying passions and phobias each would bring to their life together and to their individual literary endeavors.  Franklin carefully describes the trials, tribulations, and triumphs that Jackson lived through, breaking the book into chapters based on what book or story collection that Jackson was writing at that time.  This structure allows the reader to see how Jackson's life influenced her writing while revealing the effect her writing had on her domestic situation.

Ruth Franklin accomplished her goal of illustrating how domestic issues, the process of writing, and external forces shaped Shirley Jackson's life and literary outpourings.  The reader who finishes Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life will then have more balanced view on what or who haunted Jackson and her tales.

Mayhem and Comedy on Television: 1967-1978

Burnett, Carol.  In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the 
         Sandbox.  NY: Crown Archetype, 2016.  ISBN: 978-1-101-90466-4

From 1967 to 1978, Carol Burnett and Company produced a variety show before a live audience.  Due to syndication, reruns, and YouTube, The Carol Burnett Show can still be enjoyed today.  As she mentions in In Such Good Company, even nine-year-old boys know who she is.

In Such Good Company, Carol Burnett takes the reader behind the curtain of The Carol Burnett Show.  The reader gets a brief tour of how the show came to be - a very obscure part of her contract with CBS - and then "Boom", off the show went - For Eleven Years!  In case the reader does not remember, the show was a variety show , so there was music, comedic sketches, guest stars, and plenty of laughs. 

Carol Burnett walks the reader through a typical weekly schedule.  She talks about the layout of the show and then dives into the players in the sandbox.  She provides short sketches of the Gang (Viki Lawrence, Harvey Korman, Lyle Waggoner, and Tim Conway), then those behind the scenes such as Bob Mackie who designed almost every costume used in the show.  She then takes time out to reminisce about recurring skits, explain what a punch line is, discuss some of the movie parodies done on the show, and then relives the highlights with various guest stars who had graced Studio 33 for a week or more.  The book winds up with a look at the final season and show.

If you enjoy exploring pop culture, like comedy or variety shows, or are just a fan of Carol Burnett, you will enjoy In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the          Sandbox!

How Much Does Crime Pay?

White, Tim, Randall Richard, and Wayne Worcester.  The Last Good Heist: The Inside Story of
          the Biggest Single Payday in the Criminal History of the Northeast.  Guilford, CN: Globe
          Pequot, 2016  ISBN: 978-1-4930-0959-6

The Last Good Heist opens with the reporters covering the August 14, 1975, robbery of the Bonded Vault which is housed within the Hudson Fur Storage business in Providence, RI.  Eight or nine men had robbed the place early in the morning.  The Bonded Vault is a safety-deposit box business and 146 out of 148 boxes had been opened.  An unknown amount of loot - cash, coins, and jewelry - had been carried off.  Early figures given are around a million dollars.  Later federal law officials figure that about 32 million (in 1975 dollars) was taken.  And none was ever recovered!

But really The Last Good Heist is the tale of the lead robber - Robert J. Dussault, a career criminal from Lowell (MA) who had quite a record before he escaped prison and teamed up with his friend Charles "Chucky" Flynn, another Lowell boy.  Flynn had been granted the Bonded Vault job with the blessing of Raymond L. S. Patriarca, the head Mafia boss in Providence, RI.  But before the gang gets to the big job, there are smaller jobs to be done (and often goofed-up).  Then August 14, 1975, dawns and the big robbery happens.  The gang each receive their agreed initial share from the cash on hand with more to come from the fencing of silver ingots, jewelry, coins, and bonds.  The gang then splits up.  Much of the rest of the book deals with Dussault's life on the run as he travels around the United States, spending his loot, and doing more robberies.  After being caught in Las Vegas (NV), Dussault spills his guts regarding the Bonded Vault robbery.  There is a very long trial followed by an even longer legal wrangling.  Dussault supposedly died in 1992, but family members state that he was at his mother's funeral in 1994. 

If you have watched The Thomas Crown Affair (the 1968 version), you know how it is the little things that unravel the perfectly planned crime.  The same goes for the criminals in The Last Good Heist, stupidity lead to Dussault being caught, a lie lead to him testifying, and the conviction of half the crew.  Now the reader gets to sit back and follow the true crime tale in The Last Good Heist!