Wednesday, March 13, 2024

For the Love of Dictators

Heilbrunn, Jacob.  America Last:  The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators.
        n.p.: Liveright, 2024.  ISBN: 9781324094661
 
 
Everyone alive knows that Donald Trump seems enthralled with Putin and Ron DeSantis with Victor Orban. What about dictators is so attractive to a certain mindset?  And when did this obsession become a passion of the Conservatives?  These are some of the issues that Jacob Heilbrunn seeks to clarify in America Last.
 
Jacob Heilbrunn lays out early in the opening of the book his relationship with the conservative movement to establish his credentials for the history he reveals.  He starts with the present day where the conservatives and many Republicans seem to think that Hungary and its culture wars is the future they should pursue.  So how and when did this "homage to authoritarianism" develop?  
 
So who all has the Right praised?   "Kaiser Bill" for one was praised by Henry Louis Mencken and George Sylvester Viereck as an upholder of traditional values.  Theodore Lothrop Stoddard, Madison Grant, and H. P. Lovecraft adored Benito Mussolini, the Fascist ruler of Italy.  Ezra Pound was another vocal advocate of both Mussolini and later Adolf Hitler.  Elizabeth Dilling was a fascist supporter who accused the YMCA and the League of Women Voters as communist front organizations and college campuses as "hotbeds of radicalism."  Then there was the America First Committee that openly support Germany with the assistance of Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, the return of George Sylvester Viereck, and the funding of William Randolph Hearst.  After the war, came the era of McCarthy with the Senator hunting for "dirty Commies" everywhere while working on rehabilitating Nazi Germany.  
 
In the 1950's Henry Luce and his wife Clara Booth Luce helped lead the charge against the U.S. State Department while fawning over Nationalist China's ruler, Chiang Kaishek.  About this time William F. Buckley wandered on to the stage praising McCarthy while pushing a shift from isolationism to confronting the Communist menace through The National Review.  However, Buckley, his brother-in-law Leo Bozell, Jr., and others also looked to Franco of Spain, and Salazar of Portugal for inspiration in opposing the rise of Liberalism in America.  Then there was the Kirkpatrick doctrine which provided cover for the Right to cozy up with authoritarian governments such as Pinochet, South Africa, El Salvador, and Argentina.  

In 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Right lost a major focus.  Patrick Buchanan started the charge of the new "Old Right" back to isolationism that puts America first leading to a fight between neoconservatives and paleoconservatives that is still going strong.  He voiced strong opposition to George H. W. Bush in regard to the Gulf War, to the U.S. sending troops to Bosnia, and was warmly embraced by Russian presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky for his stance on Jews.  Then came 9/11 and the launch of the War on Terror.  In George W. Bush, the neocons had a champion to try out their ideas in Afghanistan and then Iraq.  The ultimate failure of the neocon plans provided the opportunity for the paleocons to come roaring back in the unlikely person of Donald J. Trump who made no secret of his love of authoritarians such as Vladimir Putin.  Even Putin's invasion of Ukraine in flagrant defiance of treaties that Russia has signed has not slowed the love of dictators found in the Right today.  It is amazing/appalling how many people have fallen in love with a nostalgic picture of a time that never was.

Jacob Heilbrun provides a very detailed schooling on the love for authoritarians that seem crafted into the DNA of the conservative Right in America.  So if you want to know the background to the news stories of today, take the time to read America Last.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Running up the Score!

Bruning, John R.  Race of Aces: WWII's Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to Become the Master 
        of the Sky.  New York: Hachette Books, 2020.  ISBN: 9780316508629

An Ace!  For airmen and the public, an ace is someone to look up to and admire.  They had mastered simultaneously flying and fighting and managed to bring down at least 5 enemy aircraft.  The Red Baron was a famous German ace of World War I who is best known now for fighting Snoopy.  But being an ace was no easy task since only bout 5% of all World War II fighter pilots managed to get 5 confirmed "kills."  However, in the Southwest Pacific, General Kenney inspired the Fifth Air Force to chase down WWI ace Eddie Rickenbacker's record of 26 enemy planes as a way to boost morale.  This book tells the story of many who participated in the race for this crown.

John Bruning opens the book with General Kenney checking out the state of the Fifth Air Force based in New Guinea which was getting pounded by Japanese Air Force while the Japanese Army was approaching the few bases still operational.  He needed fighting spirit and better planes than the P-39 Aircobras and P-40 Warhawks he had.  What he got was the Lockheed P-38 Lightening, a twin engine fighter that could out-dive and out-run the current Japanese planes.  Then he started getting pilots such as Richard Bong, Gerald Johnson, and Tommy McGuire.  These pilots and a host of others managed to turn the tide against the Japanese, but at a cost of living in a jungle environment at the end of a very, very long supply chain.  The pilots of the Fifth Air Force strove to match and then beat Rickenbacker's record of 26 enemy planes.  This race cost lives and ended a few careers as pilots became obsessed with being the top ace. In the end, Richard Bong came out on top with 40 enemy planes shot down. Looking back, the race to be the top ace was cursed as only one top contender lived a long life after the war.  

If you have an interest in air combat or the Southwest Pacific Theater in World War II, you will want to read Race of Aces!  John Bruning brings you to the front lines of combat and provides all the thrills you desire.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Do you still read?

Reed, Shannon.  Why We Read: On Our Lifelong Love Affair With Books.  Toronto: Hanover 
         Square Press, 2023.  ISBN: 978-1-355-00796-4

Are you a reader?  Do you prefer reading to going to parties?  Do you constantly have a book or two or three that you have with you to read while waiting in line or for your meal to arrive?  If you do, than you are a kindred soul with Shannon Reed and will enjoy the tales she tells in Why We Read.
 
Shannon Reed lays out the arc of her life, especially her life with books and libraries, in short chaptersChapters such as "to Get to Go to the Library" or "To Finish a Series" or "Because I Wanted Free Pizza."  A really fun chapter was "Because Someone is Paying You to Teach a Class about Vampires" when Shannon Reed was an adjunct professor really dislikes horror!

Shannon Reed provides interesting quizzes and vignettes between the chapters of her life.  Some of these include "How I Choose a Book: A Thirteen-Step Guide," Signs You Might be a Character in a Popular Children's Book," or "The Five People You Meet When You Work in a Bookstore."  These interesting asides sometimes feel out of step with topics in other chapters, but are fun reads.

So if you like to read or are interested in why others like to read (or both!), pick up a copy of Shannon Reed's Why We Read and settle in for some quality you time!

Monday, January 1, 2024

Food and Stories from an Island!

Wei, Clarissa, and Ivy Chen.  Made in Taiwan: Recipes and Stories from the Island Nation.  New 
         York: Simon Element, 2023.  ISBN: 9781982198978
 
Who does not like browsing cookbooks?  You can view all the possibilities and dream about what you can make and how things will taste.  The best cookbooks provide photos and clear instructions for the reader so that the reader can enjoy all the labor the writers imbued in the title.  And when you are reading a cookbook from a culture not your own, you need context for the recipes which  Clarissa Wei and Ivy Chen provide in Made in Taiwan!
 
Wei and Chen open the book with a history of Taiwan setting the stage for what makes Taiwan cuisine different from Chinese cuisine.  Then Wei and Chen start with the basics -  what is in the Taiwanese pantry so that the reader knows what they need to stock to make the recipes that follow while also providing substitutes.  There are recipes for breakfast, for lunch, for small suppers, and elaborate dinners, not to mention special events.  The authors also include deserts, and  recipes from the indigenous cooks of the islands.  The recipes are nicely illustrated and help provide direction for various complicated recipes.  Scattered through out the recipes are stories that reflect the culture of Taiwan and its food history.  One such story deals with hamburgers for breakfast (Little League baseball) while another talks about how turkey rice became a dish in Taiwan.  The authors do note that the recipes do reflect more Central and Southern Taiwan rather than what is found in Taipei.

If you enjoy browsing recipes or learning about cultures via their food, pick up Made in Taiwan and dig in!

 

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Movies and Music!

Patrin, Nate.  The Needle and the Lens: Pop Goes to the Movies from Rock'n'Roll to Synthwave.    
        Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2023,  ISBN: 9781517913243

How much does the soundtrack of a movie affect your enjoyment of a particular movie?  What about your memory of a movie, does a particular song stick in your head as emblematic of the movie?   That is the question Nate Patrin chose to explore in The Needle and the Lens.

Nate Patrin defines a "needle drop" as using a preexisting song to provide context for the film.  He takes sixteen movies that use songs not written/recorded for the movies and explores the interaction between the movies, the songs, and the audience.  Some of the combinations are very well known - Easy Rider/"The Pusher," The Graduate/"The Sound of Silence ," or American Graffiti/"Do You Want to Dance?"  Others are a bit off the wall (but then I have not seen all of these movies) such as Killer of Sheep/"This Bitter Earth," Blue Velvet/"In Dreams," or Drive/"A Real Hero."  Then there are ones I just had not thought of in this fashion - mainly Apocalypse Now/"The End" and Wayne's World/"Bohemian Rhapsody" that just work well. While individual chapters may be less of a treat, the book as a whole is a good read.
 
Nate Patrin enjoys exploring the intersection of movies and music and sharing his findings with an appreciative audience.  If you think you might be in that crowd, pick up The Needle and the Lens and join the conversation! 

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Sunken Sub Sinks Aircraft Carrier!

Moore, Stephen L.  Strike of the Sailfish: Two Sister Submarines and the Sinking of a Japanese 
         Aircraft Carrier.  New York: Dutton Caliber, 2023.  ISBN: 9780593472873

"Down periscope! Dive!  Dive!" is the cry of the submarine's captain as submarine and her crew seek to sink beneath the waves before the enemy spots them.  Many books and movies have this scene.  In Strike of the Sailfish, this scene plays out several times as the Sculpin and the Sailfish search the Pacific Ocean for prey.
 
As the title states, Strike of the Sailfish is the intertwined tale of two submarines - the Squalus and the Sculpin.  The tale starts when the Squalus sank during a test dive in 1939 killing half the crew.  The Sculpin happened to be in the area and helped in rescuing the crew and recovering the boat.  The Squalus was refitted and renamed the Sailfish in May 1940 before getting a new crew and reentering the fleet.  

After United States entered the war, both submarines were sent to the Pacific to attack Japanese shipping.  Each submarine suffered through the teething issues of dud torpedoes, bad warheads, and plan bad luck.  But by 1943, better weapons had arrived and the submarines started coming into their own.  But when the Sculpin attacked a convoy near Truk on November 19, 1943, her luck ran out and she was sunk. Part of the her crew were captured and taken to Truk and then transferred via aircraft carriers to Japan.  But on December 3-4, 1943, the Sailfish as part of a wolfpack attacked this convoy in the midst of a typhoon and sank the aircraft carrier Chuyo. I took three separate attacks to sink it.  George Rocek was the only Sculpin sailor onboard the Chuyo to survive.

Strike of the Sailfish provides a very gritty look at World War II submarine warfare through the lenses of two U.S. submarines and the stories of their crews.  Stephen Moore provides plenty of details of a submariner's life and the plight of submariner POWs alongside the various attacks and other duties the submarines performed.  If you enjoy reading about WW II naval action, pick up this title.  It will not disappoint!

Monday, December 4, 2023

Great War Saboteur Manhunt

Mills, Bill.  Agent of the Iron Cross: The Race to Capture German Saboteur-Assassin Lothar 
        Witzke during World War I.  Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023.  ISBN: 
        9781538182086
 
Secret agents, sabotage, planned invasions, codes breaking and double agents are often the stuff of spy stories, but can be found in real life as well.  
Agent of the Iron Cross documents Lothar Witzke's story as German agent, running loose in the United States and Mexico from 1915 till his capture and trial in 1918.  
 
At the opening of World War I, Witzke was a midshipman on the German cruiser Dresden and wounded in the final battle with the British Navy off the coast of Chile.  He escaped from the hospital at Valparaiso, Chile, and disguised as a Danish seaman who had lost his papers made his way to San Fransisco.  Consul Bopp employeed Witzke as a courier until he hooked up with Kurt Jahnke and became a saboteur.  He helped plant explosives on merchant ships and with involved in the Black Tom Island and the Mare Island Naval Station explosions.  In 1917, Witzke and Jahnke moved to Mexico to stay in communication with their HQ while continuing their operations.  One such operation involved creating labor unrest at mines in southwestern United States so that local US Army troops would be called out while also having blacks in the South rise up in insurrections followed by the Mexican Army invading and occupying parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and California.  All this mayhem would keep the United States out of the war in Europe.  Fortunately, for the United States there were some competent undercover agents and double agents embedded in the German camp so that this plot could be thwarted.  As part of the plot, Witzke crossed the border into Texas and was arrested, his luggage searched and a code found.  The contents of the coded message played its part in the court-martial trial in convicting Witzke of espionage and sentenced to be hanged.  After judicial review in 1919, the sentence was changed to confinement at hard labor.  In 1919, Witzke and two other prisoners broke out of Fort Sam Houston prison but quickly recaptured and he ended up in Leavenworth for several years until released in 1923.  Witzke moved back to Germany and  joined the Abwehr under Canaris before World War II started.  After the war Witzke served in the Hamburg legislature from 1949-1952.  He died on January 6, 1962.

If you are interested in spies, secret agents, double crosses and feats of daring, pick up a copy of Agents of the Iron Cross and pick up a few little known facts!