[rtpoe]

Ya know, that previous post of mine is a perfect example of why we need to go over the "forbidden words" list.
For ***82***, read s l e e p.

Anyway,

CATLAND: Louis Wain and the Great Cat Mania by Kathryn Hughes

You've probably heard of Louis Wain, that turn-of-the-last-century illustrator known for his anthropomorphic cats? Hughes gives him a great biography, and tosses in some stuff about how Great Britain and then the US went nuts over cats. Cat lovers suddenly decided they could breed cats just like dogs. There were cat shows, "stud" cats, all of that....

But to get back to Wain, Hughes follows him from his birth in a family whose business was making embroidered fabrics all the way through to his death in the sanitarium. Perhaps you've heard the idea that as his insanity worsened, his cat paintings got more and more bizarre. Not true, says Hughes. First, the eight paintings used as the "standard" illustration of his decline are NOT dated, so it's impossible to tell the order in which they were made. Second, a close examination of the originals reveals that they were carefully planned and executed - not something you'd expect from a madman. And finally, if you follow Wain's career - as well as general trends in the Art world - those sorts of paintings are pretty much what you'd expect from an artist in the 1930s who was finally free to make the kind of paintings he wanted.

The book is well illustrated....

One of Wain's greeting cards; it's a typical example of his work:

[rtpoe]

Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to the Civil War 1849-1861
Robert W. Merry

The Compromise of 1850 was the last "hurrah" for the three greatest senators of the 19th century: Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, and Henry Clay of Kentucky. All three would die within the next two years - and the Compromise would fall apart.

Merry gives a political history of the 1850s, showing all the machinations and behind-the-scenes decision making that led to the milestones on the road to the Civil War. The Kansas-Nebraska Act.... The Dred Scot Decision.... The sectionalism that split the Democratic Party, the fall of the Whigs, and rise of the Republican Party.

The subtitle is a bit of a misnomer; the two states weren't really the "leaders" of the two sides. But you do get a great record of the political environment as things stumbled and lurched to the point where the leaders of South Carolina felt they had no choice...

(They actually did have a choice; the state had been told to diversify its economy because slavery and the slave trade was becoming economically unviable. But the landowning aristocracy preferred to keep their "peculiar institution", and make it profitable by expanding it into all the new territories that they could...)

[rtpoe]

Why We Love Football
A History of the Game in 100 Moments
Joe Posnanski

It's not *really* a "history"; football doesn't have the same lengthy history as baseball.... Posnanski does find a few stories from the 1930s and 1940s, so the history is covered.

There are plenty of great and famous finishes, and Posnanski isn't afraid to pick moments from Canadian football and even high school football (if your list of Great Football Moments doesn't include that game between Plano East and John Tyler, you need to start over again).

Speaking of famous finishes, some of you older fans might remember Alcoa's "Fantastic Finishes". Well, that series of ads gets it's own spot on the list. So does Super Bowl IV - not for the game itself, but because it put Ed Sabol's "NFL Films" on the map when Ed decided to put a mike on Chiefs coach Hank Stram...."Sixty Five Toss Power Trap".... Stram knew he was mic'd up and on film, so he decided to play for the camera - if you see a little shaking in the film of the game, that's because cameraman Steve Sabol (Ed's son) couldn't control his laughter....

I noticed a decided bias towards more recent events. Again, that's probably because Big Time Football hasn't been around for that long (comparatively speaking). The sport really didn't come to dominate national attention until the 1970s (as far as I can tell)......

A worthy book to keep you company in those long spring and summer days, when there's nothing but baseball

[jmikeh]

All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians by Phil Elwood

[rtpoe]

Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah
by Charles King

You know the music (or a least a few bits of it). King, by telling the story of how it came to be, puts it in its historical context. No, there's no musical theory or analysis of the oratorio. Instead, you get interwoven biographies of Charles Jennens, the guy who came up with texts for Handel as a way to fight off his bouts of depression. There's singer/actress Susannah Cibber, who was trying to get away from her controlling husband and live down the scandal that he created. You'll meet businessman Thomas Coram, who had this idea to help comabt one of England's many social ills - if only he could get enough starting funds to persuade his many supporters that he could pull it off. And George Frideric Handel (of course), who was stuck in a creative rut and needed something to get his career back on track.

And, for some reason, the West African Ayuba Sulayman Diallo, who had nothing to do with Handel or the Messiah; the only connection seems to be that Handel owned shares in the company that managed England's slave trade - and, when a deal Diallo had negotiated with the company to sell a few boys into slavery fell through, got shanghaied into slavery instead. His is a great story; but I can't see why it belongs here.


Anyway, it's an easy and interesting read - and the complete text of Messiah is included for your reference (or to help you sing along....)

[rtpoe]

REALM OF ICE AND SKY: Triumph, Tragedy, and History's Greatest Arctic Rescue by Buddy Levy

A look at the last three great Arctic explorers, and the final 'conquest' of the North Pole.

Levy introduces us to Walter Wellman, who realized early on that going by dogsled wasn't going to cut it - you had to use these new 'airship' things, and fly to the North Pole, while keeping in contact with the rest of the world by that other new technology: 'radio'. Wellman made a couple of attempts to reach the pole; even though he 'failed' every time, each one provided a heck of a lot of experience in using the new technologies in the Arctic.

Then we meet Roland Amundsen, who led the Norge airship expedition, which proved Wellman right about airships, and was the first person to unquestionably make it to the North Pole (well, as the leader of the expedition, he gets the credit ahead of the other crew on the Norge).

And Umberto Nobile, who, as 'Chief Airship Engineer' on the Norge, should have shared the credit for reaching the Pole. Instead, Nobile got a crapload of blame and ignominy when his own follow-up Arctic expedition met with disaster (and when Amundsen died trying to rescue Nobile's stranded crew).

Three well-told interconnected tales from the twilight of the Age of Heroic Exploration.

[rtpoe]

ALIEN CLAY by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Kiln is the only planet found so far with complex, macroscopic life on it. Not only large life forms, but signs of intelligence and civilization - at least at some point in the past. This is a huge problem for the government of Earth, since they're a quasi-theocratic dictatorship that follows the "anthropic principle" - humans are here, so the universe must have been created specifically to support them. It's up to the researchers on Kiln to come up with a way to fit that planet into their beliefs - or else.

Biologist Arton Daghdev is one of the unlucky 'political prisoners' sent to Kiln as punishment. Can he survive there long enough to find the answers?

It's a very well-written novel, and you really can't avoid the strong connections to current politics. The mystery of life on Kiln is both interesting and just plausible enough to maybe actually work - at least it's shown to make sense in context.

And yes, Professor Daghdev does figure things out - whether or not he upends the regime back on Earth isn't stated, but it is strongly hinted that a revolution (in more ways than one) is on the horizon.

[rtpoe]

THE RIDE: Paul Revere and the Night that Saved America
by Kostya Kennedy

Well, I don't know if it actually did save America, but Revere's warnings were a vital moment in the start of the Revolutionary War.

(As an aside, I find it odd that there's almost nothing happening about celebrating the US's upcoming 250th birthday..... I have Some Thoughts, but those would be for another thread.)

Let's be clear about one thing. The popular image of Revere racing along, shouting "The British are coming!" breaks down on even the most cursory examination. In addition to the fact that there were plenty of Loyalists in the area, who would be more than happy to stop Revere, the area was well covered by British patrols and scouts. He would NOT be announcing his presence that openly.

Kennedy digs deep into the background to make an incredibly fascinating narrative about the night before the Battles of Lexington and Concord. No stone is left unturned.

Who was William Dawes, the rebels' "backup" rider that night?

Who was General Thomas Gage, the British commander in Boston?

Who put the signal lanterns in the Old North Church?

Who tipped off the rebels that the army was on the move?

And why was Revere chosen for the mission anyway?

[rtpoe]

World War Zoos: Humans and Other Animals in the Deadliest Conflict of the Modern Era by John M. Kinder

Zoos are problematic, to put it mildly. But their problems take on a whole different - and more urgent - nature during wartime. Kinder digs deep into the history of zoos in WWII - starting from the gift of a pair of giant pandas from China to the US in the 1930s (as an attempt to get the US to help them against the Japanese invasion)  all the way to the post-war rebuilding and "restocking" of zoos - to illuminate the many problems and quandaries faced by zoos in war zones.

It's not a pleasant read by any means. Even at the distance of decades, no one wants to deal with questions like "Which animals should we kill because they MIGHT be a danger if they got out during a bombing raid?" But it still challenges you to think about them.

Worth a read, even if for the historical trivia, like the little wildlife collection the Japanese "internees" made for their own relaxation and amusement at Heart Mountain (and other camps).

[rtpoe]

Destroyer of Worlds
The Deep History of the Nuclear Age
Frank Close

You know all about the Manhattan Project, right? And at least some of the early post-war tests leading up to the hydrogen bomb.

Close, a nuclear physicist, doesn't bother with any of that. instead, he tells the story of the SCIENCE behind The Bomb, from William Crookes, Henri Becquerel, and Wilhelm Rontgen discovering weird invisible radiation all the way through Ulam and Teller and Kurchatov and Sakharov developing a fusion bomb.

He follows all the experiments and missteps and confusion along the way, as scientists figure out that isotopes aren't really separate elements, there are different *kinds* of radiation, the urgency to get as many experiments done as possible before you need to submit your results for publication.... And he does it without overwhelming the reader with scientific minutiae. It's more about the people than the physics.

[rtpoe]

Neptune's Fortune: The Billion-Dollar Shipwreck and the Ghosts of the Spanish Empire
by Julian Sancton

Raised in Cuba (his parents - an American father and Cuban mother - moved him there just in time to have a front row seat at the revolution), Roger Dooley soon developed a passion for swimming and diving. He spent countless hours exploring the many reefs and shipwrecks around the Cuban coast. While researching the wrecks he came across, he found a reference to the San José, the last of the great Spanish treasure ships, which sank in a battle off the coast of Colombia.

Finding that wreck would become his life's goal.

Over the years, his reasons changed with the times - from pure treasure hunting to historical preservation (and maybe just some fame (OK, and maybe just a little of the treasure) for finding it).

But when he did find it, politics and legal fights kept him from enjoying the fruits of his labors.

I'm all for historical preservation and against plunder, but when a ship goes down with thousands of gold coins all minted in the same place at the same time, as well as hundreds of "off-the-books" gold bars and trinkets that the crew were smuggling home, surely History and Archaeology and Art can allow a 'finder's fee' to the guy who led the team that uncovered the wreck? Sonar equipment and underwater robotic cameras don't come cheap, you know. And it's not like anyone's Ministry of Culture was looking for it....

Mostly a biography of Dooley, it also covers the history of underwater treasure hunting, and the story of the San José's last voyage.

(By the way, since the book went to press, Colombia has begun recovering artifacts from the wreck. And virtually none of the news coverage mentions Dooley.....)

Samuel Scott, "Wager’s Action Off Cartagena, 28 May 1708" (C. 1743–47) - depicting that moment when an explosion ravaged the bow of the San José, sealing its fate:

[rtpoe]

Sound familiar?

* Fringe parties and factions refuse to compromise on anything, who pull their support from the majority Center Left coalition, thereby denying them a strong enough majority to counter their mutual opposition on the Far Right.

* Oligarchs, afraid of what the leftist policies will do to their fortunes, pressuring the Centrist gov't to move to the right.

* An aging holdover from a previous gov't chosen to be the leader who, while more than capable of serving, is too set in his ways to act forcefully against the threat from the Far Right.

* No one bothering to pay attention when the Far Right is showing what they intend to do once in charge.

Most histories of Germany in the 1920s look at Hitler's rise to power. But in Fateful Hours: The Collapse of the Weimar Republic, award-winning historian Volker Ullrich looks at the history of the Weimar Republic, and how it bungled pretty much every chance to stop the Nazis.

It isn't *specifically* about El Presidente and the US, but it's really damned hard not to see the parallels. Of course, these aren't the only weaknesses he mentions - just the ones I felt like pointing out. Ullrich really wants us to see just how easily a democracy can slide into fascism.

And it's far too easy when you're not willing to defend it.

[wolpertinger]

Sound familiar?

* Fringe parties and factions refuse to compromise on anything, who pull their support from the majority Center Left coalition, thereby denying them a strong enough majority to counter their mutual opposition on the Far Right.

* Oligarchs, afraid of what the leftist policies will do to their fortunes, pressuring the Centrist gov't to move to the right.

* An aging holdover from a previous gov't chosen to be the leader who, while more than capable of serving, is too set in his ways to act forcefully against the threat from the Far Right.

* No one bothering to pay attention when the Far Right is showing what they intend to do once in charge.

Most histories of Germany in the 1920s look at Hitler's rise to power. But in Fateful Hours: The Collapse of the Weimar Republic, award-winning historian Volker Ullrich looks at the history of the Weimar Republic, and how it bungled pretty much every chance to stop the Nazis.

It isn't *specifically* about El Presidente and the US, but it's really damned hard not to see the parallels. Of course, these aren't the only weaknesses he mentions - just the ones I felt like pointing out. Ullrich really wants us to see just how easily a democracy can slide into fascism.

And it's far too easy when you're not willing to defend it.

1st: many thanks for your post, which brought this book into my view at all.

I'd be interested however how you would regard this (too?) critical review

[rtpoe]

Ever wonder how dictionaries get made? Kory Stamper, who's worked on them for over 30 years, knows the scoop. In True Colors: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color - from Azure to Zinc Pink, she uses the difficulties involved in coming up with proper definitions for colors to tell that story.

There's dealing with contributors and experts who don't respond often enough to editors trying to meet deadlines, not go over budget, AND keep the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (Third Edition) from getting too massive to be published at a price (and size) that would stop sales dead.

And that's ON TOP of the problems with definitions. Sure, we all know that 'mauve' is a shade of purple. But when you're writing the Formal, Official Definition, is it a light purple, medium purple, or dark purple? Does it shade more towards blue or red? Is it vivid and bright, or dull and grayish? How does it compare to other purple shades? Where does it sit in the Munsell Color Solid - and should you include a color image of one of those things so users will know WTF you're talking about? If a designer comes out with a shade they're calling "Imperial Mauve", do you have to define that as well?

Really fascinating, if you love words - or color.