Books!

 One of the joys of retirement is more time to read books. I always was a bookworm so this is nothing new for me. I still try to keep up with medicine, especially infectious diseases, but the lure of other reading is always there. I wanted to jot down a few recent ones I have read for fun.

After the Ivory Tower Falls: How College Broke the American Dream and Blew Up Our Politics—and How to Fix It by Will Bunch was most interesting. Bunch is a Pulitzer Prize winning Philadelphia journalist who explores how we came to believe that the ultimate goal for everyone should be a college diploma. He traces it to the G.I. Bill of 1944 and articulates well how this idea was transmuted over time and became a dividing point in our society. It was interesting to me that Kutztown University occupied one chapter since I began my college education there in the mid-60s. He ends with some interesting ideas about how we can fix this. Universal public service after high school features prominently there.

 

Europe: A Natural History by Tim Flannery is a tour de force of natural history in Europe from the time in the way distant past when Europe was an archipelago in the ancient Tethys Sea. For those of us who are worried about climate change, the good news is that life survived massive climate changes in the past. It’s just that our species may not survive the current Anthropocene as well. Still, a fascinating read and lots of food for thought. Did you know the Mediterranean Sea once totally evaporated and is today underlain with huge salt deposits?

 

Witches of Pennsylvania: Occult History and Lore by Thomas White was just a fun read I sandwiched in between more serious works. It really is about folk healing and the underlying misogyny that has existed for ages. Women, especially older women, were regarded as powerful healers but that power also caused fear. It becomes clear that the Quaker William Penn helped mold a different approach to witchcraft than his contemporary Puritan counterparts in New England.

 

American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis by Adam Hochschild is the one book in this group I recommend reading to all who worry about the political and social divides confronting the United States today. It covers the time between American entry into World War I to the start of the Warren Harding administration in 1921. In history class in high school, we sped through this time with the standard idea that Wilson was a great man who pledged the U.S. to save democracy. Wilson was a flawed human at best. Very intelligent (the only President to hold a Ph.D.), he also followed his own drummer exclusively. A racist and a segregationist, Hochschild shows his many flaws. We are taught about American greatness and fairness as youngsters. Time to debunk this. The politics and paranoia of these 4 years match what we have so recently seen. Definitely a good read and a book to ponder.

 

Nimitz at War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay by Craig Symonds is not really a biography of Nimitz; the book focuses on how his style of leadership made all the difference in the war in the Pacific. Nimitz was the anti-MacArthur, the man who conducted the orchestra without putting himself out front for adulation every single day. I have read extensively about World War II and know the basic outline here. The Pacific Fleet was decimated on December 7, 1941. Nimitz was selected to put it all back together. He had to deal with the wreck of Pearl Harbor, a Chief of Naval Operations (ADM Ernest King) who was a walking SOB but fought to make sure the Pacific was not a forgotten theater of war, subordinate commanders who variously came unglued, were reckless but winners(Halsey), were disparaged but winners (Spruance), and a Navy bureaucracy that too often obstructed progress. Symonds is Professor Emeritus at the U.S. Naval Academy and was the Distinguished Visiting Ernest J. King Professor at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He has written many other wonderful books. Nimitz was the necessary factor to win the war in the Pacific. 

 

OK, enough for now. I have several other books in progress for a later report. Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving. Keep reading.