These are the books I was able to read this year; I wanted to better my book tally from last year, but only got through 10 - in no small part because the first book I read in 2019, The Vanquished, why the First World War Failed to End, by Robert Gerwarth took me three full months to get through (more on this later). I did, however, make it a goal to include more fiction and I was successful in that, reading four fiction books last year (admittedly one is historical fiction). A little summary of each is below:
The Vanquished - Why the First World War Failed to End, by Robert Gerwarth - A meaty, highly dense analysis and exploration of the period between the First and Second World Wars, The Vanquished makes the case that the the war never stopped, that WW1 and WW2 were part of one overarching conflict. Growing and violent nationalism marked the inter-war period, in particular in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, which formerly held together diverse populations under a single rule. Unrest also carried on across Europe, with decision making by the victorious Allies exacerbating the situation (including the well-documented terms imposed by the Treaty of Versailles on Germany). As I mentioned, it took me three months to get through so if you’re a history nerd you might like it. Otherwise I’d say you probably might want to pick something a little more digestible.
The View from Flyover Country, Dispatches from the Forgotten America, by Sarah Kendzior - In this collection of essays written from St. Louis, Kendzior expores the issues impacting middle America, highlighting the devastating socio-economic situation that led to how we got Donald Trump. Kendzior presents this in a series of highly personalized and emotional short stories, easily readable and highly informative; I strongly recommend this book. You might also want to give her podcast a try, Gaslit Nation, which she does with Andrea Chalupa, but full disclosure she is unsparing in her criticism of Trump and his authoritarian and racist tendencies.
The War Before the War - Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul, from the Revolution to the Civil War, by Andrew Delbanco - Given the political differences with slavery at the time of the nation’s founding, you might ask why the southern states chose to join in a union with the northern ones. The answer should be obvious, but it didn’t hit me until I read this book - the reason is that without a political union with the North, there would be no legal recourse for Southern states to demand the return of slaves who escaped to the North. This is the origin of the “Fugitive Slave Clause”, or Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution. Delbanco sets out in great detail the struggles that occurred over this and the expansion of slavery into new territories. This is a deep and insightful exploration of our nation’s origins, and is helpful in understanding how the United States arrived at our current polticial discourse today.
L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s most Seductive City, by John Buntin - This is non-fiction storytelling at some of its best; Buntin brings us into the intersecting world of the mob and the LAPD, and how one of the LAPD’s most famous chiefs, William Parker, came to work against one of the most famous L.A. mobsters, Mickey Cohen; Bugsy Siegel and other mobsters also make an appearance. Buntin is pretty candid about the whole of Chief Parker; while he did fight mob corruption, he was woefully lacking in his ability to manage race relations in L.A., including his being LAPD chief during the 1965 Watts riots. His antagonistic relationship with Tom Bradley (who would become L.A.’s first and only black mayor, and also L.A.’s longest-serving mayor) and supportive relationship with Daryl Gates (LAPD chief during the 1992 riots) is quite informative. Weirdly enough, I didn’t know until this book that Gene Roddenberry was his speechwriter for a time! If you’re interested in some interesting history about Los Angeles, I think you’ll really like this book.
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles - I’m not entirely sure why I bought this book, but boy am I glad I did. The story revolves around Count Alexander Rostov, a young aristocrat from Czarist Russia, who a few years after the Bolshevik revolution is placed under house arrest at one of Moscow’s finest hotels, the Metropol. He isn’t killed by the Bolsheviks due to his being credited with writing a poem in 1905 that helped inspire the revolution in 1917. Towles weaves an enchanting tale of the window of Rostov’s entire life being much wider than he expected, with rich characters and storylines that held my attention from start to finish. I can’t recommend this book enough.
Artemis by Andy Weir - This book had been sitting on my kindle app for what seemed forever, but I finally dove in. Artemis is set on a moon colony, and our heroine is a young woman of Saudi ancestry named Jazz who was born on the moon - a local. She is a hustler, trying to make her way in an expensive, and while not lawless, a society that lives a bit on the edge (not unexpectedly for a moon colony). Artemis becomes an exciting murder mystery, where Jazz must survive on her wits and street smarts. This is a fun book, and an easy read.
John Marshall, by Richard Brookhiser - I try to pick my books carefully, so I don’t often come across one I consider a dud. Unfortunately this one was - I felt like Brookhiser was engaging in a bit of Marshall-worship, minimizing his faults (including barely mentioning Marshall’s status as an enslaver as well as his upholding the chattel property rights of slavers), and instead focusing on Marshall’s impact on judicial review as well as generally being supportive of Federalist initiatives long after the Federalist party went the way of the dodo. I would not recommend this book.
Zucked by Roger McNamee - If you want to have a sense of the disconnect beween how Facebook views itself and how the rest of the world sees the impact of Facebook, look no further than this book. McNamee pulls no punches on how Facebook makes its decisions, and goes into detail about how and why anger, fake news and conflict all contribute to Facebook’s financial success. We get a close look at the key players at Facebook, in particular Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. Very interesting and well written.
Blowout by Rachel Maddow - I am a huge fan of Maddow’s prior work Drift, which explores how America became disconnected with its military, so I was excited to read Blowout. It does not dissapoint; Maddow explores the corruption endemic to the fossil fuel extraction industry, from Rex Tillerson’s cozy relationship with Putin to major frackers getting lawmakers to ignore fracking initiating unprecedented earthquakes in Oklahoma and elsewhere. Of note, some of the players in the current Ukraine scandal, including Dmitry Firtash, make an appearance in this book. As with Drift, this is Rhodes Scholar Rachel Maddow, not MSNBC Rachel Maddow, and this is worth reading.
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead - a worthy follow-up to Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, The Nickel Boys is set in a so-called “reform” school for boys in the Jim Crow era, based on an actual school in Florida called the Dozier School for Boys. In the book the school is named the Nickel Academy, and the survivors are known as Nickel Boys. Dozens of boys were tortured and killed, both in real life and in the book. As with Underground Railroad, Whitehead creates a compelling historical narrative that exposes some of the worst chapters in American history, which are often overlooked both in school and society writ-large. Whitehead is one of the great modern authors of our time, with a unique ability to help those of us who can’t walk in the shoes of the African American experience gain at least some understanding of the full impact of American history on today’s modern life. I don’t often get didactic about novels, but you should read this book, as well as The Underground Railroad.
