What book are you reading?

Sounds like Joel Kotkin's The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. Scary, creepy, accurate, factual, meticulously researched...

I'm gonna have to put your book on my list of "Books I Don't Want to Read but Have to Read".

 

I agree. For me, Grant's Vicksburg campaign is the preeminent masterpiece of generalship in the war, and his overall leadership was unmatched by any general on either side. I have come to the view that Lee was the last representative of an earlier type of general, while Grant (and W.T. Sherman) pointed the way to the 20th century.

 

I agree, and I think that primarily has to do with Lee being a completely different man who came from a completely different world than Grant and Sherman did. On the other hand, what I have come to appreciate over the years is not so much the differences between Grant and Lee but the remarkable similarities between the two. As far as their military education and service were concerned they shared a common background, and in battle they were both extremely bold and aggressive generals who put a premium on maneuver. Given the choice between offense and defense, neither one of them hesitated to take the initiative and dictate the battle to the enemy. In some respects it's as if they came from different planets, but in others they were almost mirror images of one another, and not only could you see that on the battlefield you could see it in their famous meeting in Wilmer McLean's parlor at Appomattox Court House.

 

Right now I’m reading, not a book, but a Georgia State Univ History Department thesis on General James Longstreet. I consider Longstreet to be the best Corp Commander on either side during the American Civil War. He’s always praised for his battlefield brilliance using tactical defense, but he was also had an uncanny sense of when to counterattack

https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1124&context=history_theses
THE CONFEDERACY’S “HARDEST HITTER”: REEVALUATING JAMES LONGSTREET’S CIVIL WAR RECORD ON THE TACTICAL OFFENSIVE

Shortly after the Civil War, John Bell Hood, a subordinate commander in James Longstreet’s 1st Corps throughout much of the conflict, summed up his estimation of his former chief. “Of all the men living,” he remarked, “not excepting our incomparable [Robert E.] Lee himself, I would rather follow James Longstreet... He was our hardest hitter.” Significantly, Hood was referring not to defensive tactical operations, for which Longstreet is now most famous, but to offensive ones. This thesis seeks to rectify the common perception among professional historians, students of the Civil War, and Civil War hobbyists that Longstreet thrived primarily on the defensive. I argue that a full appreciation Longstreet’s role as a wing/corps commander in the Civil War requires a heightened focus on the battles in which he launched his most devastating attacks. This thesis will reposition Longstreet in the historiography by examining the tactics he employed and the scope of his achievements in four of the largest assaults he coordinated and executed during the war: ones at Second Manassas on August 30, 1862; at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863; at Chickamauga on September 20, 1863; and at the Wilderness on May 6, 1864. Tracing these assaults reveals the magnitude to which Longstreet’s conception of offensive tactics evolved as the war progressed. Contrary to the verdict of much of the historiography, Longstreet was the most successful subordinate commander on either side in terms of offensive tactical innovation and launching large-scale assaults.

 

Recently finished reading this book about the English Levellers (not to be confused with the Diggers) who are considered by many, including myself, to be the first republican movement in the West. These are modernized versions of the original pamphlets and petitions written by John Lilburne, Richard Overton, William Walwyn and Thomas Prince during the English Civil War period and include their most famous tract An Agreement of the People (link below), which was groundbreaking for its time. The book also included the records from the Putney Debates where the civilian Levellers and their counterparts in the New Model Army argued for the establishment of a republican conditional order in post-civil war England. Editor Andrew Sharp's introduction provides the background of the times and events surrounding the Levellers and their work:



While this article is about Richard Overton, it provides an excellent overview of the Levellers and what they stood for:

"Come What, Come Will!" Richard Overton, Libertarian Leveller
https://mises.org/library/come-what-come-will-richard-overton-libertarian-leveller

Additional info:

The Levellers
http://bcw-project.org/church-and-s... Lilburne, Richard Overton and William Walwyn.

An Agreement of the People
http://bcw-project.org/church-and-state/second-civil-war/agreement-of-the-people

 

"Never", Ken Follet, audio book.

 

And now I'm finishing up this fascinating little book about everyday life in 17th Century America:

 

"The Vanishing Conscience" by John MacArthur and "The Somebodies" by N. E. Bode (middle school age book).

 

Putinomics, Chris Miller

 

Rereading "For Whom the Bell Tolls

 

That matches with what I've read.

 

This is a silly question, but have you read Killer Angels? Technically, it's historical fiction, but it's in a league of it's own. Absolutely terrific book.

 

Yes, I have read Killer Angels. Loved it, it's a wonderful read.

 

Finishing this book up now and reading about Henry's opposition to the ratification of the Constitution and the federal government he would be horrified to behold today.

Folks who live in Virginia will probably find this book more interesting than others since it also portrays life in the Old Dominion back when it was part of the so-called First Frontier. Today, it's hard to imagine that much of Central Virginia in the 18th Century stood at the edge of a vast wilderness....

 

Most of the South was opposed; and for good reason. But the inner circle was worried about getting smushed without the East. After all the Brits did come back.

Some historians refer to them as the 'Virginia Mafia'. They set things up so that they keep a measure of control, until the economy of the East Coast exploded, and their commanding position slipped away.

In the decades before the Civil War, the country changed dramatically. We started becoming capitalist, and that would have eventually killed most slavery, with or without a Civil War.

https://www.amazon.com/What-Hath-God-Wrought-Transformation/dp/0195392434/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3N223I6HL60ZG&keywords=what+hath+god+wrought&qid=1655489595&s=books&sprefix=what+hath+god+wrought,stripbooks,93&sr=1-1

 

That was Lincoln's anticipation. In fact, it was the understanding of almost all who were opposed to slavery at the time: keep it out of the territories and let it die it's natural death. Lincoln had to travel to the northeast and give a speech in Cooper Union Hall in NYC in order to get support from the NY delegation in order to nail down the Republican nomination in 1860. I've been to that hall for speeches, wish I could have heard Lincoln but he was a little before my time.

 

Right now I'm reading Go Set a Watchman written by Harper Lee. It's a story of Jean Louise Finch as an adult returning to Maycomb, Alabama have living for years in New York City. I was ready to not like this novel, I felt it couldn't possibly live up to her first novel To Kill a Mockingbird, but instead I like it vary much. I can relate to the story line of growing up in a rural small town think as a child it was a paradise and everyone was decent and loving. Only to return years later to find the underlying small town petty mindset and racist attitudes.

America is on a journey, always has been, and sometimes we reminded there have been ugly happenings along the way.

​

 

Just finished reading the Book Of Mormon, which is about a family who God led from Jerusalem to the America's in 600 BC. Once here, they divide according to those who keep God in remembrance, and those who don't. What follows is a thousand years of repetitive rise and fall, of horrible wars and exquisite peace. It is a very religious book and is central to the LDS faith. If believed, it is a historical journal, kept, added to, and passed to others by a number of different people over the course of those thousand years, and abridged by a man named Mormon who was a Prophet and military leader around 385 AD. His Son Moroni sealed up and buried the records on gold plates, which according to testimony was delivered to Joseph Smith in about 1827 by the Angel Moroni, now exalted. LDS believe that Moroni is the Angel spoken of by John in the Book of Revelation who he saw fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel, to come about during the times of Gods judgments. The Book of Mormon is considered by members to be another testimony of Jesus Christ to be used in tandem with the Bible in these latter days. This is why their Church is named the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

 

Do you think Harper Lee wrote it, or Truman Capote?
Very different in style from To Kill a Mockingbird (which is one of my favourite books)?

 

I think she wrote it, but it's hard to ignore Truman Capote's influence on her.

 

Yes, I agree. Some very “female” sounding stuff in Watchmen and it’s hard to see a man writing it.

 

I’ve recently bought from the local library, during one of its’ cullings, Alistair Cooke’s ‘America’.
Such an enjoyable writer and very knowledgeable.

 

Danubia by Simon Winder. An idiosyncratic survey of the history of Habsburg Europe.

 

I don't read so well. I'm a very slow reader, but when I do read, I enjoy reading some very rare and few writers of Philosophy, and or poetry. I have a book from Robert Frost.

 

The Despot's Apprentice by Brian Klaas,
quite a good read.