Panama Fever: The Epic Story of the Building of the Panama Canal by Matthew Parker - 2007 - 442 Pages

 

Panama Fever: The Epic Story of the Building of the Panama Canal by Matthew Parker - 2007 - 442 Pages 

Seven years ago, in consultation with Max u, it was decided every December there should be a post in Observation of the Birth Anniversary of our father, born on December 2, 1918 in a small then very undeveloped tiny town in south Georgia, Cairo.

Our Father served four years in the United States Army during World War Two.  He was a junior officer serving under General Douglas MacArthur.  He was stationed in New Guinea and shortly after the war in the Philippines.  For the initial observation in December of 2018 I posted on a wonderful book, Rampage MacArthur, Yamashita and The Battle of Manila by James M. Scott .  Shortly after I posted, the author, a great speaker, did a book tour in Manila.  My wife and I attended one of his talks. Afterwards we had a lovely conversation with Mr. Scott.

In 2024 I came upon a perfect book for the annual birthday observation, War at the End of the World: Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight For New Guinea, 1942-1945 Book by James P Duffy.  

In 1937 our father was stationed in Panama. Panama Fever: The Epic Story of the Building of the Panama Canal by Matthew Parker is my selection for 2024

The Panama Canal was the costliest undertaking in history; its completion in 1914 marked the beginning of the “American Century.” Panama Fever draws on contemporary accounts, bringing the experience of those who built the canal vividly to life. Politicians engaged in high-stakes diplomacy in order to influence its construction. Meanwhile, engineers and workers from around the world rushed to take advantage of high wages and the chance to be a part of history. Filled with remarkable characters, Panama Fever is an epic history that shows how a small, fiercely contested strip of land made the world a smaller place and launched the era of American domination.

"Matthew was born in El Salvador in 1970 to an expatriate family and while growing up lived in Britain, Norway and Barbados. He read English at Balliol College Oxford, then worked in a number of roles in book publishing in London from salesman to commissioning editor.

His first book, published in 2000, was about the Battle of Britain. Then followed Monte Cassino, Panama Fever (Hell’s Gorge in UK paperback), The Sugar Barons, Goldeneye and Willoughbyland. His most recent book, published on 28 September, tells the story of 29 September 1923, a hundred years ago, when the British Empire reached its maximum territorial extent.

When not writing/staring out of the window, he loves making sushi, pubs, growing stuff and visiting remote places.

He is a member of the Authors Cricket Club, and wrote a chapter of A Season of English Cricket from Hackney to Hambledon. He is also a contributor to the  Oxford Companion to Sweets.

He has been elected a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and lives in East London with his wife, three children and an annoying dog." From the author's website

The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City by Scott D. Seligman - 2020- 277 Pages

 The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City by Scott D. Seligman - 2020- 277 Pages

2020 National Jewish Book Award Finalist

The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902 tells the twin stories of mostly uneducated women immigrants who discovered their collective consumer power and of the Beef Trust, the midwestern cartel that conspired to keep meat prices high despite efforts by the U.S. government to curtail its nefarious practices. 

With few resources and little experience but steely determination, this group of women organized themselves into a potent fighting force and, in their first foray into the political arena in their adopted country, successfully challenged powerful, vested corporate interests.

Keeping a Kosher household was a prime duty of Jewish housewives in New York City.  Most were immigrants from Russia or Poland but some were born in America.  The custom was the husband supported the family and the wife ran the household.  

Seligman goes into very welcome details about the women.  They were tough , smart and not afraid of the police and hired thugs

In the early  hours of May 15, 1902, three thousand Jewish women quietly took up positions on the streets of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Convinced by the latest jump in the price of kosher meat that they were being gouged, they assembled in squads of five, intent on shutting down every kosher butcher shop in New York's Jewish quarter.

What was conceived as a nonviolent effort did not remain so for long. Customers who crossed the picket lines were heckled and assaulted and their parcels of meat hurled into the gutters. Butchers who remained open were attacked, their windows smashed, stock ruined, equipment destroyed. Brutal blows from police nightsticks sent women to local hospitals and to court. But soon Jewish housewives throughout the area took to the streets in solidarity, while the butchers either shut their doors or had their doors shut for them. The newspapers called it a modern Jewish Boston Tea .

Seligman throughly explains the processes by which Beef can be certified as Kosher.  I knew nothing about the way midwestern raised cattle passed through Chicago on the way to New York City, The process was controlled by six companies know as The Beef Trust.  The secretly set prices and demanded kick backs in collusion with the railroads,  Butchers, Kosher and Gentile, had to pay their price.  Butchers depended on short term credit, they would buy on credit then repay after making sales. If they resisted the Beef Trust their credit needs were denied.

Scott D. Seligman is a writer and historian. He is the national award-winning author of several books, including A Second Reckoning: Race, Injustice, and the Last Hanging in Annapolis (Potomac, 2021) and Murder in Manchuria: The True Story of a Jewish Virtuoso, Russian Fascists, a French Diplomat and a Japanese Spy in Occupied China (Potomac, 2023).

Florida Founder William P. Duval: Frontier Bon Vivant by James Denham- 2015

 A post in honour of the birth anniversary of 

 our Mother- No finer Floridian ever lived. She was born in High Springs, Florida on January 3, 1916.

In observation of the birth anniversary of my Brother and I, in January I  post on a quality work on Florida History. Florida Founder William P. Duval: Frontier Bon Viviant by James M. Denham is a very suitable work.

Florida Timeline

8000 BC - First Native American settlement, near Sarasota

1000 AD - there are nine distinct tribes 

1500 - estimated population of the state was 375,000- 150,000 speak Timuca

April 2, 1513 - Ponce de Leon lands somewhere between Melbourne and Jacksonville. In time the indigenous population will be reduced to near zero, from disease and warfare. 

1521 - first colony, from Spain, near St. Augustine

1579 - The cultivation of oranges, introduced from Spain begins. By 1835 millions of oranges were being shipped north and to Europe, for the next hundred years oranges, cattle and timber were the major sources of cash

1624 - First African American born in Florida, in St. Augustine

1763 to 1765- England Owns west Florida panhandle area

Based on research my research as well as by others in the family and history, I conjecture my maternal ancestors first entered Florida, coming from. Georgia where they arrived around 1650, about 1800

1808 - importation of slaves into USA is banned, a very large trade in slaves smuggled in from Cuba begins 

1821 - USA acquired Florida from Spain.  

1822 - Tallahassee is chosen as the territory capital, being half way between the then major population centers of St. Augustine and Pensacola

1835 Second Seminole War begins, by 1842 most Seminoles were shipped west but some escaped into the Everglades.  

The make up of the Seminoles was largely not Native originally to Florida but a mixture of escaped slaves and Creeks from Georgia and South Carolina.

March 3, 1845 - Florida becomes a state, slavery legal.

1859 - by the end of the third Seminole War the around four hundred survivors retreat to the Everglades

Population of Florida 1861. - 154,494 - 92,741 Free, 61,75 enslaved

January 10, 1861 Florida suceeds from The Union. Per capita, Florida sent The most men into war, 15000. It was then the least populated southern state.

In January 2019, in consultation with Max u, it was decided every January there would be a post about a book in tribute to our Mother. Our mother was born in a very small town in northern Florida, High Springs on January 3, 1920

An ancestor started the first public library in the central Florida era in 1820.. I speculate our ancestors probably entered Florida about 1790.A knowledge of history indicates our prior maternal ancestors came to the USA from the UK in the 1600s,possibly in part as bound servants. Somehow they wound up in South Georgia. After the American Revolution people from that area began to enter then Spanish Florida, which the USA acquired on February 22, 1819 from Spain.

The colonies of East Florida and West Florida remained loyal to the British during the war for American independence, but by the Treaty of Paris in 1783 they returned to Spanish control. After 1783, Americans immigrants moved into West Florida.

In 1810 American settlers in West Florida rebelled, declaring independence from Spain. President James Madison and Congress used the incident to claim the region, knowing full well that the Spanish government was seriously weakened by Napoleon’s invasion of Spain. The United States asserted that the portion of West Florida from the Mississippi to the Perdido rivers was part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Negotiations over Florida began in earnest with the mission of Don Luis de Onís to Washington in 1815 to meet Secretary of State James Monroe. The issue was not resolved until Monroe was president and John Quincy Adams his Secretary of State. Although U.S. Spanish relations were strained over suspicions of American support for the independence struggles of Spanish-American colonies, the situation became critical when General Andrew Jackson seized the Spanish forts at Pensacola and St. Marks in his 1818 authorized raid against Seminoles and escaped slaves who were viewed as a threat to Georgia. Jackson executed two British citizens on charges of inciting the Indians and runaways. Monroe’s government seriously considered denouncing Jackson’s actions, but Adams defended the Jackson citing the necessity to restrain the Indians and escaped slaves since the Spanish failed to do so. Adams also sensed that Jackson’s Seminole campaign was popular with Americans and it strengthened his diplomatic hand with Spain.

Adams used the Jackson’s military action to present Spain with a demand to either control the inhabitants of East Florida or cede it to the United States. Minister Onís and Secretary Adams reached an agreement whereby Spain ceded East Florida to the United States and renounced all claim to West Florida. Spain received no compensation, but the United States agreed to assume liability for $5 million in damage done by American citizens who rebelled against Spain. Under the Onís-Adams Treaty of 1819 (also called the Transcontinental Treaty and ratified in 1821) the United States and Spain defined the western limits of the Louisiana Purchase and Spain surrendered its claims to the Pacific Northwest. In return, the United States recognized 

In Florida Founder William P. DuVal, James M. Denham provides the first full-length biography of the well-connected, but nearly forgotten frontier politician of antebellum America. The scion of a well-to-do Richmond, Virginia, family, William Pope DuVal (1784-1854) migrated to the Kentucky frontier as a youth in 1800. Settling in Bardstown, DuVal read law, served in Congress, and fought in the War of 1812.

In 1822, largely because of the influence of his lifelong friend John C. Calhoun, President James Monroe appointed DuVal the first civil governor of the newly acquired Territory of Florida. Enjoying successive appointments from the Adams and Jackson administrations, DuVal founded Tallahassee and presided over the territory's first twelve territorial legislative sessions, years that witnessed Middle Florida's development into one of the Old Southwest's most prosperous slave-based economies. Beginning with his personal confrontation with Miccosukee chief Neamathla in 1824 (an episode commemorated by Washington Irving), DuVal worked closely with Washington officials and oversaw the initial negotiations with the Seminoles.

A perennial political appointee, DuVal was closely linked to national and territorial politics in antebellum America. Like other "Calhounites" who supported Andrew Jackson's rise to the White House, DuVal became a casualty of the Peggy Eaton Affair and the Nullification Crisis. In fact he was replaced as Florida governor by Mrs. Eaton's husband, John Eaton. After leaving the governor's chair, DuVal migrated to Kentucky, lent his efforts to the cause of Texas Independence, and eventually returned to practice law and local politics in Florida. Throughout his career DuVal cultivated the arts of oratory and story-telling—skills essential to success in the courtrooms and free-for-all politics of the American South. Part frontiersman and part sophisticate, DuVal was at home in the wilds of Kentucky, Florida, Texas, and Washington City. He delighted in telling tall tales, jests, and anecdotes that epitomized America's expansive, democratic vistas. Among those captivated by DuVal's life and yarns were Washington Irving, who used DuVal's tall tales as inspiration for his "The Early Experiences of Ralph Ringwood," and James Kirke Paulding, whose "Nimrod Wildfire" shared Du Val's brashness and bonhommie." From The University of South Carolina Press

I highly recommend this marvelous book to any one with a serious interest in Florida History 

America Midnight- The Great War-A Violent Peace and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis by Adam Hochschild - 2022- 422 Pages

 Almost ten years ago I read Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost, about the horrible exploitation of the people of The Congo to advance the wealth of King Leopold of Belgium.

"If you are interested in Colonialism, the history of Africa, or have any romantic notions about European royalty, you need to read King  Leopold's Ghost. Queen Victoria was a cousin of Leopold

This is a great book, both for how it is written and for the forgotten story it tells.  There is also a 2005 end note in which the author talks about  reaction to the book." From my post of November 11, 2012.

As soon as I got notice that his latest book, American Midnight- The Great War- A Violent Peace and America’s Forgotten Crisis was on sale as a Kindle for $2.95 I hit "buy now".

"National Bestseller • One of the year's most acclaimed works of nonfiction

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Chicago Tribune, Kirkus, New York Post, Fast Company

From legendary historian Adam Hochschild, a "masterly" (New York Times) reassessment of the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of American democracy were threatened by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration, and the rights of labor

The nation was on the brink. Mobs burned Black churches to the ground. Courts threw thousands of people into prison for opinions they voiced—in one notable case, only in private. Self-appointed vigilantes executed tens of thousands of citizens’ arrests. Some seventy-five newspapers and magazines were banned from the mail and forced to close. When the government stepped in, it was often to fan the flames." From the publisher 

It seems to many, including me, that America is now in a period of crisis threatening its tradition of democracy.  There is also a deep fear and paranoia toward immigrants. Anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise as is race based hatred.  Absurd Conspiracy theories abound, supported by leading politicians. Over half white Americans support a former president who plays on their fears, who threatened revenge on all who oppose him.  

In the period of the book newspapers now known as in opposition to the policies of trump and his acolytes such as The New York Times and the Washington Post supported the xenophobic policies of Wodrow Wilson. (Now there is a TV network devoted to spreading fears and racism)

They endorsed the imprisonment of all socialists and Union organisers, especially the much feared "Russian Jews" .

Hochschild goes into a lot of detail about president Wodrow Wilson, his role in WW One, the Versiles Treaty and his failed attempt to get the United States to join the League of  Nations.

This book is a warning.  Too many Americans want a return to these times.

Mel Ulm 

The Newspaper Axis: Six Bress Barons Who Enabled Hitler by Kathryn J. Olmstead - 2022 - 401 Pages

The Newspaper Axis: Six Bress Barons Who Enabled Hitler by Kathryn J. Olmstead is a very valuable highly interesting account of how powerful English and American Newspaper Publishers did all they could to keep England and America from entering what they saw as "continental entanglements" involving the ambitious of Adolf Hitler.

The Press Barons published articles praising Hitler for revitalising Germany, advocating appeasement and trivialising his Anti-Semitic rants. They insisted Hitler did not want a war even as Germany began to rearm in violation of the Versailes Treaty.  Some personally admired Hitler and were thrilled to meet him.

As World War II approached, the six most powerful media moguls in America and Britain tried to pressure their countries to ignore the fascist threat. The media empires of Robert McCormick, Joseph and Eleanor Patterson, and William Randolph Hearst spanned the United States, reaching tens of millions of Americans in print and over the airwaves with their isolationist views. Meanwhile in England, Lord Rothermere’s Daily Mail extolled Hitler’s leadership and Lord Beaverbrook’s Daily Express insisted that Britain had no interest in defending Hitler’s victims on the continent.

 

Kathryn S. Olmsted shows how these media titans worked in concert—including sharing editorial pieces and coordinating their responses to events—to influence public opinion in a right-wing populist direction, how they echoed fascist and anti-Semitic propaganda, and how they weakened and delayed both Britain’s and America’s response to Nazi aggression.

She does also feature how the press Barons began to alter their views once the war started.  They were from the start strong believers in white supremacy, hated Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. However Lord Beaverbrook went to work for Churchill to build up England's airforce and was highly dedicated and successful.  Even as America entered the war the American publishers tried to convince their readers, about 30 percent of Adults that Roosevelt was under the control of a world Jewish cabal and wanted to  become a dictator.

Olmstead tells us as authoritarian style leaders seek power there

 is a warning in her book. Press figures, TV News Networks seek above all profits and will pander to these leaders.

For bio data on Kathryn J. Olmstead check the website of the history department of the University of California at Davis

Mel Ulm

“A Wilderness of Destruction Confederate Guerrillas in East and South Florida by Zack C. Waters - May 2023 - Mercer University Press - 326 Pages

 August 17, 2023

“A Wilderness of Destruction Confederate Guerrillas in East and South Florida by Zack C. Waters - May 2023 - Mercer University Press - 326 Pages

I first learned about the history of the American Civil War in the 1960s in High School in Florida. We were taught a romantized view of the old south with little mention of slavery. We were taught to sing "I wish I Was in Dixieland" and to revere Confederate Generals. I developed an avid interest in the military aspects, especially the Confederate Navy, of the war. I have kept up this interest for fifty years.Frankly, until I read this fine book, I didn’t know much about Florida’s role in the Civil War except for the Battle of Olustee. For anyone like me who wants to know more about the state’s very important role in the conflict, I highly recommend this very readable book. Waters gives a very even handed, historical account of every aspect of his subject. Surely he provides all the details a non specialist should ever need, and still keep his tales interesting, and at times quite exciting.

I have visited many of the towns/sites discussed, such as Ft Myers, Ft Brooke, Ft Denaud, etc. – without fully appreciating their role in the Civil War. Years ago, I even canoed a portion of the Myakka River (south of what is now Sarasota). I had no idea I was following the same path of a union ship (boat?) the Rosalie, that accompanied a unit from Pennsylvania on a raiding party into the interior.

One section I particularly enjoyed was the battle for Tampa. Tampa was a significant importance, as it provided a harbor Confederate blockade runners. A certain Lt. Comm. Alexander Alderman Semmes was in partial command of the Union attack which included heavily armed union vessels . Most readers of a book such as this will recognize the name ‘Semmes’ from Adm. Raphael Semmes. Raphael, the cousin of the Alexander was the very famous Confderate raider who inflicted fear and havoc on Northern shipping for years on his raiders Sumter and Alabama. You will enjoy the lively, exciting tale of the evenly matched battle. You can almost hear the splashes of the Rebels and their famous Rebel Yell as they chased the Yankees back to heir boats. Overall it sounds like both sides had something be proud of from the battle.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the amazing detail Waters’ research revealed on the many skirmishes and minor battles throughout the state. He seems to have left no stone unturned, and I appreciated that very much. So the book is an easy recommend for other Florida heritage individuals for sure(like me),and all who have a serious interest in this part of American history. The book nicely fills the bill for Civil War history that’s quite a bit of the beaten track. It’s a ‘must have’ for all Civil War bookshelves. All libraries need this marvelous book.

"Modern historians have consistently treated Florida as a military backwater. Despite that assessment, Rebel guerrillas blocked repeated Union attempts to establish a stronghold in the Florida's interior. After the "abandonment" of Florida by the Confederate government, in early 1862, Gov. John Milton organized guerrilla units to protect the state's citizens. These irregular companies kept Union forces largely confined to a few coastal outposts (St. Augustine, Fernandina, and Ft. Myers), though the state's citizens suffered greatly from the depredations of Unionist units. After the Federals capture of Vicksburg, the South's only significant source of beef were the vast herds in Florida. It fell to the state's Rebel partisans to protect the state's interior, thereby keeping open routes for the delivery of longhorns to the South's major armies. Skirmishes and battles raged throughout Florida, but the flow of beef cattle halted only after Appomattox. This book should be of interest to those researching the Civil War and Florida history. Also, local historians studying cities such as Tampa, Jacksonville, or more rural areas, will find a wealth of information in this volume." From the Publisher 

Mercer University Press has published many titles of high quality 

https://www.mupress.org/

Mel Ulm

Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America's First Imperial Adventure by Julia Flynn Siler - 2012

 

Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America's First Imperial Adventure by Julia Flynn Siler - 2012

200 to 350 AD - Polynesian Settlers Arrive

1778  - arrival of British explorer Captain  James Cook was 

 the first documented contact by a European explorer with Hawaiʻi

1795, all inhabited islands were subjugated Under one ruler who established a dynasty that ruled the kingdom until 1872.

June 15, 1898 - Hawaii becomes a US Territory 

August 21, 1959 - Becomes a US State

An Autodidactic Corner Selection 

I am very glad I read this highly educational book.

If it has a flaw it would be in lacking an account of day to day governing of Hawaii before it was annexed by The USA.  I already knew sugar has caused imperial expansion and slavery so I was not surprised to learn 

the role owners of big sugar plantations played in the fall of the ancient monarchy of Hawaii.  

Siler goes into the settlement of Hawaii about 200 AD by Polynesians, pre-annex social customs, the disastour impact the arrival of Western Whaling ships had in terms of letting out plagues, rats, mosquitos had on indeginous populace.  She also details the attempts of Christian Missionaries to turn people away from tradition beliefs.  Many

 white settlerx saw 

the Hawaiians as savages, cannibals living a sexually promiscous Life Style.  Descendents of Missionarries, often with Hawain mothers, often became very wealthy.  Siler goes into a lot of detail on how this happened, including information on financial take over  of the royal Family.

Julia Flynn Siler is a New York Times best-selling author and journalist. Her latest book, The White Devil’s Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown, was a New York Times Book Review “Editors’ Choice” and a finalist for a California Book Award. She is also the author of the bestselling nonfiction books, Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial Adventure and the The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty.

As a veteran correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek magazine, Ms. Siler spent more than two decades in Europe and the United States, reporting from a dozen countries. She has covered fields as varied as biotechnology, cult wines, puppy breeding, and a princess’s quest to restore a Hawaiian palace’s lost treasures.

A graduate in American Studies at Brown University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Ms. Siler began her career as a staff correspondent for BusinessWeek, working in the magazine’s Los Angeles and Chicago bureaus. She wrote stories on everything from White Castle “sliders” to the roiling futures markets for the New York Times. By taking classes at night during that time, she earned an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. - from

https://juliaflynnsiler.com/biography/

I am respectfully republishing this post in observation of the tragedy in  Hawaii 

Mel Ulm 

How to Hide an Empire: a History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr.- 2019 - 517 Pages

How to hide an empire: a history of the greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr.- 2019 - 517 Pages

Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune

A Publishers Weekly best book of 2019 | A 2019 NPR Staff pick.

A pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire

This standard time line leaves itself open to the suggestion that the Philippines had no history prior to 1531.

• Spanish rule (1521–1898)

• American rule (1898–1946)

• Japanese occupation (1941–1946)

• Philippine self rule (1946–present)

Immerwahr book exposes the racist ideas inherent in not seeing any import to learning about the history of the Philippines before 1531.

"In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light. We travel to the Guano Islands, where prospectors collected one of the nineteenth century’s most valuable commodities, and the Philippines, site of the most destructive event on U.S. soil. In Puerto Rico, Immerwahr shows how U.S. doctors conducted grisly experiments they would never have conducted on the mainland and charts the emergence of independence fighters who would shoot up the U.S. Congress.

In the years after World War II, Immerwahr notes, the United States moved away from colonialism. Instead, it put innovations in electronics, transportation, and culture to use, devising a new sort of influence that did not require the control of colonies. Rich with absorbing vignettes, full of surprises, and driven by an original conception of what empire and globalization mean today, How to Hide an Empire is a major and compulsively readable work of history."

From the publisher 

I found this book of significant personal interest. Twenty years ago I moved from Florida to the Philippines. I began to learn the culture and the history. Everywhere fast food places with American pedigrees are ubiquitous. The dictator Ferdinand Marcos was propped up by the US. TV, movie and streaming services are dominated by American products. Without a very high proficiency in English, it is very hard to get a professional job.  

The USA bought the Philippines from Spain after it beat Spain in a war. They also got Puerto Rico, Guam and some very small islands. Immerwahr spends a lot of time detailing the 13 year waged by Philippino guerrillas and armies in a failed attempt to gain independence. The Americans killed not just fighters by women, children, even Infants. The American forces were much better equipped. Many of their officers were veterans of wars against Native Americans. When some later suggested statehood for the country the response of American politicians was no way was a non-whites dominated territory going to be allowed a state

When the US military prevailed in the Mexican-American War, in 1848, many in Congress wanted to annex all of Mexico. In the end, the victor limited its spoils to the most northerly, least populated areas (including the current states of California, Nevada, and Utah) —“all the territory of value that we can get without taking the people,” as one newspaper editorialized. Or as John C. Calhoun, the pro-slavery senator from South Carolina, put it: “We have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race.” 

The same objections were raised to western territories to Alaska and Hawawi for a long time.

Immerwahr goes into a lot of detail on Douglas MacArthur's long relationship with the Philippines including his return to lead the US attack on Japanese forces, his governing of the post war country and his absolute rule of Japan.

  The Philippines in particular suffered deeply. Expecting independence after the Spanish were vanquished, this archipelago of more than two thousand islands instead endured an American takeover that led to fourteen years of warfare, with more deaths than the Civil War, including the worst massacre by Americans in recorded history (the Battle of Bud Dajo, in which nearly one thousand Filipino Muslims were slaughtered). The country’s anguish, and American indifference to it, persisted into the mid-twentieth century: Immerwahr’s descriptions of how the Filipinos experienced World War II — caught between the Japanese occupiers and an American government much more focused on the war in Europe — are especially disturbing. 

Immerwahr devotes a lot of time to talking about Puerto Rica how has never been given the level of help as American states have been during natural disasters. Puerto Ricans were used as test subjects in medical tests without their knowledge.

I found Immerwahr's information on the Guano Islands fascinating as I had no prior knowledge of the extreme importance of these small uninhabited islands in the Pacific to American food production.

Immerwahr provides a very informative account of the latest phase of American empire — the post–World War II era. With decolonization sweeping Africa and Asia, the optics of the world’s triumphant democracy holding on to its possessions would have been abysmal. So the four largest territories all got decolonized in some fashion: in 1946 the Philippines received its independence; in 1952 Puerto Rico was granted what Immerwahr calls the “nebulous status” of commonwealth; and in 1959, Alaska and Hawaii became states. 

There is much more in this book. All with a serious interest in American history will be enthralled by this book.

Daniel Immerwahr is an associate professor of history at Northwestern University and the author of Thinking Small: The United States and the Lure of Community Development, which won the Organization of American Historians’ Merle Curti Intellectual History Award. He has written for Slate, n+1, and Dissent, among others.

Mel Ulm

 

The 1619 Project : A New Origin Story - created by Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times Magazine. - 2021 - 559 Pages

 

The 1619 Project : A New Origin Story - created by Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times Magazine. - 2021 - 559 Pages

If you are a student in a public high school or college in Florida, where I grew up, very few teachers would have the courage to assign this beautifully incredibly informative work about the experiences of enslaved Americans and their descendents, fearing this might lead to their termination. It has created a near hysterical reaction among so called "Conservatives" throughout America.  

I am very grateful to Nikole Hanah-Jones for the great care and effort that made this work possible.

The book is an expansion of a special edition of an issue of The New York Times Sunday Magazine. Here is an extract from the website of the New York Times

"This book, which is called “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story,” arrives amid a prolonged debate over the version of the project we published two years ago. That project made a bold claim, which remains the central idea of the book: that the moment in August 1619 when the first enslaved Africans arrived in the English colonies that would become the United States could, in a sense, be considered the country’s origin.

The reasoning behind this is simple: Enslavement is not marginal to the history of the United States; it is inextricable. So many of our traditions and institutions were shaped by slavery, and so many of our persistent racial inequalities stem from its enduring legacy. Identifying the start of such a vast and complex system is a somewhat symbolic act. It was not until the late 1600s that slavery became codified with new laws in various colonies that firmly established the institution’s racial basis and dehumanizing structure. But 1619 marks the earliest beginnings of what would become this system. (It also could be said to mark the earliest beginnings of what would become American democracy: In July of that year, just weeks before the White Lion arrived in Point Comfort with its human cargo, the Virginia General Assembly was called to order, the first elected legislative body in English America.)"

In her chapter "Democracy" Hannah-Jones details how the existence of slavery and the desire to perpetuate it for ever made the success of the American Revolution possible.  

"It was precisely because white colonists so well understood the degradations of actual slavery that the metaphor of slavery held so much power to consolidate their disparate interests: no matter a colonist’s politics, background, or class, by being white, he could never fall as low as the Black people who were held in bondage. As the scholar Patricia Bradley puts it in Slavery, Propaganda, and the American Revolution, “Once transposed into metaphor, slavery could serve to unite white colonists of whatever region under a banner of white exclusivity.”24 The decision to deploy slavery as a metaphor for white grievances had devastating consequences for those who were actually enslaved: it helped ensure that abolition would not become a revolutionary cause, Bradley argues. Instead, the true institution of slavery would endure for nearly a century after the Revolution."

"And yet none of this is part of our founding mythology, which conveniently omits the fact that one of the primary reasons some of the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery. They feared that liberation would enable an abused people to seek vengeance on their oppressors. In many parts of the South, Black people far outnumbered white people. The wealth and prominence that allowed Jefferson, at just thirty-three, and the other founding fathers to believe they could successfully break off from one of the mightiest empires in the world came in part from the dizzying profits generated by chattel slavery. So they also understood that abolition would have upended the economies of both the North and the South. The truth is that we might never have revolted against Britain if some of the founders had not understood that slavery empowered them to do so; nor if they had not believed that independence was required in order to ensure that the institution would continue unmolested. For this duplicity—claiming they were fighting for freedom while enslaving a fifth of the people—the Patriots faced burning criticism both at home and abroad"

If the British government had been totally pro-slavery and wealthy Americans felt secure with this there would never have been an American Revolution.

There are 18 chapters covering a wide range of topics. Accompanied in each topic are short stories and poems related to the topic. ZZ Parker has a story about a slave revolt in New Orleans and Honorée Fanonne Jeffers has a deeply moving poem on Phyllis Wheatley Peters.

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine and the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University. She is the founder of the Howard University Center for Journalism and Democracy, and the co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting. She reports on racial injustice and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2017 for her work on the persistence of racial segregation in the United States, particularly in schools. Her journalism has earned two George Polk Awards, a Peabody, three National Magazine Awards, and the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. In 2021, she was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

The Hulu series is excellent, and Nikole Hannah-Jones is featured in numerous YouTube presentations.

I read the book slowly over a period of about two months.

There are bios of each contributor. I have added several new to me books on my American history reading list as a result of this.

Mel Ulm

And There Was Light:Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meachem- 2022- 1268 pages

 And There Was Light:Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meachem- 2022- 1268 pages

"In life, Lincoln’s motives were moral as well as political—a reminder that our finest presidents are those committed to bringing a flawed nation closer to the light, a mission that requires an understanding that politics divorced from conscience is fatal to the American experiment in liberty under law. In years of peril he pointed the country toward a future that was superior to the past and to the present; in years of strife he held steady. Lincoln’s life shows us that progress can be made by fallible and fallen presidents and peoples—which, in a fallible and fallen world, should give us hope." - Jon Meachem 

Born - February 12,1809 - Hodgenville, Kentucy into a poor uneducated family 

November 4,1842- Marries Mary Todd

Served Four Terms as a Representative in The Illinois House of Representatives

March 4, 1847 to March 3, 1849- serves as a congressman from Illinois- in the Republican Party

Admitted in 1836 to the Illinois Bar

March 4, 1847 to March 3, 1849 - serves as Illinois Representative in U.S. Congress 

March 1, 1861- Begins his term as president of the United States- he ran on an anti-slavery platform which alarmed slave owners in the southern states.

December 20, 1860- South Carolina succeeds from the union

 By February 1, 1861 Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Texas have all succeeced 

February 9, 1861 -Jefferson Davis elected President of the Confederacy.

On April 12, 1861 -Confederate troops fire on Fort Sumter

April 12, 1861 to May 26, 1865- The American Civil War (sometimes called The War Between the States)--The number of soldiers who died between 1861 and 1865, generally estimated at 620,000, is approximately equal to the total of American fatalities in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, combined.

Assassinated: April 15, 1865, - Washington DC by John Wilkes Booth

This book is a masterpiece of historical biography. I wish all teachers of American history would be required to read this work.

Meachem shows us in detail the conditions of his upbringing. Lincoln had very little formal education but while in his early twenties he became an avid reader of Shakespeare, The King James Bible and then well known political treatises. American politics was divided into two camps, those who wanted the national government to abolish slavery and those who wanted the states to regulate this. Slaveholding states were made wealthy by Cotton plantations which required lots of enslaved workers to be profitable. Abolitionists cited the words of Thomas Jefferson to support their views:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"

On the other side slave holders quoted scriptures from the bible advising slaves to obey their masters.

Lincoln did strongly believe slavery should be ended. However, as Meachem documents clearly, he felt African descendants were intrinsically inferior to whites and he wanted freed slaves transported out of the country. Above all he wanted the Union to survive.

In his alternative history, The People's History of the United States Howard Zinn there is an account of the war for different from either the fantasies of Gone with the Wind or presentations of Lincoln as another Abraham.

"The participants in the American civil war on both sides fell for the drum beats of patriotism.  The wealthy could buy their way out of military service.  Southern soldiers come across as complete dupes, owning no slaves  or land but seeing it as their duty to die for those who did while wealthy slave owners set the war out.  Zinn details how after the south lost, laws were passed to keep ex-slaves in subjugation.  Poor whites were made to think they were superior to African Americans and did not understand that the elite cared nothing about them" from my post 

Meachem shows us the tribulations Lincoln went through during the war. He quotes extensively from some of his famous speeches. We learn of his at times tumultuous marriage and his wife's mental issues, his tremendous grief over the deaths of his sons.

The book is more than just a biography, it is a portrait of an era.

"Abraham Lincoln did not bring about heaven on earth. Yet he defended the possibilities of democracy and the pursuit of justice at an hour in which the means of amendment, adjustment, and reform were under assault. What if the constitutional order had failed and the Union had been permanently divided? What would have come next? A durable oligarchical white Southern slave empire, surely strengthened and possibly expanded, would have emerged from the war; and, as Lincoln saw, the viability of popular self-government would have been in ruins."

The states that formed the Confederacy all voted for trump. They have passed laws designed to make it difficult for the descendants of enslaved persons to vote. Several of the states rank at the bottom in Education, income of population and numerous other factors. Their leaders are obsessed over trans persons and idiotic anti "woke" agenda. This is a direct legacy of slavery.

I am very glad I read this wonderful biography. I have Meachem's biography of Andrew Jackson on my Amazon wish list 

Mel Ulm

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meachem- 2012- 1159 Pages

 Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meachem- 2012- 1196 Pages-

A Post in Observation President's Day- An American Holiday 

Thomas Jefferson

Born- April 13, 1743- Dies July 4, 1826 - in Virginia 

January 1, 1772 - Marries his third cousin - Martha Skelton 

September 6, 1782- She dies- he kept his promise never to remarry-2 daughters survived to adulthood 

Authors The Declaration of Independence-1776

American Revolution- April 19,1775 to September 8, 1783

Governor of Virginia- June 1, 1779 to June 31,1781

Ambassador to France- May 17, 1785 to September 26,1789

Secretary of State for President Washington - March 20, 1793 to December 31, 1793

President of the United States- March 4,1801 to March 4, 1809

April 30, 1803. The Louisiana Purchase doubles American territory 

In a high school in Florida I was taught the standard history of the American Revolution. A few men of heroic status lead us to independence from the British, aided by a Nobel French man. We learned about the Boston Tea Party, the Minute Men, George Washington at Valley Forge. The credo of the country, taken from The Declaration of Independence authored by Thomas Jefferson was 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.."

When The Declaration of Independence was put forth in 1776 the population of to be 13 states was about 2.5 million, including 500,000 enslaved persons mostly in the south.(I am assuming this leaves out native Americans).

But then there is this "Article one, section two of the Constitution of the United States declared that any person who was not free would be counted as three-fifths of a free individual for the purposes of determining congressional representation." A significant part of Meacham's biography is devoted to Jefferson's attempt to reconcile his words in the Declaration of Independence with his support for the continuation of slavery. Another fly in the hagiographical story of Jefferson is his long term sexual relationship with an enslaved woman, Sally Hemings who was the half-sister of his late wife. Meacham indicates she was about 15 when Jefferson initially impregnated her.  

As suggested in the title the book is developed around an account of how Jefferson governed, how his life experiences shaped his methods and expectations. Jefferson grew up having slaves around him. His father was a tall man, a marvellous horse rider, as Jefferson became. Meacham tells us that Jefferson loved learning new things. As an adult he accumulated a vast library. He loved fine food, taking a slave with him to Paris to learn to cook. (He met Sally Hemings in Paris, the full facts are unknown but it seems she was the mistress of the captain of the ship who brought her to France- she was 14)

Jefferson was learned in the classics as well as a reader of the works of English political philosophers such as Locke and Hobbes.

Jefferson got involved in Virginia politics when relatively young. He preferred to have cordial relationships with others and learned to manipulate others into thinking he agreed with them only go get them in accord with his own views. He enjoyed holding political office.

Meachem presents early post Independence American political ideology as having two advocates of very different visions of what America should become. Alexander Hamilton wanted a strong federal government, a central bank, to give the Federal government the power to tax (initially the only federal revenue was from customs duties) and a standing navy. Drawing from his upbringing and his reading Jefferson wanted most power in the hands of the states, he had a vision of plantation owners. He did not initially want a central bank and did not seek powers when President that were not spelled out in the Constitution. However as Meacham saw, when this got in the way of something Jefferson wanted to get done, he did not hesitate to act beyond spelled out powers.

 I learned how Jefferson backed down North African countries that captured American sailors and enslaved them. This motivated him to build up the American Navy.  

This is a long book. I know my post has been a bit rambling but I want to talk about three things before I close.

Jefferson marries when he was 29. He totally adored his wife. She died ten years latter when he was 39. She made him promise to never remarry, not wanting their children to have a step- mother. Jefferson never remarried. He had to fight the urge to end his life. My wife died last January after 18 years of marriage. I had little interest in going on but I knew our daughters needed me. I felt a deep affinity to Jefferson. He did have some relationships, probably without a physical element, with highly placed women in Paris. Meacham does not romantise Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings. It seems just a source of sexual gratification. It was customary for enslaved women to be used as concubines though polite society frowned on it. He was mocked in the press for his "darkie" children. In his will he freed them.

The conceded by historians biggest Presidential accomplishment of Jefferson was the doubling of American territory through the Louisiana Purchase from France. Napoleon needed money to finance his wars. Wanting very much to make the purchase, Jefferson at first thought he did not have the Constitutional right to do this on his own authority. Then in a letter from the American delegates in Paris, word was sent that Napoleon was having second thoughts about the sale. Jefferson at once found the means to pay the French, acting without constitutional authority, as he had previously seen it.Jefferson knew the purchase was a wonderful thing for America so he put that first.

Meachem basically says Jefferson believed slavery was morally wrong but he could not see how Virginia and other states could function without slavery. I recently read a brilliant book that convinced me that Jefferson is being given a much more favorable treatment by Meachem. I am referring to The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave Breeding Industry by Ned and Constance Sublette - 2015

The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave Breeding Industry should be required reading for all teachers of American history. It shows how slavery corrupted all slavers and inflicted terrible cruelty on the victims. I cannot find a way to adequately praise this book. Those taught the after school cartoon version of the founding of America will be shocked maybe even hurt by what they learn about God - Like figures like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  

1810 - the importation of slaves into USA is banned. This was sponsored and pushed for by then President Thomas Jefferson. The as taught in schools myth is that this showed Jefferson, a slave owner, long term wanted to end slavery. The exposure of the venality and self-serving reasons for Jefferson's actions is presented in completely convincing details in The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave Breeding Industry by Ned and Constance Sublette - 2015 - 752 pages

 By stopping the import of slaves those already here became much more valuable. It became very profitable to breed slaves. When a slave was too old for field work, Jefferson cut their food rations in half.  

The costliest slave was a light skinned early teenage female, called "A Fancy Girl". In auctions in New Orleans, they were sold naked. Owners had full sexual rights to slaves and many a southern matron sold off slaves resembling their husbands.  

I will give Meachem the next to last words.

"He endures because we can see in him all the varied and wondrous possibilities of the human experience—the thirst for knowledge, the capacity to create, the love of family and of friends, the hunger for accomplishment, the applause of the world, the marshaling of power, the bending of others to one’s own vision. His genius lay in his versatility; his larger political legacy in his leadership of thought and of men. With his brilliance and his accomplishment and his fame he is immortal. Yet because of his flaws and his failures he strikes us as mortal, too—a man of achievement who was nonetheless susceptible to the temptations and compromises that ensnare all of us. He was not all he could be. But no politician—no human being—ever is. We sense his greatness because we know that perfection in politics is not possible but that Jefferson passed the fundamental test of leadership: Despite all his shortcomings and all the inevitable disappointments and mistakes and dreams deferred, he left America, and the world, in a better place than it had been when he first entered the arena of public life. Jefferson is the founding president who charms us most. George Washington inspires awe; John Adams respect. With his grace and hospitality, his sense of taste and love of beautiful things—of silver and art and architecture and gardening and food and wine—Jefferson is more alive, more convivial." 

To expand your understanding beyond high school history I suggest you read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and The 1619 Project edited by Nikole Hanah-Jones 

I am currently reading Meacham's biography of Abraham Lincoln 

James Edward Oglethorpe by Joyce Blackburn with a Preface by Eugenia Price-1970

 James Edward Oglethorpe by Joyce Blackburn with a Preface by Eugenia Price-1970

Five years ago, in consultation with Max u, it was decided every December there should be a post in Observation of the Birth Anniversary of our father, born on December 2, 1918 in a small then very undeveloped tiny town in south Georgia, Cairo.

Our Father served four years in the United States Army during World War Two.  He was a junior officer serving under General Douglas MacArthur.  He was stationed in New Guinea and shortly after the war in the Philippines.  For the initial observation in December of 2018 I posted on a wonderful book, Rampage MacArthur, Yamashita and The Battle of Manila by James M. Scott .  Shortly after I posted, the author, a great speaker, did a book tour in Manila.  My wife and I attended one of his talks. Afterwards we had a lovely conversation with Mr. Scott.

In 2019, I came upon a perfect book for the second annual birthday observation, War at the End of the World: Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight For New Guinea, 1942-1945 Book by James P Duffy.  

This year I decided to go in another direction, exploring the early history of Georgia as an English colony.  Our last name comes from a very ancient pre-Roman City in Germany.  (The City has a very famous cathedral and is the birthplace of Albert Einstein).  Because our last name is relatively uncommon we havd been able ascertain when and where our first American ancestor bearing our Last named arrived in tbe colonies, Savanah Georgia in 1755.

Born 1696. Into an old Family with royal connections

1722 - having inherited a large estate, he becomes a member of parliment 

He becomes interested in forming a colony in Georgia to be settled by inmates of debtor’s prisons and the unemployed.  The political appeal to the English government is as a buffer to keep Spanish intrusions from Florida 

In 1732 he departs for Georgia to serve as the first governor.

He will return to England in 1743 never to return.

He tried to keep cordial relationships with Native Americans and temporarily outlawed slavery.  He felt slaves would join forces with the Spanish.

Died: June 30, 1785, Cranham, Upminster, United Kingdom

“James Edward Oglethorpe turned his back on Oxford University, his family's Jacobite schemes, and a career as courtier to a prince to settle as an English country squire. But history was not to let him stay unnoticed. As a member of Parliament in the eighteenth century, Oglethorpe fought for debtors? rights and prison reform, and when he gained them, volunteered to found a new colony in America. Under his direction, settlements were established, strong bonds were formed with the Creek Indians, and the colony of Georgia flourished. He guided it during its formative years and protected it during war with Spain. That alone should have assured Oglethorpe of his place in history...but as he learned, politics and fortune are fickle. In this captivating biography, Joyce Blackburn details the career and life of this gallant gentleman, hero, visionary, and patriot.” From the publisher 

Joyce Blackburn

“Joyce was the only child of Reverend Leroy and Mrs. Audry Knight Blackburn. A graduate of Moody Institute in Chicago, taking a job as a broadcaster at WMBI after graduation. During her career there, she directed dramatic programs and presented her own series. Her recording of Suki and the Invisible Peacock lead to a contract for her first book of the same title and subsequent prize-winning titles for young readers have made her well-known among librarians and teachers. In 1996, the Suki books were reissued in a Silver Anniversary Edition and she was presented with the 1996 Governor's Award in the Humanities from the Georgia Humanities Council.

In the 1940's she became life long friends with writer Eugenia Price and in 1965 the two moved to St. Simons Island, Georgia where the two continued to write. There they established the Eugenia Price–Joyce Blackburn Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose proceeds fund grants and scholarships, support charitable organizations, and create programs that promote excellence in writing. 

Joyce was buried to the right of her life long friend, Eugenia Price.” From the publisher 

This is a young adult book.  I would suggest rather than spending $11.95 you just read the Wikipedia article