I’ve been absent. Before I get into the bookclub announcement, and the next book picked for the America 250th theme, I’ll share what I feel comfortable with on the absence.
The last month or so I’ve been daily on the phone with a family situation that surfaced in Boston (where I’m from). It’s a wild and tricky situation that’s required full attention. On top of that I went on two big family trips, one to spend time with my wife’s family in Omaha (where we may be moving to at some point) and with my family in Maine. And between those trips, I’ve spent time in Boston dealing with this situation.
It disrupted the bookclub riffs. Those are the new pieces since the chat is a little tough to get going. It looks like for chat to work on Substack you need thousands of paid members and it takes on a life of its own. I’m nowhere near that. The bookclub riffs are me writing a riff from what I’m reading, it’s unedited, I send it out to paid members and converse with them from there. I also am trying something new where I might riff something general on reading or another topic to all subscribers, and then bookclub riffs and notes are behind a paywall. The crazy situation also disrupted an article I’m cooking up on masculinity which was inspired by my reading of The Iliad around a year ago.
Each day something new surfaces with this situation. I’m going to do my best to sneak in writing and get things published. The video riffs accompanying bookclub pieces I hope will continue, but my phone rings off the hook most days. The light at the end of this tunnel is yet to be seen.
The chat is always open to paid members and you can scroll and find the American thread if you want to join in.
Onwards to the Bookclub.
America Bookclub
I’ve finished the first book in the series of books curated for this topic. That book The Last King: The Misunderstood Reign of George III by Andrew Roberts. It was exhaustive, detailed, and wonderful. Andrew Roberts is a force.
The biggest takeaways from that book:
George III was in no shape or form tyrannical or anything near it
George III, British Parliament, and Britons all misunderstood America and Americans
The American spirit is real, tangible, alive, and still misunderstood abroad
George III faced an uphill battle with his legacy due to slander beginning when he was born and slander continuing to this day — he was in fact an admirable King
George III and Britons were confused as to why America wanted to split and its ambivalence towards Americans and not wishing to punish them through force or even use force gave the Americans a massive advantage in the Revolutionary War
The stresses of being a world leader are unimaginable
His mental illness and how it surfaced were sad and at times abhorrent considering his era’s methods to deal with mental illness
He did his best to live an upstanding and moral life
He loved his country (he loved America and Americans) and worked hard to do what was best
His idealism and stubbornness at times proved terrible, like with America, and at times astute, like his dealings with Napoleon
Roberts’s 28-point walkthrough of the Declaration of Independence is fantastic; Thomas Jefferson used fabulist rhetoric to instill more want of total independence and to ride with American spirit
The biggest American themed takeaway is the American spirit. To me, it looks like once the heavy yoke of puritanism was lifted, American dynamism thrived. But, puritanism is still imbued into the American fabric. Its latest iterations are found with the Progressive Left or most of the modern Left in reality, and on the very online fringe Right. Another fascinating place to see it is with the Manosphere, with their pseudo-theoretical straitjackets.
With that, I’ve just begun the next book: A Patriot’s History of the United States: From Columbus’s Great Discovery to America’s Age of Entitlement - 15th Edition by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen. Along with it, I’m reading its companion volume: The Patriot’s History Reader: Essential Documents for Every American by Larry Schweikart, Dave Dougherty, and Michael Allen.
This is a behemoth of a book. Though I know of one taker who already began reading it. No one joined me in reading of The Last King, but I did have a few flies on the wall.
For Those New or Needing A Recap of How the Bookclub Works (If Not New Skip To The Next Section)
It’s simple.
I pick a book or a topic. You can read along or can be a fly on the wall. You can comment, ask questions, and join on livestreams if I host them.
The current topic is America.
I curated the following books for this topic (and maybe will add in some others, we’ll see):
The Last King of America, Andrew Roberts
A Patriot’s History of the United States, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen
A History of the American People, Paul Johnson
Democracy in America Alexis de Tocqueville (and will prime it by reading Pierre Manent’s Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy)
Ethnic America, Thomas Sowell
These are big books. And the reader will need to be motivated. I’m not reading all the books in a row. I want to avoid reading burnout. So I’ll read one, see how I feel towards the end, and then likely indulge in a few easy reads before picking up the next big book. Also, given the length of the books, it’s quite possible I start another bookclub topic that I will jump into as a break from America. I’ll keep you posted on that.
To join along, whether reading or wishing to be a fly on the wall, you must be a paid member.
A Patriot’s History: Why This Book And When To Start
You can start reading it now.
I’m reading the 15th edition. Various editions exist, and the one I have has updated past positions once held or since sharpened due to new resources made available to the authors.
Why this book?
I was a history major in college, and I’m still a history nerd. I tend to lean towards history when I read. I loved it as a little kid and I still love it now. After historical field trips, I would bug, nag, and beg my parents to take me to where school took us and to go there as soon as possible. My cousins in Virginia groaned when I visited because they knew I would ask to go to Mt. Vernon, and other sites, and my aunt and uncle were more than happy to oblige.
In college I had to pick European or American history as my lane. I had taken too many history classes, and I was about neck and neck with American and European. Given the choice fresh after a trip from Ireland, I chose European. When I started my thesis, I regretted my choice. Nothing against European history, but in my heart of hearts I wanted to do American history. My thesis was terrible by the way, a total snooze fest.
A second reason, in college I read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. I also read it post-college. My conviction having read it twice, historically it’s abysmal; agenda-wise Zinn gets his point across. Zinn pushed the modernist Marxist historical lens and outright sought to dismantle American values and ideals via his ideological lens. From what I gather, Patriot’s History began as a counter to him, and after reading the introduction, has expanded into a more robust history.
The coolest class I took in college was about historical lenses and perceptions. You had to be a top student to get into it. Which I’m proud I got in, arguably my best academic achievement. It was for students looking for careers in history or were likely headed to good law schools. Those careers not necessarily meaning professors, but careers in museums, for companies that do those historical plaques you see at various historical sites, and historical production studios.
It was a fascinating class, and one that stuck with me. Perhaps the most useful academic class in my life. I learned to pick up ideology or lenses right away.
Well, in that class, we looked at Zinn. He was a rockstar of the 1960s New Left educational movement which sought, explicitly, to dismantle traditional educational norms. The New Left wanted its philosophical underpinnings — relativism, postmodernism, Marxism, Critical theory (what fueled the most famous Critical Race Theory) — to be the educational foundation for the West. It sought to exploit the sins of each Western country and define that country through those sins, fomenting an Oppressor and Victim narrative, and that the only way to escape Western evils was a deconstruction of its history and create a Progressive agenda. Historians like Zinn, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Richard J. Evans, and countless others are of this ilk. Some explicitly so, others less so on the nose.
Even in college, with a super Left-leaning professor, we studied this lens. We studied the other side of the lens, though, if I recall, less so. And we looked into how to spot the lens, the philosophies influencing it, and why.
In short, I’ve read Zinn. I’ve long had Patriot’s History on my list. I want to see the other side here, the side of my side. I’m curious how it’s presented, and more so, I’m curious for the history of America told by authors who aren’t out to dismantle America.
It’s a big book and reading its companion reader alongside it will also take time.
If you want to read along, don’t worry about your speed or catching up to me. Read at your pace, whatever that is, slow, medium, or fast. I’m available to those who take part, even if it is after I start. If you just want some wisdom on American history, or to see how I work through a book like this, want to ask questions, yet have no intention of reading the book, no worries. Feel free to join and ask questions.
I’ve started the book. It will take time.
With my family situation, I might not be able to contribute weekly as I had planned with the last book. But I will work to get content up and out. I want to be up front and not set false expectations.
You can join below.