By James Finck, Ph.D.
Theodore Roosevelt once said, “I believe that the more you know about the past, the better you are prepared for the future.” Agreeing with the Rough Rider former president, well-studied, well-written histories are not only interesting to read, but can be a guide for the present and the future. Reviewing static and dynamic histories; understanding theses, antitheses, revisions, as well as voice, purpose, etc. may culminate ideologies and develop well-rounded history students into leaders in their own rights. However, we must also consider the causes, events and the moral codes of the eras in which we are studying. What may have been culturally acceptable at one time and place may be forbidden in others.
As in the rest of the world, America’s history has been cyclical and progressive for some while others were conquered by the victors’ advancements. While those histories are seldom written by the conquered, they are still relevant. It is along those lines that these 11 historical book recommendations are offered to create better informed readers in the new year.
11. “On Desperate Ground: The Marines at the Reservoir, the Korean War’s Greatest Battle” by Hampton Sides In Hampton Sides’ moving story, the focus is mainly on the First Marine Division during the Korean War and their harrowing attack and breakout from a mountaintop reservoir named Chosin.
Sides makes a convincing argument that the Marines were forced to fight four different enemies in this battle: the Chinese, the mountain, the cold, and their superior officers. He makes heroes of men like Privates Hector Cafferata and Kenneth Benson, and officers like Captain William Barber and Lieutenants Kurt Chew-Een Lee and John Yancy. He saved his greatest praise for General Oliver Smith who commanded the men on the ground.
Yet, at the same time, Sides was extremely critical of Smith’s superiors: Generals Edward Almond and Douglas MacArthur. Both men were completely out of touch with what was happening on the ground. MacArthur was more concerned with photo ops and fame. Almond was naive about the situation and more concerned with pleasing MacArthur.
Through this book readers learn that the Chinese military had over 19,000 killed in this one battle. Sides described how even though they were being slaughtered, Chinese soldiers continued to attack. It was so bad, and the ground was so frozen, that American Marines were using the bodies of dead Chinese soldiers as barricades. Chinese solders even charged without weapons.
Men had to climb over the bodies of their dead fellow soldiers to attack, yet they continued to do so night after night after night. Sides makes the point that the Chinese government did not care about the body count because they did not see them as human, just soldiers, and so had no issue with sending wave after wave to die.
10. “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl” by Timothy Egan In “The Worst Hard Times,” Egan takes on just one remote corner of the globe that suffered possibly worse than any other region in the U.S. He looks at the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles as well as western Kansas and eastern Colorado and how the Dust Bowl made the region unlivable. Farmers in this region had come from around the world looking for a better life only to have that dream crushed when the land itself betrayed them.
Egan describes plagues that would fit nicely in the Old Testament, such as 50-foot walls of dust that covered or destroyed everything in their path and the swarms of grasshoppers that devoured what was left. He described the conditions for those who did not pack up and move to California, like the subjects in John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” but instead stayed and forced themselves to eat salted tumbleweed to stay alive.
Books like these are important because they show what people, especially Okies, are made of and that we can endure more than we ever thought possible. It is helpful when withstanding our own trials to put them into perspective as well as to know we can survive even the worst of times.
9. “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin The American Civil War is our nation’s most important event. This book is suggested because as Americans we should be reevaluating who we choose as leaders. While there are countless books on Abraham Lincoln, this one looks at how he dealt with other people. Readers may come away from this book with a new appreciation of the man.
Goodwin brilliantly documents how Lincoln had a knack of making enemies into friends. Instead of just getting angry at every slight towards him—and there were many—he found ways to get those making the slights to eventually support him. Bridges most people would have burned down were not burned by Lincoln.
Goodwin explains this was done so later in life Lincoln was able to cross them again for his own benefit. One example given is that early in his administration, Lincoln struggled as he appointed men who had been his rivals for the presidency and thought themselves more deserving. One of the men he most struggled with was Secretary of War Simon Cameron.
Cameron was able to push Lincoln around by threatening to quit if he did not get his way. Lincoln was no pushover, but he kept Cameron as long as he thought he was the best man for the job. When Lincoln finally realized Cameron was not right for the position, he accepted his next resignation to Cameron’s surprise and appointed him ambassador to Russia.
Cameron was crushed by the news and worried about public humiliation. Among other things, Cameron publicly insulted the president.
Yet now that Lincoln had a chance for revenge, he did not take it. In letters to the press, Lincoln set himself up for disgrace, taking all the blame on himself. He even met with Cameron asking advice on his replacement.
Cameron suggested Edwin Stanton, who Lincoln had already decided on, but let Cameron leave thinking Stanton was his idea. Cameron had detested Lincoln, but as Goodwin writes, “Cameron would never forget this generous act. Filled with gratitude and admiration, he would become… one of the most intimate and devoted of Lincoln’s personal friends. He appreciated the courage it took for Lincoln to share the blame at a time when everyone else had deserted him.” Most other men in Lincoln’s situation, Cameron wrote, “would have permitted an innocent man to suffer rather than incur responsibility.”
Lincoln was not like most other men, as each cabinet member, including the new war secretary, would soon come to understand.
We are long removed from leaders like Lincoln. It is difficult to remember the last time a president took responsibility for anything instead of blaming others.
Lincoln was far from perfect, but he was the right man for the time. Not only is this book good for history buffs, but it could also be assigned for any leadership class.
8. “Night” by Elie Wiesel “Night” is the autobiographical account of a young 14-year-old Elie Wiesel, his trials and eventually triumph over the Holocaust.
In this short account, Wiesel will lose his mother, sister, and eventually his father to the camps.
There are many accounts of this horrific time, but there is something special about “Night:” Wiesel’s honesty. Not only did he lose his family, but at some moments he even lost his god. One haunting line was, “Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.”
Wiesel had to battle with what every believer has at some point: Why does God let bad things happen? In his case it is easy to understand why Wiesel questioned his faith. If anything, this story is a testament of faith.
Wiesel wrote this as a warning that we must be ever vigilant. One of the most powerful lines comes early in the book when the Jews in Wiesel’s camp were questioning the existence of the Final Solution. “Was he [Hitler] going to wipe out a whole people?” Wiesel wrote. “Could he exterminate a population scattered throughout so many countries? So many millions!
What methods could he use?
And in the middle of the twentieth century!”
We think there is no way that something like this can happen now; this stuff happened in the past. What Wiesel said is yes! It can if we let it. We must always remember the Holocaust and the lessons it taught.
7. “After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam” by Lesley Hazleton The Middle East is an area that is vital for us to understand and yet most Americans still know so little about these cultures and faiths.
Hazleton has lived in the Middle East for years and has experience with the culture and stories of the prophet Muhammad. As a journalist, she writes differently from most historians, which can be refreshing as at times it reads like a novel.
Hazleton begins by telling the origins of Islam.
Muhammad, an orphaned boy who works his way up through hard work, is fortunate to marry Khadija, a woman of some means, and he becomes a successful trader. Troubled by the way the people of Mecca are living, putting riches before people, Muhammad climbs the hills behind Mecca and prays in a cave until one evening he is visited by the angel Gabriel. This visit, and others like it, become the foundation of Islam.
Hazleton continued to chronicle the prophet’s life but then spends the second half of the book explaining the great division in Islam between the Shi’a and the Sunni.
Muhammad did not name a successor at his death. The way Hazleton tells it, while Muhammad’s favorite follower, his cousin Ali, was preparing his body for burial, Abu Bakr claimed leadership of the Ummah. This began a series of events that would eventually turned into fullscale war between the Sunni and the Shiite Ali.
Even if it was not describing a major world religion most Americans do not know much about, it is a fascinating tale of love, betrayal, loyalty — really everything needed for a good story. Pay attention to Muhammad’s wives, especially Khadija and Aisha.
There is nothing subservient about either of these women, and anyone who suggests Muhammad treated them as second class does not understand this story.
6. “All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror” by Stephen Kinzer This Middle Eastern book deals with a fascinating subject that is just as unknown to Americans as the first but is general knowledge to Iranians.
In 1952, the very popular Iranian leader, Mohammad Mossadegh became prime minister through a democratic revolution. Not only was Mossadegh strong enough to take on the tyrannical shah and implement democratic reforms, he also took on the British, who had been exploiting Iran for years and making millions from Iranian oil while Iranians remained in poverty.
When Mossadegh took office, he made the popular decision to nationalize the oil industry and kick out the British. While most of the nation cheered him, the British were furious. They claimed the oil was theirs and took them to the International Court of Justice and the United Nations. Both institutions instructed Britain to compromise, giving Iran a more equal share in the profits and day-to-day operations. When the British refused, both the U.N. and the World Court sided with Iran. With their golden goose lost the only option left for the British was to overthrow the democratic government and help the shah retain his authoritarian control. The only problem was after the British were kicked out, they could not pull off the coup alone, so they turned to their American friends.
In an exceptionally written narrative, Kinzer gives the history of modern Iran and its struggle with democracy, the British, America and the shah. He details the fight to achieve a constitutional government and the rise of Mossadegh, a man who finally put Iran’s interest above his own. Kinzer also details the British attitude of supremacy, including Winston Churchill, who believed all other nations’ interests were secondary to their own. British exploitation of the Iranian people and their resources was deplorable.
Worst yet, it was America operating out of the U.S. embassy that led the coup against Mossadegh. Kinzer claims America’s betrayal set up a series of events, including the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, which is responsible for many of Iran’s problems today.
Kinzer wrote, “The world has paid a heavy price for the lack of democracy in most of the Middle East.
Operation Ajax taught tyrants and aspiring tyrants there that the world’s most powerful governments were willing to tolerate limitless oppression as long as oppressive regimes were friendly to the West and the Western oil companies.
That helped tilt the political balance in a vast region away from freedom and towards dictatorship.”
To understand the American- Iranian relationship, one must understand this event. While America and Iran continue to have hostile relations, “All the Shah’s Men” is well worth reading.
5. “When the Wolf Came: The Civil War and the Indian Territory (The Civil War in the West)” by Mary Jane Warde “When the Wolf Came” is the book on the Civil War in Indian Territory.
The second of the two Oklahoma and three Civil War books listed, it has a couple of themes that are important today. First it helps explain the Civil War, especially how it played out differently in Indian Territory. Secondly it explains the role of Native Americans and how the war affected them moving forward.
The Civil War in Indian Territory was much different than most areas. The largest battle in the state only had 9,000 men involved. Instead of large engagements, it was more guerilla-like action of neighbor against neighbor. It was not so much tribe versus tribe, but more like intertribal fighting.
Warde traces the cause of the infighting back to Indian Removal, where some tribes were divided over removal.
The fracture remained in subsequent years. When the war broke out, some within the tribes fought for the North and some for the South. They used the war to kill the other side. It was a complicated history that Warde does an excellent job sorting through.
Most Native Americans fought for the Confederacy.
After they war, the Union declared their treaties with the tribes broken and used the Natives’ allegiance with the South as an excuse to take their land.
With courts today are still deciding many tribal sovereignty and treaty issues, understanding the war in Oklahoma can give readers some background into these cases.
4. “Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America” by Ira Berlin This is the first of three books dealing with the subject of race that can help us better understand America’s long and difficult relationship with slavery.
The 1619 Project, The New York Times’ “long-form journalism endeavor… to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States’ narrative,” did a good job of getting Americans talking about this difficult subject. Yet, it had flaws of being more political than historical. To get a better understanding of slavery in America from start to finish and its changing nature along the way, this is the book.
Written years before 2019’s first issue of The 1619 Project, “Many Thousands Gone” even questions the “Twenty and odd Negroes” from John Rolfe’s letter as to whether they were even slaves or what Berlin called Atlantic Creoles. Berlin believes these Creoles were not enslaved but were people who had learned to work within the Atlantic World trade.
Berlin does not deny the mistreatment of slaves. Nor does he disregard how vital slaves were to the creation of America. He puts slavery in the context of the Atlantic World and gives the history of how America changed from a society with slaves to a slave society. In other words, slavery became worse instead of better as the nation progressed.
The only way to understand slavery’s role in America is from a historical not political perspective.