Recent Reading

Since I was not blogging for the last 10 months I had to do something. Besides dealing with the hassles caused by vindictive assholes who think they have the right to harass a private citizen, I did a lot of reading and watching.

Regarding watching first, if you have not watched The Man in the High Castle on Amazon Video –  you really should. Especially if you are a fan of alternative history as I am. The third season starts on October 5, 2018.  Below is the trailer for the third season:

To really appreciate the show- you need to binge watch Seasons 1 and 2 ASAP! Or at the least read the book by Philip K. Dick. Or better yet do both. Bottom line is, its good show, well done. I’ve watched the show and read the book.

______________________________________________________________________________

I recently finished a book by Max Boot called The Road Not Taken, Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam.  It tells the story of the life of Edward Landsdale, the man said to be the fictional model for Graham Greene’s The Quiet American.  Landsdale played a critical role in the suppression of the Huk rebellion that occurred in the Philippines after the end of the war and its independence.  He became friends with Ramon Magsaysay, who later became President of the Philippines. Landsdale, who had served in the OSS during World War II and before the war had been an advertising man, was a strong advocate of a “hearts and minds” strategy that he was able to advocate successfully for in the Philippines. He later was dispatched to Vietnam where he advocated for the same strategy.  His efforts were sternly rejected, and the alienation of him by the DOD bureaucracy forms the basis of the book’s title. Boot is careful to state that it is not necessarily a possibility that South Vietnam could have been saved if they had followed Landsdale’s advice, but certainly, it might have lessened the suffering of the Vietnamese people.

The book is well written and researched. Max Boot is careful to provide an accurate portrayal of Landsdale whose personal life was complex and fell in love with women in the Orient, one in particular who later became his second wife. Lansdale was not a prude. And this book is a rich read of a life well-lived.

I have had a love-hate relationship with Max Boot and his writing. His book Savage Wars of Peace is always featured on military reading lists. He has a solid body of writing and scholarship under his belt. At the same time, it is very hard to forget that he was a cheerleader for the war in Iraq and other neoconservative foreign policy ideas and I have excoriated him in the past for that.

Now, however, we are on the same side. He hates Donald Trump and so do I. We both see Trump as what he is, a menace to American Democracy and to the country’s image in the world. So befehl ist befehl as they would say in German and in this set of circumstances, I can’t help but admire him for standing firm in his opposition to Trump. Along with Bill Kristol ( another soul I have verbally insulted on these pages), he has consistently stood by the idea of “Never Trump”, even as fellow members of the GOP sold their souls for tax cuts and chaos.  Thus, the enemy of my enemy is my friend – or at least we are on the same side in these terrible times.

And Max Boot has written a very good book here. I strongly recommend it to you.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Two other books that I can recommend to you. I read them both over these last months and I enjoyed them immensely.

The first is The Looming Tower, Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11 ,  by Lawrence Wright. If you have watched the TV show of the same name on Hulu, you have a pretty good idea of the content of the book. It is still worth your time to read, however.

The other book that I just finished is The Gifted Generation, When Government was Good by David Goldfield.  The book is an ode to the time after World War II when America actually accomplished things and knew that government could do things to make America better as a whole. The book definitely advances a particular agenda and it is not complementary to modern conservativism.  It still is a worthwhile read as it points out that the current recessive role of government comes at a cost, a real cost to people in terms of a diminished quality of life. 

All are good books. Enjoy them.