June Booknotes

 

"These works challenge us not just to understand but to engage, to debate, and to form our own reasoned conclusions. By reading hard books, we learn that truth is not always simple." – Alicia Williamson

Nonfiction: History, World War II

Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941by William L. Shirer

The author, William Shirer, also wrote the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. He began his career as a print journalist and was eventually recruited by the CBS radio network as one of its European correspondents. Shirer’s career transition happens at the same time as the rapid transition of public information and propaganda from print to radio which greatly impacted this moment in history.

Because he is an “embedded” reporter, Shirer witnesses the rise of Nazi Germany up close and personal. He watches Hitler and Chamberlain chatting on a balcony below his own before they negotiate the betrayal of Czechoslovakia. He reports directly outside the same Compiègne railroad car where Germany gets its revenge by forcing France’s surrender exactly where Germany had laid down its arms in 1918. Shirer even predicts the invasion of Poland as Hitler's next move while the French and British government officials hesitate to respond to Hitler’s threats. When he learns that Poland still has calvary on horseback and few airplanes, Shirer accurately predicts the dominance of air power covering a motorized blitzkrieg along country roads as the key to military success.

As a reporter, Shirer has access to some of the Nazi leaders. He grasps the subtle signals and mannerisms he observes in Göring, Goebbels, Himmler, Streicher, Generals Halder and Brauchitsch as well as the personal quirks and volatility of Hitler. Shirer makes quick and accurate assessments of almost every person he meets.

While he describes the German people as ambivalent and “dull”, it is important to remember that the only Germans who freely offered him their opinions were probably Nazis. Germans knew better than to utter any criticism of Hitler or Nazi ideology to a foreign reporter. If any such criticism was overheard, they would have been arrested by the Gestapo and would have landed in front of the “Volksgericht”, and from there they would have been shipped to the nearest concentration camp.

I have always wondered why Hitler did not invade England in the summer of 1940. Shirer’s account of events as they unfolded has given me a better understanding of Hitler’s indecision. Shirer goes on to explain his understanding of how the British strategy might unfold at the end of 1940 when it was the only country standing against Hitler. He understood how Hitler underestimated the character and will of the British people. Shirer also understood how important it was for Churchill to bring the might of the United States military into the European war.

At 600+ pages this is a lengthy book! However, since it is a diary, I could read one or several entries and put the book down and easily pick it up later. Reading a diary at the epicenter of world events is not technically an objective history. It is a subjective recording of personal events, experiences, and thoughts during intense historical events. Berlin Diary is Shirer’s real time narrative. Its pages are full of uncertainty, urgency, and illustrate a reporter’s drive to provide the most accurate information in an environment of hostility and censorship.  

I had a hard time putting Berlin Diary down without reading just one more captivating entry. Indeed, reading this 80-year-old diary brings an immediacy to the early stages of the war. Many things we see and hear today are echoes of the past!

Nonfiction: Science, Health, History

Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green

NOTE: Since my Great-Grandfather Marek Niemiec died from Tuberculosis, I wanted to learn more.

Publisher’s Description: “Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.
In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.
In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.”

Green is not a doctor, and this is not a medical book. While there is medical information, I found the historical context and relevance to current times fascinating!  This is a heartfelt, researched, and humane book on a disease that still has a massive impact, even though we in the United States avert our eyes. The health disparities that Green spotlights are staggering.

This book is especially relevant in the context of the current massive cuts to development aid and medical research. And, as COVID demonstrated, diseases have no borders. Everything Is Tuberculosis leads me to believe we may be headed back to my Great-Grandfather’s time when there was no cure and no effective treatment for Tuberculosis.
“And so we have entered a strange era of human history: A preventable, curable infectious disease remains our deadliest. That's the world we are currently choosing.”

Nonfiction: History, Food
A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage

NOTE: This was my “distraction” from current events this month!

A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. All were the dominant drinks of their times, influenced the course of history, and people are still drinking them today.
This was an interesting and unusual way to learn about history - drink-by-drink!
Starting with beer (Mesopotamia and Egypt); then moving on to: wine (Greece and Rome); distilled spirits, especially rum and whiskey (the Age of Exploration leading to the American battle for independence); coffee (and the rise of English coffeehouses and their impact upon commerce and triangular trade); tea (and British imperialism and empire building); and, finally, Coca-Cola (globalization and American consumerism).  

A History of the World in 6 Glasses views history from a Western point of view. It doesn’t consider the drinks of South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, nor much of Asia. For example, tea is considered only through the lens of the British empire. However, the formal Japanese tea service is arguably more interesting than a British tea party! 

Even as a Western history there's a large gap between wine production in the Roman empire and the distillation of rum in Barbados. This is more of a survey of history than a detailed one. Still, A History of the World in 6 Glasses provides plenty of interesting historical tidbits and is an enjoyable read.

Nonfiction: True Crime
Hunting Season: Immigration and Murder in an All-American Town by Mirta Ojito

NOTE: I received this book from my friend, Linda. It was selected in 2015 by the Loudoun County (Virginia) Public School Social Sciences Department.

Publisher’s Description: “The true story of an immigrant's murder that turned a quaint village on the Long Island shore into ground zero in the war on immigration.

In November of 2008, Marcelo Lucero, a thirty-seven-year-old undocumented Ecuadorean immigrant, was brutally attacked and murdered by a group of teenagers as he walked the streets of Patchogue, a quiet Long Island town. The teenaged attackers were out "hunting for beaners," their slur for Latinos, and Lucero was to become another victim of the anti-immigration fever spreading in the United States. But in death, Lucero's name became a symbol of everything that was wrong with our broken immigration system: porous borders, lax law enforcement, and the rise of bigotry.”

Ojito, a journalist and professor, uses firsthand interviews to go beneath the veneer of a seemingly all-American town. This allows her to tell all sides of the story, creating a portrait of Patchogue as it was struggling with fear and hate. Crucially this includes retelling the history of the town which was populated by second and third generation Italian and Irish immigrants. Finally, Ojito describes its experience with increasing immigration in recent years. All of which resulted in the Patchogue 7, a group of teenagers, going “hunting for beaners” once a week.
So why did this community end up with a group of their teenagers going “hunting for beaners?” Ojito explains, "Jeff and his friends must have felt that their entertainment of hunting 'beaners' had the tacit and implicit approval of the adults in their world."

• These teens admitted to the police that they had a history of "hunting" immigrants. One of the Patchogue 7 said, "I don't go out doing this very often, maybe only once a week."
  
• Another said, "I have been involved in beatings like this before, but no one ever used a knife. We would just beat people up."
  
• The teen who did the stabbing, and ultimately killed Marcelo Lujero asked, "Is this going to be a problem for [my] wrestling season?"

What I appreciate most about this book is that Ojito digs deeper into the crime, into the people. The result is a book that explains what drives immigrants to come to our country, how they rebuild their lives here, and the effects on the communities they settle in. It's much more nuanced that the "true crime" label would lead you to believe.

Hunting Season was a difficult but necessary book to read given our current national campaign against immigrants. Like the people of Patchogue, daily we see the ease with which our government engages in inhumane, violent, and unconstitutional behavior with the tacit and implicit approval of their “base.” We are in a sorry state indeed when we deport children with cancer, a winery manager of twenty years, and a landscaper with three United States Marine sons – NONE have committed any criminal offences in our country. Yet, all the January 6 violent insurrectionists received their due process, were convicted as criminals, and then were pardoned by a felon?! How do these actions reflect our American values?  

 “Someday, the country will recognize the true cost of its war on illegal immigration. We don’t mean dollars, though those are being squandered by the billions. The true cost is to the national identity: the sense of who we are and what we value.”

Fiction: Drama

There Shall Be No Night by Robert E. Sherwood

NOTES: The title is taken from Revelation 22:5. Sherwood also wrote The Best Years of Our Lives.

There Shall Be No Night is a play published in 1940 and chronicles the impact of the Winter War on the Valkonen family in Finland. The Winter War was a conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland that lasted from November 30, 1939, to March 12, 1940. The Soviet Union invaded Finland after failing to negotiate border changes and the establishment of a Soviet base on Finnish territory.
The Valkonen family includes Kaarlo, a Nobel prize winning scientist, his American-born wife, Miranda, and their son, Erik, a college student. The play examines their reluctant acceptance of the looming invasion and their reactions after Finland is invaded. Both Kaarlo and Erik then must serve in the military while Miranda refuses to escape to the United States and chooses to stay in Finland to defend their home. The family experiences chaos, the physical and mental demands of war, and demonstrates how hardship can lead to courage.
“When life becomes too easy for people something changes in their character, something is lost. Americans now are too lucky.” – Kaatri, Erik’s Finnish girlfriend

Drawing on his own experiences as a war correspondent, Sherwood brings the war to life, He paints a powerful and poignant picture of the devastating impacts that war has on individuals and society – a cost we are still experiencing today. There Shall Be No Night won the 1941 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, but when it premiered, it was not well received!

There Shall Be No Night was picketed by the Theatre Arts Committee (TAC) as “anti-Soviet and pro-war.” The Daily World, the newspaper of the Communist Party USA, then went on to quote Brooks Atkinson, the drama critic of the New York Times, who called it “propaganda.”

Daily World New York, New York, NY, Sun, Jul 7, 1940, page 12

There Shall Be No Night is an example of a prophetic work that was deemed “propaganda” initially but then proven true as events unfolded. Indeed, the play was part of a broader political debate in the United States and elsewhere about intervening in the European war. Sherwood was vilified for writing such a thought-provoking play about war when most people wanted escapism. Originally a pacifist, Sherwood wrote the play to urge action against aggressors like Hitler which led to accusations that he was both a "war-monger" and a "capitalist stooge".

Artists of all kinds have used their work, including books, music, paintings, etc., to speak out about social and political issues. It is difficult to remember a time when artist-activists were not an integral part of America's arts landscape. Throughout its history American writers have used their work as “propaganda” for such causes as abolition (Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852), civil rights (A Raisin in the Sun, 1959), and female subjection (The Handmaid’s Tale, 1985). All these works (and more!) were met with criticism.

Like all human beings, artists have a right to free speech and expression. When they exercise their rights, they often receive a backlash from a public that wants only escapism and pleasure. If artists speak publicly on an issue not related to their work, they are basically told to “shut up and sit down”. Don’t people realize artists have First Amendment rights in all areas of their lives?

Elin Hilderbrand is an American best-selling author of "beach reads." 

There Shall Be No Night was not initially welcomed, and its author was attacked for daring to express his views in this play. Yet, it was prophetic and still has lessons for us today especially as war in Europe continues. Sherwood, through the Valkonen family, immerses us to such a degree in the Winter War, that not only do we know about war, but, most importantly, we feel the war. This drama has moral values. It can be read as a warning. And, finally, it can also be read as a simulation of events that are occurring right now in Europe.