William Smith Map of England and Wales - History Study Group (HSG)

How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

12/10/2018

Discussion led by Andy Fisher

January 14, 2019

What’s the worst thing to happen to US democracy recently? Most answers to that question start and end with Donald Trump. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two Harvard political scientists, though as horrified by Trump as anyone, try to take a wider view. For them the great harbinger of disaster happened during the final year of the Obama presidency. Following the sudden death of the conservative supreme court justice Antonin Scalia in early 2016, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland, a centrist liberal, to replace him. It was up to the Senate to decide whether to confirm the president’s choice. But the Senate did something it had never done in more than 150 years: it refused even to grant Garland a hearing. This was not about Trump – most Republican senators were at this point deeply alarmed by, if not downright hostile to, the prospect of the Donald in the White House. Instead, it was about their shared view that any Republican supreme court nominee would be better than any Democratic nominee, and any price was worth paying to achieve that. It was scorched earth politics.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2018/jan/21/this-is-how-democracies-die

http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?id=1334

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/books/review-trumpocracy-david-frum-how-democracies-die-steven-levitsky-daniel-ziblatt.html

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/05/how-democracy-dies

The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made

9/17/2018

December 20, 2018

Discussion led by Ben Liptzin

Instead of “The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made,” Patricia O’Toole could have titled her new book “The Hypocrite.”
After all, as she herself points out, to lay claim to the moral high ground as often and as fervently as President Wilson did during his eight years in the White House was to court charges that he failed to live up to his own principles. He called for an end to secret treaties while negotiating secretly with the Allies in World War I. He declared himself unwilling to compromise with belligerents abroad while showing himself very willing to compromise with segregationists at home. He pursued a progressive economic agenda while approving a regressive racial one. He spoke of national self-determination in the loftiest terms while initiating the American occupation of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
O’Toole’s is the third major biography of Wilson in the last decade, coming on the heels of substantial works by John Milton Cooper Jr. (2009) and A. Scott Berg (2013), an output of Wilsoniana that attests to the 28th president’s complicated — and contested — legacy. O’Toole’s book doesn’t purport to be as exhaustive as Cooper’s or Berg’s; her project was born from her interest in World War I, and as she persuasively shows, American foreign policy throughout the 20th century adopted Wilson’s war-forged liberal internationalism, in word if not always in deed.
President Richard Nixon cynically used the rhetoric of Wilsonian idealism to escalate the war in Vietnam, saying that his plan would bring the United States closer to Wilson’s “goal of a just and lasting peace.” Wilson’s principle of national self-determination — a phrase that his own secretary of state deemed “loaded with dynamite” — has since been enshrined in the charter of the United Nations.

NY Times Books of the Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/books/review-moralist-woodrow-wilson-patricia-otoole.html

Auther Talk at Wilson Center
https://youtu.be/rp_1gWny-JY

"The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War" by Benn Steil

9/5/2018

November 15, 2018

Discussion led by Alan Rubin

Hope M. Harrison is an associate professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University and the author of “Driving the Soviets up the Wall.”
If you want to ensure you’re never so naive as to call for another Marshall Plan, read this book. Benn Steil’s exhaustive narrative about the massive and complicated U.S. effort to aid Europe after World War II makes it clear that a similar initiative is not likely ever to be implemented — even if the United States is someday governed again by a president who sees America’s core interests as connected to others we might want to help.
Drawing extensively on U.S. archival material as well as some Russian, British, French, German, Serbian and Czech sources, Steil tells the story of not just the development of the Marshall Plan but also the division of Germany, the founding of NATO and, as the subtitle of his book indicates, the dawn of the Cold War. Steil’s account is the most detailed yet of the lengthy, constantly evolving initiative, named after U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who guided the planning of the enormous effort to help Europeans recover from the war’s devastation. He argues that the main success of the Marshall Plan was the psychological boost it gave to Western Europeans, but the chief drawback was that it essentially marked the start of the Cold War.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/why-the-marshall-plan-spooked-the-soviets-and-sparked-the-cold-war/2018/02/23/fdeae418-0a85-11e8-8890-372e2047c935_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9d8565185128

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2018/02/20/excellent-book-tells-story-marshall-plan-which-rebuilt-europe-launched-cold-war/355129002/

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35297577-the-marshall-plan

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

8/25/2018

October 18, 2018

Discussion led by Lucy Kennedy

From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.”
One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us?
Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas.
Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23692271-sapiens
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Bill Gates disagrees with some of author Yuval Noah Harari's premises in her book.

https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Sapiens-A-Brief-History-of-Humankind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapiens:_A_Brief_History_of_Humankind

One Hot Summer: Dickens, Darwin, Disraeli, and the Great Stink of 1858 by Rosemary Ashton

8/25/2018

November 15, 2018

Discussion led by Alan Rubin

A unique, in-depth view of Victorian London during the record-breaking summer of 1858, when residents both famous and now-forgotten endured “The Great Stink” together

While 1858 in London may have been noteworthy for its broiling summer months and the related stench of the sewage-filled Thames River, the year is otherwise little remembered. And yet, historian Rosemary Ashton reveals in this compelling microhistory, 1858 was marked by significant, if unrecognized, turning points. For ordinary people, and also for the rich, famous, and powerful, the months from May to August turned out to be a summer of consequence.

Ashton mines Victorian letters and gossip, diaries, court records, newspapers, and other contemporary sources to uncover historically crucial moments in the lives of three protagonists—Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, and Benjamin Disraeli. She also introduces others who gained renown in the headlines of the day, among them George Eliot, Karl Marx, William Thackeray, and Edward Bulwer Lytton. Ashton reveals invisible threads of connection among Londoners at every social level in 1858, bringing the celebrated city and its citizens vibrantly to life.

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300227260/one-hot-summer

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/15/one-hot-summer-rosemary-ashton-review

American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies in the Founding of the Republic by Joseph Ellis

8/19/2018

September 20, 2018

Discussion led by Peter Bluhm

Acclaimed historian Joseph J. Ellis brings his unparalleled talents to this riveting account of the early years of the Republic.
The last quarter of the eighteenth century remains the most politically creative era in American history, when a dedicated group of men undertook a bold experiment in political ideals. It was a time of both triumphs and tragedies—all of which contributed to the shaping of our burgeoning nation. Ellis casts an incisive eye on the gradual pace of the American Revolution and the contributions of such luminaries as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, and brilliantly analyzes the failures of the founders to adequately solve the problems of slavery and the treatment of Native Americans. With accessible prose and stunning eloquence, Ellis delineates in American Creation an era of flawed greatness, at a time when understanding our origins is more important than ever.

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/books/27kaku.html

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/joseph-j-ellis/american-creation/

War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier by Smedley D. Butler

8/16/2018

August 16, 2018

Discussion led by Will Singleton

Unique among the high ranking military officers of the US and the world I do not know of any other high ranking military officer of the US or the world, who has spoken or written such most important truths and facts about the nature and causes of war.

General Butler wrote these in simple and direct language that everyone can understand. His honesty; care for society, humanity, and justice for all; and profound insights; are self-evident in his writing. Moreover, it is even much more relevant now than when it was written in 1935.

War Is a Racket is the title of two works, a speech and a booklet, by retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley D. Butler. In them, Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests commercially benefit (including war profiteering) from warfare.

After his retirement from the Marine Corps, Butler made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s giving his speech "War is a Racket". The speech was so well received that he wrote a longer version as a small book with the same title that was published in 1935 by Round Table Press, Inc., of New York. The booklet was also condensed in Reader's Digest as a book supplement which helped popularize his message. In an introduction to the Reader's Digest version, Lowell Thomas, the "as told to" author of Butler's oral autobiographical adventures, praised Butler's "moral as well as physical courage".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

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The Untold Plot to Over-through FDR

Most people will be shocked to learn that in 1933 a cabal of wealthy industrialists - in league with groups like the K.K.K. and the American Liberty League - planned to overthrow the U.S. government in a fascist coup. Their plan was to turn discontented veterans into American "brown shirts," depose F.D.R., and stop the New Deal. They clandestinely asked Medal of Honor recipient and Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler to become the first American Caesar. He, though, was a true patriot and revealed the plot to journalists and to Congress. In a time when a sitting President has invoked national security to circumvent constitutional checks and balances, this episode puts the spotlight on attacks upon our democracy and the individual courage needed to repel them.

New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

7/19/2018

July 19, 2018

Discussion led by Kate Kidd

This non-fiction book argues that the popular image of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus is inaccurate, and based on emerging scientific thought, Mann presents a picture of life in the pre-Columbian Americas far more advanced, and much more bustling, than is generally imagined.
Mann’s introduction starts by refuting the notion that Native Americans arrived on the content solely by way of the Bering Strait 20,000 to 25,000 years ago. He also disputes the common preconception that Native Americans did little to change their environment through all that time. This incorrect conclusion about early Americans is largely based on observations of scientists who met primitive peoples in Bolivia. The main scientist, Allan R. Holmberg, incorrectly concluded that the people he found there had always lived a primitive existence, marked by low population numbers. He failed to take into account the ravages of smallpox that decimated the tribe’s numbers. Mann calls his error “Holmberg’s Mistake.” This sets the stage for further complicating what people generally think of life in the pre-Columbian Americas.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302445/

http://www.powells.com/book/1491-new-revelations-of-the-americas-before-columbus-978140003205

http://www.supersummary.com/1491-2/summary/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_Americas_Before_Columbus

Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 by Stephen Kotkin

5/28/2018

June 21, 2018

Discussion Led by Stan Applebaum

A frenzy of hunting for spies and subversives shook the Soviet Union in the late 1930s, as Joseph Stalin propelled his police to unmask Trotskyite-fascists, rightist and leftist deviationists, wreckers, and hidden enemies with party cards. Yet if we apply the perverse logic of Stalinism, the greatest subversive agent to undermine the promise of the revolution of 1917 and transform the aspirations of millions into bloody despotism — objectively, as Stalinists would have said — was the dictator himself. Stalin killed more communists and did more to undermine the international communist movement than Adolf Hitler did. Rather than Lenin’s comrades Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolai Bukharin and Lev Trotsky allying with Hitler, as they were falsely accused of doing in the great show trials of 1936-1938, it was Stalin who in 1939, as Trotsky explained, advanced “his candidacy for the role . . . of Hitler’s main agent.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/terror-and-killing-and-more-killing-under-stalin-leading-up-to-world-war-ii/2017/11/22/7c4d26ca-b998-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html?utm_term=.c923e1179570

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Pulitzer Prize-finalist Stephen Kotkin continues his definitive biography of Stalin, from collectivization and the Great Terror through to the coming of the conflict with Hitler's Germany that is the signal event of modern world history.

When we left Stalin at the end of Stalin: Paradoxes of Power: 1878-1928, it was 1928, and he had finally climbed the mountaintop and achieved dictatorial power of the Soviet empire. The vastest peasant economy in the world would be transformed into socialist modernity, whatever it took.
What it took, or what Stalin believed it took, was the most relentless campaign of shock industrialization the world has ever seen. This is the story of the five year plans, the new factory towns, and the integration of an entire system of penal labor into the larger economy. With the Great Depression throwing global capital into crisis, the Soviet Union's New Man looked like nothing so much as the man of the future. As the shadows of the 30's deepen, Stalin's drive to militarize Soviet society takes on increasing urgency, and the ambition of Nazi Germany becomes the predominant geopolitical reality he faces when Hitler claims that communism is a global "Judeo-Bolshevik" conspiracy to bring the Slavic race to power.
But just because they're out to get you doesn't mean you're not paranoid. Stalin's paranoia is increasingly one of the most horrible facts of life for his entire country. Stalin's obsessions drive him to violently purge almost a million people, including military leadership, diplomatic corps and intelligence apparatus, to say nothing of a generation of artistic talent. And then came the pact that shocked the world, and demoralized leftists everywhere: Stalin's pact with Hitler in 1939, the carve-up of Poland, and Stalin's utter inability to see Hitler's build-up to the invasion of the USSR. Yet for all that, in just 12 years of total power, Stalin has taken this country from a peasant economy to a formidable modern war machine that rivaled anything else in the world. When the invasion came, Stalin wasn't ready, but his country would prove to be prepared. That is a dimension of the Stalin story that has never adequately been reckoned with before, and it looms large here.
Stalin: Waiting for Hitler: 1929-1941 is, like its predecessor, nothing less than a history of the world from Stalin's desk. It is also, like its predecessor, a landmark achievement in the annals of its field, and in the biographer's art.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMM5VzDGLUU

Monthly Schedule

4/30/2018

--January 14, 2019--Andy Fisher--"How Democracies Die" by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

February 21, 2019--Nathan Doctrow--"The Wright Brothers" by David McCullogh

March 21, 2019--Joel Wolk--"Presidents of War" by Michael Beschloss

April 18, 2019--Peter Bluhm--1993: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created" by Charles C. Mann

May 16, 2019--Will Singleton--"Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right" by Arlie Russell Hochschild

"The Forgotten: How the People of One Pennslyvania County Elected Donald Trump and Changed America" by Ben Bradley, Jr.

June 20, 2019--

July 18, 2019

August 15, 2019--Ed Lane--To be determined.

September 19, 2019

October 17, 2019

November 21, 2019

December 19, 2019