The best books that will keep you so engaged you loose track of time

Michael Shaara’s Killer Angels describes the unbelievable sacrifice that occurred at Gettysburg, and the men willing to make it. 

It mimics in so many ways the terrible destruction and killing that occurred in Minnesota just the year before and the ultimate defeat and destruction of the Dakota, and later, Lakota people.   

Shaara gives the first detailed account of the First Minnesota, who charged Lee’s line in order to save the “high ground” for the Union. Only a very few men in the entire regiment survived, leaving just one to write a brief account of their heroic action. It was mostly unknown until Shaara’s book appeared.

Their action is again similar to the brave efforts of young, twenty-year Old Lieutenant Timothy Sheehan, who, with a handful of men, beat off a three-pronged attack and saved Fort Ridgely, the key to the defense Minnesota.

No book pulls you in like this one.

It starts with a “kinship” analysis of the British Army at mid-century, 1850. Officers purchased their ranks and most were of the aristocracy. When the Crimean War broke out, two cavalry (Light and Heavy) brigades went into action.

The commander of both brigades despised the commander of the Light Brigade—they were relatives who did not speak to each other. Thus, a fatal written order was misconstrued and the Light Brigade charged into a valley surrounded by Russian artillery.

It was a slaughter to some extent, but the officer in command led the assault, never looking back to see if his troops were following. Thus, a few of the cavalrymen actually reached the Russian emplacements at the end of the valley—and then retreated. An absolutely incredible story!

Readers will not put this book down!

Morrison, the winner of two Bancroft Prizes and Two Pulitzer Prizes (likely the most by anyone in history) was a close friend of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 

He was given the rank of Admiral, in the Reserves and went to the Pacific, where he had full access to all naval reports and correspondence. Morrison’s 15 volumes are extremely well written and unsurpassed for their accuracy in describing the incredible struggle that began on December 7, 1941 and finally ended in August in Tokyo Bay.  

Morrison is particularly interested in the naval battles, and no one could tell them better than Morrison. He is particularly good at the incredible orders that Admiral Halsey gave to Admirals Scott and Callaghan, full well knowing that they were going to their deaths; with light cruisers and destroyers, they pitched into a battle with a far superior Japanese naval force, losing most of their ships and lives. Halsey, when promoted, sent the stars from his lapel to the widows of the two men.  

The 15 volumes are a prized possession on my bookshelf.

As a historian, some books just keep coming back to you. McNeill’s Plagues and Peoples is just such a book. 

He is really the first historian to outline the dramatic impact that infectious diseases have had on human history. He outlines the spread of smallpox, diphtheria, Yellow Fever, Malaria, the Plague, and many others, as they originate mostly in Africa and come into the Mediterranean Ocean, to produce cycles of death. 

But the people who lived on the edge of that ocean soon came to develop antibodies, and ultimately, master the impact of such terrible diseases.  

Unfortunately, those diseases were soon transferred to the Americas, where perhaps a hundred million American Indians died from them. They had no immunities!

Had such a calamity not occurred, the two western hemispheric continents might easily be dominated by Natives, who spoke a different language and prayed to a different God.

I doubt that there is any American who can look at our country over the past four or five years and conclude that the ship is running smoothly.

Hofstadter, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian from the 1950s, is the first historian to really put his finger on what makes America tick. He sees a clear relationship between concern over Status (and one could include race), anxiety, paranoia, irrational fear, and the evolution of politics. 

And while the book is not quite as pessimistic as the title might seem, I wonder what he would say about the country’s status today? Are we as a nation really committed to democracy? It would seem that a considerable percentage of people are not. Those same people seem to promote violence.

And has not the massive increase in shootings been a major factor in increasing our anxiety, and paranoia? Such an increase in those concerns has often led, in history, to authoritarian governments, thought by many to be the answers to such paranoia. 

Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that Americans no longer read books, or even newspapers.  They get their news from “Talking Heads” rather than intellectuals. And the issues of the day are ignored by at least some supposed news agencies—Global Warming, discrimination, limiting voting rights. And what of the recent trend involved in the “burning of books?”  

Reading Hofstadter’s book is sobering, coming as it did on the heels of a demagogue’s (McCarthy’s) attempt to disrupt American democracy, but has that not just occurred again? And to what extent will it occur in the near future?