Damage Them All You Can

One of my books for the Back to History Challenge is Damage Them All They Can, a history of the Army of Northern Virginia by George Walsh. The book is centered on the leaders of the Army, with particular but by no means exclusive focus on the likes of Lee, Jackson, the Johnstons, the Hills, Longstreet, Ewell and Early. There is some discussion of life in the Army and the experience of the soldiery, but this is of decidedly secondary importance to the book overall.

The focus on the leaders makes the book's chronological approach problematic. The development of each leader is of keen interest to Walsh, but it can get lost in the shifts of time. I think the book would have been stronger if the book had been thematically or biographically organized ( as I believe Lee's Lieutenants is actually organized.)

While I was reading the book, I was hoping for more of the approach of Rick Atkinson in his Liberation Trilogy or Eric Bergerud in his Touched with Fire. These books tell what happened in the wars they describe, but also provide some understanding of the experience of these wars. Those looking for a good introduction to the Civil War in Virginia will find a lot to learn here, but they may get lost in the detail of brigade commands.

Sacred Causes

Michael Burleigh's book Sacred Causes, the second in a trilogy about the intersection of religion and politic in Europe, focuses on the 20th century, with emphasis on how the totalitarian regimes battled religions. This book will remind readers that Osama Bin Laden didn't introduce religion to modern international politics, he merely drew our attention back to it.

As a historian of Nazi Germany and someone clearly well-read in religious (particularly Catholic) history, Burleigh is at his strongest when he describes the inherently religious nature of totalitarian regimes like those found in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Fascist Italy. These regimes took many of the artifacts of religion including martyrs, holy texts, elite orders, divine leaders, and the belief that a perfect society awaits. A key difference in the religious and totalitarian viewpoint is where the perfect society existed. For the religious it awaited after death. For the political, it could rise here on earth, although it would takes lots of death and suffering to achieve it.

Given the desire to completely replace all individual identity with a state defined identity, it is no surprise that these regimes sought to co-opt or (more frequently) cripple religious groups. Religious groups were able to nibble at Nazi and Fascist evil at the fringes, but they managed to directly confront the weary Soviets and Poles in the early 80s. Against John Cornwell, Burleigh argues that Pope Pius XII's did about all he could given the relatively weak influence of the pre-war Vatican and the willingness of the Nazis to kill just about anyone.

The book feels a bit thinner, and the viewpoint begins to trump the analysis in some of the book's other sections. His chapter on Ireland certainly shows that both sides (of the Northern Irish) committed horrendous acts of murder and atrocity and Burleigh clearly wishes Britain would wash its hands of the place. While in other parts of the book, religion is a force for good, Burleigh does not present it as such here. As a part of the narrative it serves as a way to consider the rising Islamic populations and whether they their enclaves will prove as bloody as the northern part of Ireland. Some readers may be put off by his tone in both of these chapters. To be fair, the Irish and Islamic stories are ongoing, while the Nazi and Communist tales are more clearly in the past.

Perhaps because Burleigh is not afraid to let his opinions and viewpoint be known, his prose is particularly vigorous and engaging. At times he selects the five dollar word where a one dollar word might do, but for the most part he constructs lovely sentences that tend to deal with unlovely subject matter. American readers, used to neutral prose, may be taken aback by Burleigh's strong Tory views, but I found them bracing and found it easier to understand the context from which he was arguing.

Founding Faith

Founding Faith is BeliefNet founder Steve Waldman's cry of Time Out in the culture wars. Using a wide of scholarly and original sources, Waldman stakes a middle ground between the hardcore secularists and the theocrats, aruguing that the Founders, on the whole, did want separation between church and state, but they were also not, on the whole, Deists, but were people of varying degrees of spirituality.

He also describes the role that faith played in colonial and revolutionary America, showing that the religious plurality played a role in the development both of the revolution and the development of political openness. While the nation was initially founded to either spread Anglicism (Virginia) or to allow Puritanism to flourish (New England), immigration rapidly turned the country into a religiously pluralistic society. The need to address the desire of many constituencies and the oppression of religious minorities (meaning Quakers and Baptists, as well as Catholics and Jews) in both North and South informed the thinking of political leaders about the need to prevent any religion from becoming the national establishment.

Waldman examines the faith lives of many of the Founders and describes how it influenced their political views, particularly on the question of religion and the state. Waldman pays the most attention to James Madison, who fought hardest for language about the separation of church and state. What may surprise many is that he thought this would strengthen religion, as a connection to the state would enervate and corrupt religion. Independent American religions have certainly thrived.

The book's chapters are short and are well balanced between the thoughts of the Founders and Waldman's analysis. The book itself is well written and relatively short (about 200 pages) which makes it less daunting than many other revolutionary histories.

Written from a center-left perspective, the book will most likely appeal to centrists of all stripes and those with limited investment in the culture war. By making concessions to both sides arguments, he may get the more open-minded to consider the views of the opposing side. For all readers, it is instructive to see the role that religion played in the development of the country. Religion is a taboo subject for many Americans and the general lack of understanding blinds us to the importance of religion in our country but also of other religions in other countries.

Back to History Reading Challenge

The year is 1/3 over and I am just 1/6 of the way through my Back to History Reading Challenge books. Whoops. I am hoping to get to most of them this year, but I am also going to swap some titles. One on my list is Dorothy Dunnett's Queen's Play*, and I am just not that into it. So I am going to replace it with Steven Waldman's Founding Faith, which I am very much into. Waldman starts from the premise that the left and right today misunderstand and misuse the faith lives of the founding fathers. He also discusses how the changing mix and character of religion in the colonies influenced the eventual Revolution and the formation of government. It is an well-written book that clearly explains the subject. So after this I will be 1/4 of the way there, yay!

*Speaking of Dunnett, a few years back, I picked up ten or so of her books at the Arlington (VA) library for about a quarter each. They had been taking up space for some time and I didn't think I would ever get to them, so I took them into Powells for trade. Along with a bunch of other odds and ends, I managed to get enough credit to buy a new copy of the boardgame Railroad Tycoon. Yahtzee! As if I didn't love Powell's enough already.

Land of hope and gloria

In The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, Paul Kennedy, author of the classic Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, explores the overall utility of naval power through the case of Great Britain. The book is an excellent choice for students of international history and politics, but will disappoint those looking for stories of battles or naval lore.

Kennedy explores the role that geography, society, alliances and the utility of land power played in the various wars facing Britain from the 1600s to the 1900s. He argues that naval power was most valuable in the mercantile trade era and became less valuable in the industrial, except against island nations like Japan, and unfortunately enough, Britain. His successfully argues that naval power alone is defensive, but becomes valuable when combined with land power, but that the utility for a given power is dependent on the particular conditions in which it is being used.

The book will irritate navalists and those who want to learn more about the specifics of British naval history. Peter Padfield's Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind will appeal to those wanting more battle history, even if you don't buy his thesis of the interconnection between the small l liberal world and naval power.

Finishing 1491

As I mentioned, I am reading 1491. Having finished it, I highly recommend it as a way to reset your understanding of the Americas. Author Charles Mann's purpose is to debunk three commonly held ideas about the Americas before Columbus: that the continents were sparsely populated, that the social and technical development was limited and that the locals left the environment untouched.

In discussing scholarly debates on these subjects, he convincingly argues that the population, before the decimation of disease, was quite high. The debate is just how many people there were rather than whether the continents were pristine unoccupied lands waiting for the taking. The major factor here is the spread of Old World disease.

On the question of social and cultural development, he argues that Peru and Mesoamerica should be counted among the birthplaces of human culture. While they didn't develop in the same way as Asian or European societies, they represent great achievements that best took advantage of their situation.

His final point is that the locals were extensive modifiers of the environment. In fact he goes so far as to say that the Amazon as we know it is the result of thousands of years of human engineering.

All of these arguments have their foes and Mann gives them room in the book as well. It's a fair, easy to read book that will likely educate and entertain all but specialists.