The Lawless Roads (Twentieth-Century Classics) Review

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(More customer reviews)Reading The Lawless Roads reminded me of a comment from Albert Camus from his notebooks: 'What gives value to travel is its fear. It is the fact that when we are so far from our own country we are siezed by a vague fear, and an instinctive desire to go back to the protection of old habits'.
This is Graham Greene in Mexico. Travelling through the dry, dusty, mosquito and tick fly riven states of Southern Mexico in the 1930s, a period when the Catholic Church was under severe persecution from the state, Green clings on to the two things that remind him of happier times and nations - his Englishness, and the Catholic Church. His prologue is set in England, the title of his book comes from a piece of verse, quoted at the start, by the Scottish poet Edwin Muir and throughout his turbulent journey he seeks solace in quintissentially English writers such as Trollope and William Cobbett.
It is evident that Greene loathes Mexico. At one point he writes of the country 'No hope anywhere. I have never been in a country where you are more aware all the time of hate'. He finds, during his travels, a Godless, immoral and violently dangerous state. He retains a colonial contempt for the natives he comes across with their 'expressionless brown eyes' and is mistrustful of everyone. He defends the under fire Catholicism with extraordinary bias, declaring the Catholic Church 'Perhaps the only body in the world today which consistently - and sometimes successfully opposes the totalitarian state'. Remember this was the same period as the Spanish Civil war.
He plunges the depths in Tabasco, a state where Catholic persecution was particularly strong - 'One felt one was drawing near to the centre of something - if it was only of darkness and abandonment'. And his personality undergoes a disturbing descent into increasing misery and intolerence. After travelling through numerous grisly towns (Puebla is the only place he has any affection for, the only place in Mexico Greene can imagine living in with 'some happiness'), being plagued by mosquitos and diarrhoea and undergoing hours on cripplingly uncomfortable muleback, he reaches rock bottom - 'It seemed to me that this wasn't a country to live in at all with only the head and desolation; it was a country to die and leave only ruins behind'.
But Greene's vitriolic prejudices against Mexico serve as a blackly creative vehicle to contain his bluntly honest and hatefully evocative prose style. A more dispassionate, cheerful writer would not be nearly as successful in dredging up in striking detail the climate of this sinister Mexican age. Greene also owes a great debt to Mexico, for it was his travels in hell that provided the inspiration for one of his greatest novels 'The Power and the Glory'. In The 'Lawless Roads' we briefly meet the characters in the later novel - the 'Whisky Priest', the sweating dentist, the 'Mestizo' with two yellow fangs. This baleful travelogue highlights why Greene was able to use Mexico as the canvas on which to paint 'The Power and the Glory', a masterful tale of oppression, persecution, death and redemption.

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Eye Of The Storm: A Civil War Odyssey Review

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(More customer reviews)"What makes Sneden's history remarkable is his attention to detail... So compelling was his drive to document the war accurately that Sneden kept notes even while in Andersonville, writing in shorthand on scraps of pages of books that he later sewed into the linings of his cloths to keep hidden.... It is astonishing that such valuable experience could have remained hidden for so long." --Michael Larkin, The Boston Globe
"This is quite simply a wonderful book.... One can virtually hear the soldiers snoring and the mules braying.... Especially moving is [Sneden's] account of the horrible months he spent in Andersonville.... Sneden's all-observing eye was truly `in the storm,' and his belatedly published memoir should soon become a standard in the field." --Ben L. Bassham, Civil War Book Review

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The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America (Pivotal Moments in American History) Review

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(More customer reviews)As with all books in the "Pivotal Moments in American History" series, this book is exceedingly well written. David Hackett Fischer [Washington's Crossing] has superbly edited this work and his 3 page editor's note is itself, worth the price of the book. Dartmouth Professor of History, Colin Calloway has closely examined 1763, one of the most critical years in American History in his book, THE SCRATCH OF A PEN: 1763 AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF NORTH AMERICA. This one is sure to take its place on the "essential reading" list of American history lovers.
The book derives its name from historian Francis Parkman, who wrote regarding the 1763 Treaty of Paris at the conclusion of the Seven Years War, "half a continent changed hands at the scratch of a pen". What is commonly referred to in America as the French and Indian War was in actuality, the first World War. It was fought on 4 continents and 3 oceans around the globe. Its' participants included not only the British and French, but Americans, Canadians, American Indians, Prussians, Austrians, Russians, Spaniards and East Indians as well.
Nearly a decade of war left both Britain and France in economic ruin. Britain, being victorious, tried to extricate itself from financial crisis by attempting to simultaneously cut costs (reducing gifts the Indians had grown so accustomed to receiving from the French) and increasing its revenue by raising taxes (on the colonials), which NEVER works. Cutting costs led in part to sparking an Indian war, and raising taxes led to an all out revolt by the colonies. Ultimately, Britain would be unable to benefit from its' newly won empire.
Calloway shows in explicit detail how the 1763 Peace of Paris Treaty had a much more tumultuous effect upon the peoples of North America than the war itself. Britain tried to divide its newfound empire into two pieces, one for its colonists and one for the Indian tribes. The colonists, however, had a much different view. They saw their hard fought victory in the war as giving them the right to expand into the newly conquered territory, to itself relieve some its financial burden through land speculation and settlement.
In an attempt to quell the growing anarchy in the new territory, Britain engaged in perhaps one of the first instances of bio-terrorism by purposely infecting Indians with small pox. Though successful in "thinning the herd" so to speak, British lack of government intervention and control in the territory spurred anarchy among both the Indians and the settlers.
Calloway has brilliantly defined both the short and long-term effects the Peace of Paris had on every venue of North America, from Hudson Bay to Florida and Cuba, and Nova Scotia to the Louisiana Territory. For a much better understanding of American history and the causes that pushed the colonies towards independence, this is essential reading. Professor Calloway holds the reader in his grasp with every page. The text flows nicely and is capped off with an exhaustive bibliography that will surely add to one's reading list.
For as much as I truly loved this book, I do have one complaint. On page 117, this historian with a magnificent proficiency in writing, pierced my soul when he failed to contain himself from interpolating his own political essence upon current events, with just one brief sentence. I won't give too much away, as I don't want to dissuade anyone from reading this extraordinary work. But if Professor Calloway should ever happen to read this review, I say to you sir, you are a brilliant writer. Your work here is superb. Please don't blemish such a brilliant work with your own leanings. As you know, the purpose of the historian is to record and report the facts, not to color them.
There, now that I have that off my chest, let me conclude by saying, I absolutely loved this book. It has given critical insight to not only the causes behind the revolution, but how the Peace of Paris Treaty of 1763 transformed the lives of so many then, and countless millions since. Do not miss out on reading this book.
Monty Rainey
www.juntosociety.com


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Sir John Hawkins: Queen Elizabeth's Slave Trader Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this book because I wanted to learn more about my family history. Sir John Hawkins was my 11th great grandfather. The book is very informative and has been well researched. However, there are some facts that are not clearly documented, such as, the actual date of birth and mother of Sir John's first born son.

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A portrait of a colourful Elizabethan slaver, merchant and admiral. Although his cousin Sir Francis Drake is more famous, Sir John Hawkins (1532-1595) was a more successful seaman and played a pivotal role in the history of England and the emergence of the global slave trade. Born into a family of wealthy pirates, Hawkins became fascinated by tales of the riches of foreign lands. Early in his career he led an illegal expedition in which he captured three hundred slaves in Sierra Leone and transported them to the West Indies. There he traded them for pearls, hides and sugar, thus giving birth to the British slave trade. His voyages were so lucrative that Queen Elizabeth herself sponsored subsequent missions. Discouraged from his career as a pirate by a near-fatal encounter with angry Spanish troops, Hawkins spent much of his later life in England at the service of the queen. Although he committed treason, murder and adultery at various points in his career, he was nonetheless knighted in 1588 for his role in defeating the Spanish Armada. In this work, Harry Kelsey, biographer of Sir Francis Drake, tells the story of this extraordinary man.

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