31 January 2009
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Published on January 31st, 2009 @ 06:54:51 pm, using 321 words, 50 views
Quick hit over at Neuronarrative where they have an interesting interview up with Jena Pincott, author of Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes?: Bodies, Behavior, and Brains–The Science Behind Sex, Love, and Attraction. Like one of our favorites, Bonk, this book has a lot of info about something we’re not supposed to know anything about because sex is unnatural. If you’re one of those knee-jerkers who only has to hear “evolutionary psychology” to start smirking about how evolution could work on everything biological but behavior, especially possible differences between genders which can’t politically be different, then you shouldn’t travel here, but, if you enjoy reality over ideology, this enjoyably written book should add both knowledge and some unembarrassing titillation. Here’s one excerpt from the interview to give you an idea of both the book and the author’s way with words:
One of the things in the book I found surprising (I suppose because I’d never heard anyone talk about it before) is that semen is a sort of “feel good” serum, capable of inducing a temporary form of mind control. What’s the deal with this?
Well, it’s a provocative theory, and it goes as follows: Semen contains hormones and proteins. Absorbed through the vaginal walls, these hormones and proteins enter the bloodstream and possibly breach the blood-brain barrier. Whether or not this has any psychological affect on a person is unclear and difficult to prove, although a study has found that women who are regularly exposed to their partner’s semen are less depressed than women who use condoms most of the time (regardless of the strength of the relationship). There’s an evolutionary argument for this: if there’s something in semen that makes women happier, they’ll come back for more.
Well, that oughtta strike fear into women everywhere and fantasies in all you males. I can hear the XY stampede to the bookstore from here.
28 January 2009
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Published on January 28th, 2009 @ 11:23:07 am, using 526 words, 59 views
So many of the Lincoln books, as we’ve seen in these posts leading up to his 200th birthday next month, chronicle and detail events and controversies in his life, leaving in the shadows (at least somewhat) how he specifically interacted with others in the same detail. We do get books on his personal family life and such, as we’ve noted before, but we don’t want to leave the impression that there aren’t any really good studies on his relationships with those who served him and those he counted as friends. So, check out the books below for more detail than we’re providing with excerpts from the cover summaries and to see how his personal networks also fed back into who he was and what he accomplished, especially during the Civil War.
T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals
[One of the biggest “classics” and not that long if you want to be able to brag about your Lincoln reading] This is the human, dramatic, and fascinating story of Lincoln as commander in chief of an army at war against its brothers. It is a riveting look at his search for a winning general, and of his own emergence as a master strategist. Here is the Lincoln who, in loneliness and doubt, bore the whole burden of forging a modern command system that would serve a nation in years to come. More than a military history of the Civil War, this is the story of the American president as war director.
Craig L. Symonds, Lincoln and His Admirals
Lincoln was remarkably patient; he often postponed critical decisions until the momentum of events made the consequences of those decisions evident. But Symonds also shows that Lincoln could act decisively. Disappointed by the lethargy of his senior naval officers on the scene, he stepped in and personally directed an amphibious assault on the Virginia coast, a successful operation that led to the capture of Norfolk. The man who knew “little about ships” had transformed himself into one of the greatest naval strategists of his age.
David Herbert Donald, “We Are Lincoln Men": Abraham Lincoln and His Friends
“We Are Lincoln Men” examines the significance of friendship in Abraham Lincoln’s life and the role it played in his presidency. Though Lincoln had hundreds of acquaintances and dozens of admirers, he had almost no intimate friends. Behind his mask of affability and endless stream of humorous anecdotes, he maintained an inviolate reserve that only a few were ever able to penetrate. In this highly original book, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner David Herbert Donald examines, for the first time, these close relationships and explores their role in shaping Lincoln’s career.
William C. Davis, Lincoln’s Men: How President Lincoln Became Father to an Army and a Nation
No American president has enjoyed as intimate a relationship with the soldiers in his army as did the man they called “Father Abraham.” In Lincoln’s Men, historian William C. Davis draws on thousands of unpublished letters and diaries–the voices of the volunteers–to tell the hidden story of how a new and untested president became “Father” throughout both the army and the North as a whole.
27 January 2009
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Published on January 27th, 2009 @ 01:15:47 pm, using 161 words, 41 views
As if on cue, as they say, one of his colleagues at Science Blogs produces a quickie review of Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide, which we mentioned in the post immediately below. Although I liked Blink and think I’m occasionally a thinking man, even if sometimes proven wrong, the piece is worth your time. The reviewer admits possible biases, but, given the high quality of Lehrer’s other work, including his regular blogging, the “thumbs up” is not particularly suspect. Here’s a quick bite of the review apple, which should tempt you toward not just Lehrer or the reviewer but to the blog generally, one of the best and most entertaining sites on the Web for science and commentary. Which you will be visiting as soon as finishing this post, right?
This is a serious but seriously fun work about thinking that resists the easy take – it’s true to the science – but nevertheless bright, lucid, and lively. It’s the thinking person’s “Blink.”
26 January 2009
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Published on January 26th, 2009 @ 07:20:23 pm, using 314 words, 34 views
One of our best young writers right now, at least of nonfiction that is useful as well as interesting, is Jonah Lehrer, whose How We Decide should be in your hands soon. At his Frontal Cortex blog, he’s been kind enough to let us in on what he thinks are the five best books you can read if you want to be up on human irrationality (you know, to understand your times). Of course, Predictably Irrational, which we’ve praised, is on there, but the others, covering a nice range of time, are worth the time as well. Here’s what he has to say about The Winner’s Curse, which was available years ago to predict much of where we’ve ended up.
In 2000, the Texas Rangers signed Alex Rodriguez to the richest contract in baseball history after participating in a blind auction. If the team had consulted Richard H. Thaler’s “The Winner’s Curse,” it would have known that such auctions invariably lead to irrational offers – and, indeed, the Rangers’ bid (a 10-year contract for $252 million) overshot the next highest offer by about $100 million. In addition to documenting how bidders at auctions operate, Thaler – a behavioral economist at the University of Chicago – examines other anomalies, such as the stock market’s seasonal fluctuations (nearly one-third of annual returns occur in January) and the surprising unselfishness of people playing economic games. When given $10 and told to share the money with someone else, most people don’t keep it all, or even most of it. Instead, they tend to split the cash equally, which is neither selfish nor rational. As Thaler notes, people have a powerful instinct for generosity, which can lead them to do things that flagrantly violate the model of Homo Economicus.
Now go and read the others. And then check in with his blog as often as you can (that doesn’t mean every other minute, by the way).
25 January 2009
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Published on January 25th, 2009 @ 11:16:15 am, using 248 words, 36 views
As Abe’s 200th birthday arrives next month, we’re getting more attention to the multitude of books coming out, and not just at this blog. The Boston Globe has a decent review of three books up right now that you should check out, with nods to the wider library available as well. You’ll find a couple we’ve noted here, the new Lincoln epic bio, the shorter paean to his devotion to the written word, and a nice overview of Mrs. Lincoln, who doesn’t always get those. Here’s just a smidgen to get you to wander over there to check the whole thing out:
. . . Kaplan is hardly the first to recognize and celebrate Lincoln’s way with words. He emphasizes the particularly literary side of the 16th president, who carried Byron, Burns, and Shakespeare in saddlebags. A gifted writer himself, Kaplan even manages to get us interested in young Abe’s satirical verses and the contents of the primers he devoured. While Kaplan emphasizes the written word, the picture he paints is of a man always moving between the spoken, the written, and the printed: reading aloud with friends, writing notes to himself for speeches, poring over newspapers. Lincoln preferred to write before he spoke and even believed the written word superior to the spoken, but never thought either should be taken lightly. His care with language shaped his outrage at President James K. Polk’s evasive justifications for the Mexican War and Stephen Douglas’s vile race-baiting a decade later.
Don’t dally now.
23 January 2009
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Published on January 23rd, 2009 @ 07:57:48 pm, using 353 words, 35 views
For your weekend reviewing pleasure, check these out:
We’ve lauded Bonk here a couple of times and now you’ve got a chance to partake of another really good review and learn about the Science Blogs Book Club at the same time. (And find out about some intellectual silliness in Davenport’s Dream that may make you laugh . . . or sick.) You’ll venture back for more.
Humans are notoriously delusional. You can believe virtually anything and get away with it as long as you ground just enough reality into food and a roof. One of our biggest delusions is that the world (universe and all) was built for us. That craziness has been fading with regularly over the last few centuries. Watching all the bricks in the wall of human specialness (we’re the only ones with languages or can do math, for example) fall down and crumble is actually kinda fun, especially now as things start going exponentially. One of the biggest whackers of human uniqueness has been Frans de Waal and his work on primates who amazingly manage to exhibit basically all the behaviors we superior ones do (minus television), politics, economics, and all. Neuronarrative has a nice interview with him and a tip to his Our Inner Ape. Go meet him if you haven’t before, then go by a library of his books.
While you’re out and around, stop in at My Mind on Books tips you off to the book summaries of a couple of new books coming out on intelligence and what it really is (hint: not necessarily a score on a test). (The idea that you maybe shouldn’t trust directions from a guy with high IQs may not be a shocker.)
We opened with science books and can go out with another one. Scientific American does occasional reviews, too, and here are a couple of books, including one you can compare to a My Mind review above and another you can oooh and aaaah over about people and their animals, or animals and their people. (You’ll also get a tv review and movie review, more for your money than here, right?)
21 January 2009
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Published on January 21st, 2009 @ 07:35:20 pm, using 653 words, 37 views
What does it say that the only serious review and comment about Marek Kohn’s Trust: Self-Interest and the Common Good has come so far from Britain, not the U.S.? Could the topic be too serious for us to consider these days (see “Unserious” below)? In any case, this short but thoughtful essay follows the footsteps of Robert Putnam and Francis Fukayama into an arena exploring one of those concepts like love, culture, and respect that we all know and understand but can’t define. He doesn’t exactly corral the topic where others haven’t but it’s a good intro or addendum, depending on where you are on the subject. Want proof?
Well, here’s a good review for your consideration, with a taste to entice:
The trouble is that, as Marek Kohn’s plain, direct, rather gracefully written new book contends, one cannot easily make trust into a policy project. Of course (as O’Neill argued), one could encourage hospitals or schools to do their bit better without putting them through all these damn silly accountability tests, but trust lives or dies in the texture of civic and sociable life, and it is that, as every sociological bromide teaches us, which has become atomised by prosperity to the point of attrition.
“Better be cheated a few times than never to trust,” said Dr Johnson, and Kohn’s excellent chapter headings indicate his readiness to state the obvious and to stand up nobly for blunt honesty and the common good (when did you last see that splendid phrase in the title of a book for fairly common readers?). “Through thick and thin” (his two types of necessary trust), “The goodwill of the people” (a realistic account of the limitations of popular energy in sustaining mass movements - Solidarno?? couldn’t last), “Leaving the door unlocked” (a fine reminder of the importance of equality to trust) - such chapters speak straight to the moral concerns of a society, and one can only wish that Kohn could be heard beyond the little constituency of monograph readers.
A shorter recommendation? Here’s about half of one you should check out:
What is trust? Is there less of it around nowadays? If so, how might we get some of it back? Kohn’s brilliant essay, full of sardonically compressed insight, begins with a primordial scene of trust: a parent sending her child on an errand to the corner shop. From there the notion ramifies, splitting into “thick trust” (of people we know) and “thin trust” (of people we don’t), and taking in the behaviour of gazelles being chased by wild dogs; unofficial truces between frontline German and British soldiers in the first world war; the apparatus of modern surveillance; and the Prisoner’s Dilemma, with “its obscure moral topography, in which telling the truth appears to count as cheating".
Want it straight from the horse? Here’s a commentary by Mister Kohn himself:
In the province and in cities around the world, trust will develop when people see that it is in their interests to build relationships with others of different cultures. They will have to build on the elements in their cultures that they have in common - which may mean building a new, shared, culture. This does not mean facing in surmountable barriers in human nature, despite what those who dislike diversity frequently imply; just the normal difficulties that arise in any relationships that are worth building. Trust is the reward of self-interest properly understood.
Oh, yeah, there’s dissent, from this dyspeptic soul, but pay no heed. The topic has never been more important or in need. It’s the cement that the last 4 Nixonian decades has eroded and that the new President claims he’s going to restore. It won’t happen without understanding of its overarching necessity. Maybe the first thing Obama should spend money on is getting each of us this book. Or at least someone in charge of book reviews somewhere in the US to get a clue.
19 January 2009
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Published on January 19th, 2009 @ 07:57:35 pm, using 1414 words, 30 views
Now that you’ve had a day or two to be reminded of the courage and wisdom of Dr. King, you may not want the glow to fade. In particular, you may want to maintain the emotions stirred by his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Just as Lincoln’s great speeches were generally the final distillations of speeches and ideas he had expressed frequently in the past, “The Dream” had been foreshadowed several times in King’s prior talks. In fact, when he got close to the end of the planned speech that day at Lincoln’s Memorial, when he paused due to the lack of a fitting conclusion, one or more of the entourage behind him exhorted him to “tell them about your dream.” And he did. In a version that will continue to serve this nation long past the passage of all the venal politicians and pundits who have used, misused, and abused in these later years.
“The Dream” is the subject of Eric Sundquist’s King’s Dream, a thorough analysis of the speech and its place in our civil rights and civil rights speeches history. Both the Boston Globe and the NY Times managed to find adequate reviewers of the book. The Globe’s is the minor one of the two, but does make a couple of good points:
Most significant in the speech as a whole, Sundquist suggests, were the “substantial quotations” from the Old Testament books of Daniel, Isaiah, and Amos. However obscure they might be to a secular audience, King’s intentions were “unambiguous,” for “in each instance the scripture’s religious message bears directly on the political argument” that King was making. In allying himself with those prophets, Sundquist writes, King “joined a biblical tradition of prophetic dissent that meant not to undermine the authority of the nation but righteously to restore it.”
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In the book’s concluding chapter, “Not by the Color of Their Skin,” Sundquist explores the political interpretation of a key passage: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” “Those thirty-five spontaneous words,” Sundquist writes, have been crucial in “[framing] public discussion of affirmative action over the past four decades.” They have been used as such by Ronald Reagan, by supporters of California’s Proposition 209, which barred “preferential treatment,” and, perhaps most remarkably, by Clarence Thomas, before his appointment to the US Supreme Court, in arguing for an “equality of rights.”
Wondering where King would stand today, Sundquist suggests that “his aspiration to color-blindness [would] not contradict his commitment to compensatory treatment.” But in the end, “in King’s moral universe . . . character always trumps color.”
The Times‘ review gives more detail and spends the appropriate amount of time. Here’s something to tempt you over there as well:
One other theme was there in the “dream” speech: that freedom and justice are for both blacks and whites. In the earlier part of the speech, before the extemporized passages, King said: “The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.”
Those words did not lead soon or easily to the remarkable turn away from racism that made possible the election of Barack Obama. King endured hard times before his death in 1968. His attempts to bring the gospel of justice to Northern cities foundered; black ghetto dwellers were less responsive to talk of peace and love, and some whites responded violently. Advocacy of black power became the rhetoric of the moment.
But in the long run King’s message has prevailed. Black Americans have followed his call for assertive selfhood, taking their place in the ranks of professionals, intellectuals, political leaders. White Americans, most of them, have come to realize, as King said, “that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.”
Sounds a lot like the kumbaya of the new Administration, right? Commentators have been eager to draw the comparisons. Indeed, the review above agrees that, without King, Obama doesn’t happen. But, as others have noted, the desire to turn King into an accomodationist who sought peace over confrontation is more than a little perverted. Yes, he dreamed of a colorless world, but that world was far away and required active pursuit of justice for all, the dear but frequently betrayed American credo. The Situationist has a great post up highlighting Dr. King’s letter from the Birmingham jail which took on the accomodationists who urged him to back off, back off, compromise, take half (actually, tenth) of a loaf being offered. Here’s the conclusion of their post, which should convince you to read the whole thing:
So, yes, Reverend King urged us all to help create a world in which people were “not . . . judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” But King said much more. He recognized and tried to teach those who would listen that getting to that world would mean examining and challenging the situation — including our beliefs, our laws, our ideologies, our religious beliefs, our institutions, and existing allocations of opportunity, wealth, and power.
Judging those who are disadvantaged by the content of their character is not, taken alone, much of a solution. It may, in fact, be part of the problem. . . . the problem “is, not in neglecting character, but in attributing to ‘character’ what should be attributed to [a person’s] situation and, in turn, to our system and ourselves.” Or, as Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, far more effectively: “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
Right now we’re already hearing about how accomodation of principle to politics is a necessity in DC, that rotting sumpthole replica of Versailles at its worst. Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare are “on the table” with only a promise not to totally eliminate them, with Obama’s “position” from his campaign already on the table ready to be warped by accomodation and compromise with the hardline, hardcore pundit and Republican Beltway bullsh*t. Imagine what Dr. King would think. In fact, while the letter from the Birmingham jail was ostensibly directed to the “moderate” Southern whites, it was easily if not politically correctly applicable to the high-minded, “educated” and superior black elites in the community giving the same advice (the world that Condoleezza Rice came from, not coincidentally) as well. In greater fact, from what we’ve seen from the incoming president, it’s not hard at all to see him as one of those to whom Dr. King was writing. It would be nice to picture Obama walking in the movement. It’s easier to see him in his faculty office offering his wisdom.
No, he wouldn’t have gotten elected as a reincarnation of Dr. King, much less advocating what Dr. King was preaching for the welfare of this nation and its people at the end of his life. But he’d be much more admirable. Any idiot can be elected President. We’ve just gotten finished proving that.
Being anything close to Dr. King? Well, how lucky could we be to have two of them in my lifetime?
[Want to read even more about Dr. King’s life? There are a couple of new books out there right now worth your time. Check out Jonathan Rieder’s The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me and/or Harvard Sitkoff (really) and his King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop. Of course, the gold standard for understanding Dr. King’s life and times will always be Taylor Branch’s trilogy, but the one volume takeaway to look for is Bearing the Cross by David Garrow. If you don’t have time for a long book, try Marshall Frady’s short but excellent bio. And, to get both Dr. King’s words and take on his times at his times, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, pulling his speeches and articles together to let him tell his own story, is a unique but fine way to hear from the man himself. Unlike the new president, King didn’t have time to write a real autobiography. Or two.]
17 January 2009
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Published on January 17th, 2009 @ 08:24:04 am, using 345 words, 35 views
Oh, my heavens. A decent review in the NY Times Book Review. Could it have anything to do with departures on Tuesday? Or simply that a bad review on a book that offers so much to help us out of the unholy mess that departure on Tuesday is leaving would be even too stupid and dogmatic for the Review? Never you mind. Whatever got it there is good enough for me and we should take advantage while it’s there.
As you may have guessed from the hint in the title, the review is of Jeff Madrick’s The Case for Big Government, which has received strangely (??) few reviews to this point, beyond ours and the one we linked to several months ago. But now, with the case for big government never clearer (except to our version of those Communists who still believe the plug was pulled too soon in the USSR), Madrick’s prescriptions are more relevant and needed than ever, even though he wrote before the water started going out from the beach in 2008 before the 2009-2010 tsunami that’s just making itself known on the horizon. The review gets the major point with unusual perceptiveness about this warped society we call home:
Now, Madrick maintains, the transition to a globalized, information-oriented, service economy presents similar challenges that, like the ones of earlier times, can best be answered by activist government. He urges billions for public investments — universal health coverage, universal pre-kindergarten, repairs in the nation’s infrastructure and half of college tuition at no cost for qualified students, similar to the free high school education that was provided to young people at the turn of the last century.
Still, even if such investments empower new generations to get ahead, they are quite likely to believe that they did it all by themselves. Like their parents and grandparents before them, they may follow the uniquely American tradition of supporting public programs in practice while claiming to be antigovernment in principle.
Now that a big-time (perverted) book review has endorsed it, will you go out and get the book?
16 January 2009
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Published on January 16th, 2009 @ 06:38:08 pm, using 298 words, 42 views
The more I watch the incoming president and his philosophy and appointments, the more I decided that he should stop ostentaciously copying “Team of Rivals” and take seriously “The Best and the Brightest,” well reviewed if you need it right here. He probably mistakenly thinks “The Best” is about Vietnam. Turns out, though, that the arrogance and over-credentialed ignorance that is already so apparent (uh, “reform” Social Security your first use of your “capital"? An honest man like Abe would have let voters know it would be his first major action) has already f**king embraced the concept of equating wisdom with Ivy League diplomas, just like the morons who led us into the Vietnam debacle. I know, I know, at least they can talk good. Sounds like a fun four years, right? Don’t worry, though. It will only be 4. Then the Republicans again. Maybe even another Bush. Right back where they left things because no one will hold them accountable now. Assuming things hold out that long.
Here’s how to review. An excellent review of James Fallows’ new book. I’ve always had mixed emotions about Fallows, complete with his less than exemplary early career working for Carter (admitting cowardice and classism as if that exonerated him, criticizing a President three times smarter than Fallows will ever be), but he wrote a couple of keeper books on national defense policy and on the callowness of the Beltway media. Of course, he has become a leading spokesperson for the mushy middleness of that Beltway mentality. The reviewer lauds Fallows’ intelligent rendition, as always, of China today while Fallows somehow glosses over things like repression and the rule of law there. IOW, the review appreciates what is appreciable and pulls gently apart another Fallows’ unfulfilled effort at wisdom. Nice work.
15 January 2009
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Published on January 15th, 2009 @ 08:07:33 pm, using 293 words, 73 views
Think all the book reviews we’ve seen on Abe for the last few months have been hooey? (We won’t get into your thoughts about the blog.) Well, now you can do your own. As Brian Dirck informs us at A Lincoln Blog, virtually the whole treasury of Abe’s words is now available online for any old yahoo to inspect, analyze, and expound on. Like what, you say? How about this?
So let’s see: we now have The Collected Works, the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Day by Day and the Lincoln Legal Papers available online, for free, in very user-friendly formats, for anyone’s use. Also, a search on the The Collected Works website yields hits from some of the better reminiscences, like Ward Hill Lamon’s memoirs, and Carpenter’s Six Months in the White House.
As usual, Dirck also gives us a couple of things to ponder, including how the availability of materials like these to the general public makes it possible that the old “talented amateurs” can once again get seriously into the history racket and broaden what the professionals have done to the field. Although he would be professionally in competition with these “public” works, he nevertheless sees the benefits:
On the other hand, there’s something to be said for those old, classic works of history, written by men of letters like Francis Parkman. Yes, their research methods weren’t very systematic, sometimes appallingly so, and they drew some pretty dubious conclusions at times. But their books are classics for a reason: they have wit, flair, and a certain grandeur that is lacking in many more “professional” works.
Go read the whole post. Then go write the next classic bio on Abe and show him that this new situation really could be good.
13 January 2009
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Published on January 13th, 2009 @ 07:51:58 pm, using 114 words, 34 views
Oh, the things you will learn from a quickie today:
Andrew Gelman will alert you to the politics of language and nationalism.
At Neuronarrative you will learn how men can learn to live without violence.
OrgTheory gives you a readings list of your own on, you know, organization theory.
Miller-McCune ("turning research into solutions"!!!!!) has a couple of topical reviews of possible educational value to you, one on how to calm the development of school shooters, one a surprising guide to locating self-help books that really do help selves.
Finally, The New Yorker brings you history that may get to echo or fold back on itself soon, a review of CO’s Ludlow Massacre.
Enjoy.
11 January 2009
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Published on January 11th, 2009 @ 02:06:01 pm, using 949 words, 45 views
As I mentioned in the last post, the subject of Abe and his devotion and adherance to the Constitution is one of the hottest among those who want to glorify Lincoln and those who want to whack him (metaphorically). The thing for me on this is that Lincoln consistently expressed his desire to do no more than the Constitution allowed him and in fact refused to act precipitously against slavery, which he personally abhorred, precisely for that reason. Even the Emancipation Proclamation, which some question constitutionally, was deliberately limited to what he felt he could do under the document he admired. Yes, some of what he did wasn’t in the Constitution, but most of it got validated later under his instigation (I did say “most of it"). And Lincoln, contrary to those who would use him to create a King today, never said anything about “unitary” executives or a desire to undercut either Congress or elections. (Wouldn’t the easiest thing to do in a Civil War tend to be to invalidate the Constitution with martial law and not risk being defeated for reelection? You doubt for a minute that the current resident of the White House and his owner Cheney would have abrogated elections under the same circumstances?) So, yes, the Constitution did not emerge unscathed from his administration, but most of it was remedied as soon as possible and no permanent damage was done. It wasn’t until this administration and this Congress that Americans could held without charge indefinitely in non-homeland war conditions, not something you would expect had Lincoln permanently damaged the Constitution he loved.
So, you know where I stand on this one, thankful that we had a Lincoln and not a Polk or Harding (or you know who) in charge at the time. There are other views, of course, and not surprisingly they have been written up extensively. So, as his bicentennial inches closer, we’ll tip you to some of the books you can find around right now on the subject, giving you key portions of their liner notes. Which one(s) you decide to pursue will be up to you. Any of them will be worth your time.
George Anastaplo, Abraham Lincoln: A Constitutional Biography.
With eloquent insights into Lincoln’s intellect and the issues dividing the country he led, Anastaplo describes how the sixteenth president successfully managed the impossible task of keeping the world’s greatest democracy united. Anastaplo also demonstrates Lincoln’s continuing and profound influence on modern American society, law, and politics and shows readers the lessons this fascinating man can still teach Americans about coping with diverse times.
Daniel Farber, Lincoln’s Constitution.
Daniel Farber’s purpose in Lincoln’s Constitution is to lead the reader to understand exactly what Lincoln did, what arguments he made in defense of his actions, and how his words and deeds fit into the context of the times. Farber sets the constitutional problems that arose during Lincoln’s term within their historical moment, as illuminated by recent work by historians, and investigates how well Lincoln’s views hold up today–over a century later. The answers are crucial not only for a better understanding of the Civil War but also for shedding light on issues that the courts struggle with now: state sovereignty, presidential power, and national security limitations on civil liberties.
Brian McGinty, Lincoln & the Court.
The Civil War was, on one level, a struggle between competing visions of constitutional law, represented on the one side by Lincoln’s insistence that the United States was a permanent Union of one people united by a “supreme law,” and on the other by Jefferson Davis’s argument that the United States was a compact of sovereign states whose legal ties could be dissolved at any time and for any reason, subject only to the judgment of the dissolving states that the cause for dissolution was sufficient. Alternately opposed and supported by the justices of the Supreme Court, Lincoln steered the war-torn nation on a sometimes uncertain, but ultimately triumphant, path to victory, saving the Union, freeing the slaves, and preserving the Constitution for future generations.
Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties.
Neely depicts Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus as a well-intentioned attempt to deal with a floodtide of unforeseen events–from the disintegrating public order in the border states to the outcry against the first draft in U.S. history. Drawing on letters from prisoners, records of military courts and federal prisons, memoirs, and federal archives, he paints a vivid picture of how Lincoln responded to these problems, how his policies were actually executed, and the virulent political debates that followed. Lincoln emerges from this account with his legendary statesmanship intact–mindful of political realities and prone to temper the sentences of military courts, concerned not with persecuting his opponents but with prosecuting the war efficiently.
James F. Simon, Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession, and the President’s War Powers.
The clashes between President Abraham Lincoln and Chief Justice Roger B. Taney over slavery, secession, and the president’s constitutional war powers went to the heart of Lincoln’s presidency. James Simon, author of the acclaimed What Kind of Nation–an account of the battle between President Thomas Jefferson and Chief Justice John Marshall to define the new nation–brings to vivid life the passionate struggle during the worst crisis in the nation’s history, the Civil War. The issues that underlaid that crisis–race, states’ rights, and the president’s wartime authority–resonate today in the nation’s political debate. . . .
Almost 150 years after Lincoln’s and Taney’s deaths, their words and actions reverberate in constitutional debate and political battle. Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney tells their dramatic story in fascinating detail.
08 January 2009
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mdconnelly (
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Published on January 8th, 2009 @ 06:33:24 pm, using 393 words, 45 views
As one actor comes on the White House stage miming Abe, we may forget that the one leaving the stage also laid claim to Lincoln, especially regarding war powers and constitutionality. As with 99.9% of the departing character’s conclusions, he got this wrong, too. We’ll go through some of the books detailing Abe’s attempts to keep his actions within the boundaries of law and Constitution while seeing both under attack at another time soon. For now, though, here’s a notice of an interesting-sounding book from Burrus M. Carnahan (another cool name for an Abe student), Act of Justice: Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Law of War.
The reviewer provides us one of the hyper-academic reviews common at Law and Politics Book Review, but manages to make the book sound good anyway. From Burrus, we apparently learn more than just the Proclamation and the impact it had on the war and that the war had on it. J.Q. Adams makes an appearance, for example, presciently predicting many of the legal issues that Lincoln as president would face a generation later. And, not surprisingly, the review gives Lincoln props for handling all this without becoming the overpowering Executive that even now nitwits claim he really did. Here’s proof the reviewer is clued in:
When writing about Abraham Lincoln, or reviewing writing about Lincoln for [*6] that matter, it is a challenge to resist resorting to clichés and superlatives. Nevertheless, the story of Lincoln’s act of justice lends itself to invoking the phrase “necessity is the mother of invention.” More precisely, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation underscores the fact that necessity is not necessarily the mother of invention. Necessity creates the possibility – not the inevitability – of invention. Here’s the superlative: Lincoln’s genius manifested itself in his ability to employ military necessity to midwife “a new birth of freedom.” Although Burrus Carnahan did not witness Lincoln’s recreation of the American Republic, he is an acute observer who provides readers a lucid account of how lawyer Lincoln slouched toward harnessing the laws of war, grounding his executive act emancipating American slaves on the military necessity of defeating the Confederacy in order to save the Union. Carnahan shows us how a president can act audaciously and lawfully, at the same time. His book offers potential lessons for our own perilous time.
Now go get enlightened more.
06 January 2009
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mdconnelly (
)
Published on January 6th, 2009 @ 07:31:57 pm, using 319 words, 30 views
One of the coolest thing about the rise of blogs, despite what you hear from the clueless whiners in the MSM, is the quality and effort of some of the smarter people you’ll ever run across. What you once might have found in journals and thought-piece magazines but can’t get in regular media much anymore, what with the important things going on with the current lover(s?) of Madonna and the Democrats’ latest screw-up over seating a legally appointed Senator, you can find on some of the intellectual sites on individual topics or mass eclecticism. One of the better sociology sites is Daniel Little’s Organizing Society, a virtual college course in soc theory ranging across some of the really interesting topics you find in the field.
One of the coolest things about Organizing Society is the occasional book review that Little will toss off, related to things he’s been talking about or thinking of. And he has one up right now on Thomas Hughes’ Human-Built World: How to Think about Technology and Culture, which pretty much gives away the plot in the title. He summarizes it well, if you’re still with us here, and links to several other interesting sounding related books as well if you want to follow up. Here’s how he starts it:
Technology is sometimes thought of as a domain with a logic of its own – an inevitable trend towards the development of the most efficient artifacts, given the potential represented by a novel scientific or technical insight. The most important shift that has occurred in the ways in which historians conceptualize the history of technology in the past thirty years is the clear recognition that technology is a social product, all the way down. And, as a corollary, historians of technology have increasingly come to recognize the deep contingency that characterizes the development of specific instances or families of technologies.
Now go get the rest.
05 January 2009
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mdconnelly (
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Published on January 5th, 2009 @ 07:11:39 pm, using 222 words, 61 views
In the mood for some reviews but just don’t know what kind? Well, try out the offerings below:
If science is your wont, Science Blogs has a couple up, one telling you “how to build a brain” via The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams and God by David J. Linden. The other will warp your mind with Godel’s incompleteness in Rebecca Goldstein’s Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel.
On the other hand, if cognitive science is more your thing, My Mind on Books has one of its very useful posts up tipping you off to a lot of the coming offerings in the field in 2009.
Over at the political blog Correntewire, they’ve discovered a classic, Irving Janis’ Groupthink, and are trying to figure out how, just how it may still be relevant to anything current today. First of two parts.
And finally, probably the most important group for you if you want to know what’s next in line after the economic crash, Peak Oil, and global warming–water shortage, at least useable water. Voir Dire gives you the works you need to set you up with not just the details but also the background of the policy and politics that will dominate the rest of your life. Have plenty of alcohol on hand.
02 January 2009
Written by
mdconnelly (
)
Published on January 2nd, 2009 @ 09:37:00 pm, using 264 words, 41 views
I’ve spent the bulk of my life living and/or working in college towns and I’ve always appreciated that special character even if I haven’t kegged in years. This review at USA Today of The American College Town by Blake Gumprecht tips us to some of the factors that make life in them so interesting. The reviewer especially gets kudos for her reminiscences of State Street and Madison, WI, one of the more remarkable venues in the country, college town or not, reminding me of some of the places I used to walk by regularly. She manages to see State Street in many other college towns discussed by Gumprecht:
Gumprecht, who teaches at the University of New Hampshire, did not focus on Madison, but I recognized in his chapter four the protest marches, the Halloween parties and “Art the Window Washer” of my beloved State Street. Similarly, I have recognized Madison’s hallmarks – the local coffee shops, the campus bars, the offbeat clothing stores and specialty bookstores – during my visits over the last decade to other college towns such as Chapel Hill, N.C.; Lawrence, Kan.; Athens, Ga; State College, Pa.; Ann Arbor, Mich.; Urbana-Champaign, Ill.; Oberlin, Ohio; Princeton, N.J.; Cambridge, Mass.; and Berkeley, Calif.
The thing most stable about college towns and their special streets is the instability as the mix of the community and businesses evolves, leaving some businesses there forever and others disappearing overnight. I miss College Park still sometimes, Madison more than I should. But this sounds like the book to soothe the nostalgia. See if you feel the same.
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