A very wet universe … Celebrating Gordon Wood … A century of studying Machu Picchu … The sound of a paranoid Nixon … The unknown Rick Perry.
Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism. Read past recommendations from this series here.
1.The High Road to Ruins By Andrew Berg | Intelligent Travel :: National Geographic | July 7
“[O]ne eco-minded outfitter is turning the Camino Salkantay, a backcountry route through unspoiled ecosystems and undisturbed hamlets, into the Next Inca Trail—and setting a new standard for sustainable tourism in the Andes.”
2.Machu Picchu, Before and After Excavation National Geographic Daily News | July 22
“The ruins of Machu Picchu are covered in jungle growth in this 1911 photograph taken when Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham first came to the site a century ago this week.”
3.Gordon S. Wood, Historian of the American Revolution By David Hackett Fischer | The New York Times Book Review | July 22
“More important than his productivity is the quality of his work, and its broad appeal to readers of the right, left and center — a rare and happy combination.”
4.New recordings a window into Nixon’s paranoia By Bill Plante | CBS News | July 21
“It’s no secret that Richard Nixon was obsessed with his enemies — but it turns out it started long before Watergate.”
6.More Fancy Words By Philip B. Corbett | Times Topics :: The New York Times | July 26
“The good news is that Times writers don’t feel the need to use the words panegyric, immiscible or Manichaean very often. That’s fortunate because the bad news is, when we do use them, a lot of readers don’t know what we’re talking about.”
7.Peru’s Garcia leaves conflicts unresolved By Carla Salazar | Associated Press | July 27
“Economic growth averaged 7 percent a year during his 2006-2011 administration, inflation held at less than 3 percent annually and the government amassed $47 billion in foreign reserves. The economic numbers only tell part the story, however.”
8.Black Hole Drinks 140 Trillion Earths’ Worth of Water By Michael D. Lemonick | Time | July 26
“We don’t think of the universe as a terribly wet place, but in fact, there’s water out in space pretty much everywhere you look.”
9.G.D. Spradlin, Prolific Character Actor, Dies at 90 By Douglas Martin | The New York Times | July 26
“In ‘The Godfather: Part II’ (1974) he played Pat Geary, the corrupt United States senator who defies the Mafia boss Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, telling Corleone he intends to ‘squeeze’ him.”
10.President Kennedy’s Visit to Ireland Witness :: BBC News | June 27
“The Irish author Colm Toibin remembers President Kennedy returning to the land of his forefathers and being taken to the nation’s heart as if he were one of its own.”
In the long run, Bull Run was merely a tactical victory for the South. More importantly, it was the psychological defeat the North needed for its people and its leaders to truly comprehend what was necessary to achieve true and complete victory over the Confederacy.
'Capture of Ricketts' Battery' by Sidney E. King
The brutal Texas heat has kept me indoors for most of the weekend, and there’s no better place to lounge away the summer hours than in the long, cool shadows of my Civil War library. Recollections and histories of the Civil War’s first major battle have dominated my recent reading.
This week in 1861, on July 21, the Battle of Bull Run — or the Battle of Manassas, as Confederates called it — was fought just southwest of Washington, D.C. (we add “First” to each version of the name because there was a second battle in the general area 13 months later). I won’t get into the actual play-by-play of the fight because one of my favorite Civil War historians, Gary W. Gallagher, has already taken care of that with a piece on the New York TimesDisunion blog. I strongly encourage all of you to check it out. It’s a great account of a fascinating battle.
A good companion piece to Gallagher’s introduction comes from the Civil War Trust, which put together a pretty good online package that includes narration, placing the fight in its historical context and animating the military manuveurs, recommending reading, slideshows showing the battlefield today and video chats with historians. Also check out the magnificent Bull Runnings, a blog and digital archive that has collected diaries, biographies, articles on the battle, slideshows of the battlefield, unit histories and much more.
On the news side, the Associated Press produced an interactive feature on the war and published some interesting pieces on the Manassas battle on its Facebook page. Finally, the Washington Post reported earlier today that re-enactors re-fought the battle in Virginia.
Tactically, as Gallagher explains, the battle was a mess, especially once the Confederates struck the Federal army for the last time. The Union’s front lines broke, and any sense of military cohesion collapsed. In “Battle Cry of Freedom,” James McPherson wrote that “the men on both sides fought surprisingly well. But lack of experience prevented northern officers from coordinating simultaneous assaults by different regiments.”
In “The Coming Fury,” Bruce Catton agreed, writing that [Union commander Irvin McDowell] and his officers did their best to reorganize the men and make a stand, but the effort was hopeless. These untrained regiments had simply been used beyond their capacity and they had fallen apart.” Wounded men, stragglers, and exhausted and frightened troops flowed northward, away from the battlefield, coursing through the lines of civilians that had come south to watch the battle. Wild rumors that the Confederates were about to pounce on the retreating masses for one final massacre spread panic like wildfire, turning the lurching and limping into a stampede.
William Howard Russell, writing for The Times of London, remembered that as he watched the northerners stagger from the battlefield he “felt an inclination to laugh, which was overcome by disgust, and by that vague sense of something extraordinary taking place which is experienced when a man sees a number of people acting as if driven by some unknown terror.” Mired in the chaotic traffic jams, Russell simply didn’t appreciate the totality of the Union military disaster on July 21.
Heavy rain drenched the region in the days after the fight but it did little to dampen Southern excitement. Confederate officer Lafayette McLaws wrote on the 23rd, “The news from Manassas is so very glorious that I cannot believe all that is told. It seems a dream only, to think of our army meeting with such extraordinary success.” Word of the Southern victory reached Louisiana a few days after the battle, and a pleased Kate Stone recorded the news in her diary: “[O]ur side victorious, of course. … It was gallantly fought and won.” And Mary Chesnut, writing from Richmond, remembered the extra little thrill, above and beyond the martial glee she already felt, when someone showed her letters a Union soldier left behind on the battlefield: “[W]hat a comfort the spelling was! We were willing to admit the Yankees’ universal free school education puts them ahead of us in a literary way of speaking, but these letters do not attest that fact. The spelling is comically bad. …”
In Shelby Foote’s first volume of “The Civil War: A Narrative,” he wrote that the Battle of Bull Run afforded Southerners the reassurance “that the Yankees had been shown for once and for all. The war was won. Independence was a fact beyond all doubt. Even the casualty lists, the source of their sorrow, reinforced their conviction of superiority to anything the North could bring against them.”
As quoted in McPherson’s “Battle Cry of Freedom,” the Richmond Whig newspaper had perhaps the most magnificently pompous reaction to the battle’s outcome: “The breakdown of the Yankee race, their unfitness for empire, forces dominion on the South. We are compelled to take the sceptre of power. We must adapt ourselves to our new destiny.”
David Herbert Donald, in “Lincoln,” wrote that the “next day, Lincoln began to assess the damage. He learned that many [Federal] troops had fought bravely and well. … [Most] of the volunteer Union regiments had retreated in good order, and the demoralized mob described by so many witnesses was largely composed of teamsters, onlookers and ninety-day troops whose terms of enlistment were about to expire. The army was defeated but not crushed. …”
The president, Donald wrote, visited soldiers stationed in forts protecting Washington D.C., publicly reassuring them they would be well-supplied while privately realizing that they were not well led. Irvin McDowell was not going to work out. Lincoln saw a flicker of fresh hope in a new commanding general: George B. McClellan.
In the days following the Union defeat, McPherson concludes, the psychological impact “on the North was not defeatism but renewed determination.” As northern newspapers published defiant editorials, Lincoln signed legislation authorizing the enlistment of one million men into the Federal armies. More men would be equipped, trained, armed and sent south.
In the long run, Bull Run was merely a tactical victory for the South. More importantly, it was the psychological defeat the North needed for its people and its leaders to comprehend what was necessary to achieve complete victory over the Confederacy.
Part 5 of this series focuses on John Newton, a British slave trafficker and later a minister who wrote ‘Amazing Grace.’
This special Stillness of Heart series explores the Morgan Library & Museum’s fascinating exhibit, “The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives.”
Part 5 focuses on John Newton, a British slave trafficker and later a minister who wrote “Amazing Grace.” Throughout his adult life, he struggled with his religious faith and with his views on slavery, and the diary captured in daily detail the long, tumultuous spiritual journey he made. In the end, as the exhibit essay explains, Newton simply hoped that someday he “would serve as inspiration to others.”
“I have been reading what I have recorded of my experience in the last year – a strange vanity. I find myself condemn’d in every page[.] But the Lord is good, O how gracious! How wonderfully has he born with my repeated backslidings! And yet the thought but faintly affects. What I can I will – Lord I am not able to praise thee, accept the desire, which I trust is thine own gift – deliver me from that pride, impurity & self seeking, which so fatally interrupt my progress.”
Examine images of the extraordinary diary and listen to the museum’s audio guide here.
One of my guiding principles is that we’re all capable of self-improvement at any age, particularly intellectual self-improvement. Sometimes that faith is the only thing that enables me to sleep through the night and get out of bed in the morning.
That’s Latin for “universal man” or “man of the world,” if Wikipedia can be relied on for a proper translation.
I glide through a small, comfortable life — trying not to bother anyone, trying to be pleasant and polite, non-judgmental and sympathetic, charming and humble, trying to be intellectually honest and self-aware of my limits and flaws, every day edging closer to fulfilling all my ambitions.
One of my guiding principles is that we’re all capable of self-improvement at any age, particularly intellectual self-improvement. Sometimes that faith is the only thing that enables me to sleep through the night and get out of bed in the morning. I’ve always been blessed with a hunger for knowledge, a curiosity that often flares into full-blown passion for new arenas of experience, a curiosity perhaps sparked by a bittersweet frustration that I don’t know as much about literature, science, mathematics, history and culture as I think I should.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve always embraced wholeheartedly people like Theodore Roosevelt and Michelangelo, those who lived their lives desperately hungry for more of the world to absorb into their hearts and minds, constantly reaching out to make more of it their own.
A friend once called me a polymath. Other friends have called me a Renaissance man. I politely laughed off both compliments. I’m certainly no genius. I’d hardly consider myself intelligent, compared to the accomplishments and capabilities of the other men and women in my life.
As I understand it, polymaths and Renaissance men and women possess an immensity of talent to complement that fiery passion to achieve great things in multiple fields, professions, etc. As my quiet life sadly illustrates — in which I’ve been not much more than a minor writer, historian, editor, painter and arts critic — I have very much of the latter and very little of the former.
Perhaps later life will prove otherwise, as I’m slowly exploring how to become a proper pianist, an amateur boxer, an effective apiarist and gardener, an expert numismatist and philatelist, a stellar professor of American Civil War and Roman and Spanish imperial history, a sympathetic and effective psychologist, an historical novelist, a decent speaker, writer and translator of Spanish and Latin, and a less-than-atrocious golfer, photographer, and salsa dancer. My mandate is to be more than a simple-minded, well-meaning hobbyist.
But if none of that works out, perhaps this particular man of the world will be content being someone who’s fun to spend time with, whose passion for history is inspiring, whose writing makes the heart soar, who’s always interesting, always relaxing, always enriching. Always happy.
I’d settle for that last one, above and beyond all the rest.
Part 4 of this series focuses on Paul Horgan, a middle-aged novelist who in the summer of 1968 shared Aspen, Colo., with hippies, rich tourists, and others from whom he felt wearily disconnected.
This special Stillness of Heart series explores the Morgan Library & Museum’s fascinating exhibit, “The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives.”
Part 4 focuses on Paul Horgan, a middle-aged novelist who in the summer of 1968 shared Aspen, Colo., with hippies, rich tourists, and others from whom he felt wearily disconnected. Nevertheless, he took comfort and inspiration from his perch as a keen observer of the details that define and enrich daily life.
“I remember once being sent to bed physically ill because I could not be a part of the off-hand dinner conversation of a couple — young, beautiful, articulate — at the next table, in a hotel restaurant in Corpus Christi, Texas. To be ready to die because a beautiful young man and a beautiful girl were not known to me, or did not want me with them!”
Examine images of Horgan’s fascinating diary and learn more about him here.
A plan for a modern Army … E.B. White and ‘Charlotte’s Web’ … Tacitus and Germania … Lenny Kravitz answers questions … a Japanese super submarine.
Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism. Read past recommendations from this series here.
1.Venezuelans ponder life without Chavez By Jack Chang | Associated Press | July 6
“Talk about [President Hugo] Chavez’s future is buzzing across [capital city Caracas], as newspapers, radio programs and conversations on the street weigh questions of succession and the fate of Chavez’s socialist-inspired Bolivarian Revolution.”
2.Women re-enact Civil War as men, quite accurately By David Dishneau | Associated Press | July 6
“A century and a half ago, women weren’t allowed into military service; masquerading as men was the only way in for those who weren’t satisfied with supporting the war effort from home or following their husbands’ military units around.”
3.An interview with Ollanta Humala, Peru’s president-elect By Lally Weymouth | The Washington Post | July 8
“Peru has changed. It is no longer the Peru of 2005. It is the Peru of 2011, and it is different from when I campaigned in 2005. Obviously, we politicians have to adapt to these changes.”
4.Japanese SuperSub Secrets of the Dead :: PBS
“With missions to attack U.S. cities and blow up the Panama Canal, the aircraft carrier submarine had the potential to change the course of the war in the Pacific.”
5.Q&A: Lenny Kravitz By Matt Hendrickson | Details | August 2011
“After more than two decades, Lenny Kravitz, 47, hasn’t shed the trappings of rock stardom — even if it’s his daughter who’s wearing the boas now.”
6.The Idea of Germany, From Tacitus to Hitler By Cullen Murphy | New York Times Book Review | June 10
“As described by the Roman historian Tacitus, three Roman legions led by Quinctilius Varus had crossed the Rhine from Gaul, intent on incorporating the vast area known as Germania into the empire. They were ambushed and annihilated by German tribes under the command of a warrior named Arminius. It was one of the worst military disasters the Romans ever suffered.”
7.Army releases modernization plan By Brian Gebhart | Army.mil | July 7
“The goal of the Strategy to Equip the Army in the 21st century is to develop and provide an affordable and versatile mix of the best equipment available to Soldiers and units to succeed in current and future military operations.”
8.How E.B. White Wove Charlotte’s Webb By Chloe Schama | Smithsonian.com | June 3
“A new book explores how the author of the beloved children’s book was inspired by his love for nature and animals.”
9.Is Sex Dead? By Tom Matlack | The Good Men Project | July 10
“I keep hearing about the complex calculus of how and when these guys might get some action, when it will be withheld, and the rules of passionate engagement for married men in 2011.”
10.Ron Kovic – Ex US Marine and peace activist Witness :: BBC News | July 4
“Alan Johnston talks to the former US Marine and peace activist Ron Kovic about two moments that changed his life forever – one on the battlefield, and one at anti-war protest in Washington.”
Part 3 in this series focuses on Sophia and Nathaniel Hawthorne, newlyweds who co-authored a diary celebrating their new lives together.
This special Stillness of Heart series explores the Morgan Library & Museum’s fascinating exhibit, “The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives.”
Part 3 focuses on Sophia and Nathaniel Hawthorne, newlyweds who co-authored a diary celebrating their new lives together.
“Happiness has no succession of events; because it is a part of eternity, and we have been living in eternity, ever since we came to this old Manse. Like Enoch, we seem to have been translated to the other state of being, without having passed through death.”
Examine images of their heart-swelling diary and listen to the museum’s audio guide here.
Taking some time to celebrate Ernest Hemingway. It’s going to be a wonderful day and night filled with beautiful writing, beautiful women, and sweet, strong daiquiris.
Taking some time to celebrate Ernest Hemingway. It’s going to be a wonderful weekend filled with beautiful writing, beautiful women, and sweet, strong daiquiris.
Fifty years ago this weekend, Hemingway awoke, got out of bed, grabbed a shotgun and shot himself. Generations of fans, writers and biographers have never understood why. But there have been plenty of theories, and in the British newspaper The Independent, Houston psychologist John Walsh recently weighed in with his own explanation:
“It’s easy to be spiteful about Hemingway. All his posturing, his editing of the truth, his vainglorious fibbing can obscure his undoubted bravery. He loved being in the thick of the war – the tank advance through the Ardennes, the Battle of the Bulge – dodging bullets, watching men being shot to hell all around him. But it’s hard to shake off the feeling that what he was doing wasn’t bravery, but psychotic self-dramatisation. And when you inspect the image of Hemingway-as-hero, you uncover an extraordinary sub-stratum of self-harming. You discover that, for just over half of his life, Hemingway seemed hell-bent on destroying himself.”
For more on Hemingway, check out this FAQ, and read his short Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
Hemingway wrote, “Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.”
Bin Laden’s worries revealed … William Shatner narrates NASA’s new shuttle documentary … Secrets from the Battle of Stalingrad … ‘Octomom’ hates her kids and her life … The fascinating and bloody Haitian Revolution.
Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism. Read past recommendations from this series here.
1.Bin Laden document trove reveals strain on al-Qaeda By Greg Miller | The Washington Post | July 1
“Toward the end of his decade in hiding, Osama bin Laden was spending as much time exchanging messages about al-Qaeda’s struggles as he was plotting ways for the terrorist network to reassert its strength.”
2.What Is Distant Reading? By Kathryn Schulz | The New York Times Book Review | June 24
“What are we mortal beings supposed to do with all these books? Franco Moretti has a solution: don’t read them.”
3.Space Shuttle Documentary NASA | July 1
“This feature-length documentary looks at the history of the most complex machine ever built. For 30 years, NASA’s space shuttle carried humans to and from space, launched amazing observatories, and eventually constructed the next stop on the road to space exploration.”
4.Deadliest Battle Secrets of the Dead :: PBS | May 20, 2010
“Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 was the largest troop offensive in military history. And the Battle of Stalingrad is arguably the deadliest single battle the world has ever seen. … But 70 years after the battle was fought, newly uncovered documents, survivor accounts, and stunning archival footage are revealing a very different picture of what took place.”
5.NASA’s Spitzer Finds Distant Galaxies Grazed on Gas Jet Propulsion Laboratory | June 30
“Galaxies once thought of as voracious tigers are more like grazing cows, according to a new study using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.”
6.Read Bruce Springsteen’s Clarence Clemons Eulogy By Andrea Kszystyniak | Paste Magazine | June 30
“Standing next to Clarence was like standing next to the baddest ass on the planet. You were proud, you were strong, you were excited and laughing with what might happen, with what together, you might be able to do.”
7.Inside a Russian Billionaire’s $300 Million Yacht By Robert Frank | The Wall Street Journal | April 15, 2010
“Designed by Philippe Starck, the “A” has quickly become the most loved and loathed ship on the sea. WSJ’s Robert Frank takes an exclusive tour of Andrey Melnichenko’s 394-foot mega-yacht.”
8.Nadya Suleman: Babies disgust me The Marquee Blog :: CNN.com | June 30
“Suleman, who was labeled with the moniker ‘Octomom’ after she gave birth to octuplets in 2009, told [In Touch magazine], ‘I hate babies, they disgust me.’ She went on, ‘My older six are animals, getting more and more out of control, because I have no time to properly discipline them.’ ”
9.Resolving Insurgencies By Thomas R. Mockaitis | Strategic Studies Institute | June 17
“Understanding how insurgencies may be brought to a successful conclusion is vital to military strategists and policymakers. This study examines how past insurgencies have ended and how current ones may be resolved.”
10.The Haitian Revolution By Jeb Sharp | How We Got Here :: PRI’s The World | Jan. 29, 2010
“You can’t understand Haiti without understanding the slave revolt and war for independence that shaped its early days.”
TUNES
Tonight I’m spending some time with the blues, specifically with the Texas Blues Café. Check out the line-up and then listen here.
1. Dennis McClung Blues Band — The Red Rooster 2. Brian Burns with Ray Wylie Hubbard — Little Angel Comes A-Walkin 3. Ray Wylie Hubbard — Cooler-N-Hell 4. Roy Rogers — Little Queen Bee 5. Ted Shumate Blues Band — All Night Long 6. Cactus — The Groover 7. Ian Moore — Muddy Jesus 8. Commitments — Mustang Sally 9. Rocky Jackson — Goin’ Back to Texas 10. Mark McKinney — Comfortable in this Skin & Bonfire 11. Mojo Saints — Gnawin’ Bone 12. Blackfoot — I’ve Got a Line On You
This special series explores the Morgan Library & Museum’s fascinating exhibit, “The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives.” Part 2 focuses on Frances Eliza Grenfell, whose parents forbid her to spend her life with the man she loved. So she secretly wrote him letters, spilling her broken heart and feverish longings, page after page after page.
This special Stillness of Heart series explores the Morgan Library & Museum’s fascinating exhibit, “The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives.”
Part 2 focuses on Frances Eliza Grenfell, whose parents forbid her to spend her life with the man she loved. So she secretly wrote him letters, spilling her broken heart and feverish longings, page after page after page.
“I dreamt a long letter came from you, & I opened it, Oh! how well I can see it now, & as I was eagerly beginning the first page, I woke with a feeling of agony, for to have read it in a dream w[oul]d have been a blessing. I slept again; & again a long long letter was brought to me in your hand – I opened it, I found it was my own writing inside – the Journal I had kept for you.”
Examine images of her beautiful diary and listen to the museum’s audio guide here.
Observations on the Hudson River as it passes through New York City. The section of the Hudson which passes through New York is historically known as the North River, called this by the Dutch to distinguish it from the Delaware River, which they knew as the South River. This stretch of the Hudson is still often referred to as the North River by local mariners today. All photos copyright Daniel Katzive unless otherwise attributed. For more frequent updates, please follow northriverblog on Facebook or Instagram.
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