Stephen J. Matlock's Blog, page 45
June 21, 2014
Review: Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History
Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History by Michel-Rolph Trouillot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is an excellent book, for many reasons.
First, it’s a book about the history of the Western Hemisphere (mostly), centering on Haiti and San Souci, and then upon Columbus.
Second, it’s a book about how history is determined. It’s not just a compendium of facts. History is developed and managed based upon certain facts and upon the suppression of other certain facts.
Third, it’s a book about what history means, how facts are presented or suppressed, what the history of that history is.
Fourth, it is simply an excellently written book. The language is crisp and accurate, the thought advances at a smooth but swift state, and the author is present in every paragraph and word. There is no hesitancy or evasiveness.
I enjoyed this book. It’s a history book, but I enjoyed it.
View all my reviews
June 9, 2014
Review: A Confederacy of Dunces
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Most excellent–funny, insightful, wacky.
View all my reviews
June 5, 2014
Review: American Slavery, American Freedom
American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund S. Morgan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Very nimble and clear writing for such a book packed with data and narrative. The author argues that the experience of the Virgina colonies show the natural and inevitable rise in slavery as an American solution to a very real problem of labor shortages, excess capacity, and open markets.
View all my reviews
June 4, 2014
Review: Burning Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Burning Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Carl Waters
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was given this book to read for this review. But I would have read it anyway–it was enjoyable, fast-moving, and clearly written.
This book is the tale of George Harris, his wife Eliza (of ice floe fame), son Harry, and those around him in antebellum slave-owning Kentucky and the free state of Ohio under the ministrations of both slavery and the Fugitive Slave Act. It is also a retelling of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s opus “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” the book written by a little woman that started a great war.
The story opens as George, a slave of the Harrises of Kentucky, aims to better himself in life in the station where he finds himself loaned out to work for another man in a mill. He is smart, motivated, and a careful and loving husband and father. Unfortunately, his wife and son are owned by the Shelbys, but fortunately, they are good-hearted people (albeit slave-owners!) who give the Harrises space to live as man and wife for small moments here and there when he can get away from his duties. The Shelbys also own the eponymous Uncle Tom of the story’s title.
The exigencies of the time being what they were, the Shelbys fall upon hard times and must sell three slaves desired by the slaver Haley: Tom, Eliza, and Henry.
Meanwhile, George is recalled by Harris to return from the mill, where he is able to use his native wits and quick mind, to the Harris plantation where he is treated as a mule to be beaten and broken until he submits to his fate as a slave.
The combination of George’s awful treatment by the Harrises and the selling of Eliza, Tom, and Henry to the slaver tip George and his wife and son to escape their separate paths. There are many wild moments in the story where George is threatened with discovery or capture, and times when Eliza and Henry are close to exhaustion and failure. They are pursued relentlessly through Kentucky and Ohio as they all attempt to make the way to Canada. They are helped and hindered by friends and betrayers, and while the story moves along crisply, there are moments of great relief and humor to break the tension. I especially loved the moment when George said to a traveling companion “So you speak horse?”
The author has done his homework, capturing the circumstances of life in the United States in 1851 in both the free and slave states. The people are fleshed out, with more to do than simply advance the story, and the story itself is plotted deftly. George is, by design, the hero of the story, and not Uncle Tom, and George comes across as a good, honest man who is tempted to terrible actions to avenge not just his captivity but the attempted capture of his wife and son. This book is the first of a promised series, and it is clear that there will need to be further books to tell us if — well, I don’t want to give away the ending of this book.
The writing style is clear and lucid, and shows the skill of someone who writes well naturally. It is an easy read, and suited for an afternoon or two in the sun, but as it shows signs of careful research, it would also be useful as an additional resource for classes about the pre-Civil War America.
I did not give this the full five stars only because I felt that, well-written as it is, it seems almost too kind to certain people. I would have liked to see a little more real danger and damage, but given the audience for the book, the presentation of the book might simply be to encourage young adults to read it with the approval of their parents.
I look forward to reading the promised sequels.
May 28, 2014
Broken Windows
When we have a broken window in our home, the first thing we do as responsible home-owners is to fix it. Later we might line up our kids to ask “Who did this?” Maybe we assign blame or figure out a way for the culprits to pay back what they cannot afford. But first, we fix the broken window, because leaving it broken leads to far greater damages.
It’s like that with the controversial topic of reparations. It’s come up recently due to the fine work of historians and writers. Perhaps you’ve heard this discussion.
Reparations is a word that incites near-immediate response, usually along the lines of “I had nothing to do with it!” But that’s not what we need to talk about. We don’t need to figure out whether you, or I, or anyone you know, is directly responsible for what happened. The window is broken. Let’s look at it, and get it fixed.
There is a bill waiting in Congress for enough signatories to advance to the floor. It’s a bill about reparations. HR40. The bill does only this: it asks for a true and frank discussion of what has happened in the past to our fellow American citizens, and what is happening right now as well.
We’ve survived as a nation after examining our past and then making amends. We’ve done this four times already: for interning our fellow citizens of Japanese descent during World War II, for forcing the sterilization of “unfit” people, for the Tuskegee experiments of leaving men with syphilis untreated, for decades, so we could study their harm as they slowly died, and for a riot in Rosewood, Florida that destroyed a town. In each of these cases, American citizens were harmed by the actions of the federal or state governments, and in each of these cases we simply looked at what happened and acknowledged the harm, and then we figured out what we could do to make amends.
And all HR40 does is this—it asks that we study the issue.
I urge you to contact your congressional representative today to ask him or her to support releasing this bill for a vote. All it’s asking for is an open discussion. All it’s asking for is that we fix the window. All we’re asking for, really, is that we admit that the window is broken.
More here: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
Review: Confessions of a Presidential Speechwriter
Confessions of a Presidential Speechwriter by Craig R. Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Note: I received this as a gift.
This book is a good insight into the life and thoughts of the writer, Dr. Craig Smith, who has many talents and passions for life and politics. Dr. Smith, a professor of rhetoric and debate, gives great insights into the politicians of the late 20th and early 21 century, focusing on Republicans he served as speech-writer and advisor. I found it especially interesting when he talked about Senator Bob Packwood, as Dr. Craig worked closely with the senator for decades up through the time of the senator’s resignation from the senate. He also shares other thoughts about politicians such as Ford, Dole, Kennedys JFK, RFK, and TEK, Nixon, McCain, and even Obama. And of course he shares his thoughts about being deeply closeted in a deeply anti-gay Republican party.
However, there were weak points in the book with regards to tone, voice, and point-of-view. I will confess I do not read many autobiographies, so perhaps it is how these kinds of books are written, but the style of writing changes constantly throughout the book. Sometimes it is a lecture, sometimes it is an overview of what happened, sometimes it is personal insights.
When I was finished, I had one thought: the book does not feel “formed.” It feels like a very good first draft that needs a book editor to put right. That was the most frustrating aspect to the book—I felt as if it wasn’t really finished before it got printed. It was even more frustrating because the author is known for his books on rhetoric, debate, and communication.
View all my reviews
May 21, 2014
The Case for Reparations
This is a phenomenal piece of writing. It will get a Pulitzer Prize.
Read it now.
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
May 11, 2014
May 5, 2014
Avoiding the Obvious
As Christians, we are to emulate the Lord. We are directly commanded by the Lord to assist the poor, the widow, the orphan, and those in prison. We are not told to interfere with people’s private lives (we’re directly told not to be busybodies).
Millions of kids in the United States go to bed hungry every night. Millions of kids do not have a secure home to live in. We are a nation with the wealthiest Christians in history. These two things just are so jarring when positioned next to each other.
Many American Christians spend their time making sure that women can’t control their bodies and gays can’t marry, two things the Lord never talked about. The things he _directly_ talked about Christians are not doing. We are not doing. I am not doing.
April 28, 2014
Palin and Waterboarding
Palin and all those who cheered her sacrilegious jibe ought to be ashamed of themselves. For us Christians, baptism is the entry into new life. Palin invoked it to celebrate torture. Even if you don’t believe that waterboarding is torture, surely you agree that it should not be compared to baptism, and that such a comparison should be laughed at. What does it say about the character of a person that they could make that joking comparison, and that so many people would cheer for it. Nothing good — and nothing that does honor to the cause of Jesus Christ. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-sacrilegious-sarah-palin/
I have nothing more to add.
