andreweverett360 Book Review, history

The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge


The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge
by Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) with introduction and footnotes by Amity Shlaes and Matthew Denhart

Calvin Coolidge became the 30th president of the United States on August 3, 1923 upon the death of President Warren G. Harding. He ran for reelection in 1924 and served one full term of his own. He did not seek reelection in 1928. To give some context of his time, Coolidge was the first president whose inauguration address was broadcast nationwide on the radio, and he was the first president to make a transatlantic telephone call.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, history

Mansfield and Dirksen: Bipartisan Giants of the Senate


Mansfield and Dirksen: Bipartisan Giants of the Senate
by Marc C. Johnson 

In contrast to today’s polarized politics, the US Senate of the 1960s functioned with a great deal more civility and bipartisan cooperation, despite deep political divisions. This book is both a history lesson and a study in the leadership styles majority leader Michael Mansfield (Democrat) and minority leader Everett Dirksen (Republican).

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andreweverett360 Book Review, history

A Full Life: Reflections at 90


A Full Life: Reflections at 90
by Jimmy Carter (1924-2024)

Jimmy Carter was born on October 1, 1924 and was elected the 39th president of the United States in 1976. The world has changed a lot in the 100 years since Carter grew up in the segregated south. At the same time, many of the issues he writes about sound quite familiar, such as inflation, contested elections, and conflict in the Middle East.

I was surprised by Carter’s emphasis on fiscal discipline—something we haven’t seen in recent administrations. (At the end of the Carter administration, the national debt to GDP ratio was 32%. In 2022 it was 123%.) What also stands out is Carter’s cooperative relationships with presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, in stark contrast to more recent polarization.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, history

The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir


The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir
by Thi Bui

Thi Bui was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the United States as a child in 1978. Based largely on oral history from family members, she has written and illustrated their story, telling the history of Vietnam from 1943-1978 along the way. It is an engaging story presented in the style of a graphic novel.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, history

101 Souls

101-souls-crowther


101 Souls Facing Forward
by John M. Crowther (1939-2018)

When we think about history, especially ancient history, the vast spans of time can become a blur. In his book 101 Souls, John Crowther provides a new framework which puts history in the context of lifetimes. “Imagine a line of people stretching back through time to the beginnings of what we think of as civilization… 6000 years ago. Consider that each individual was born the year that the preceding individual dies, and that each lived to be 60 years old.” Simple math reveals that there would be only 100 lifetimes separating us from the beginning of civilization.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, history

Farewell to Manzanar

farewell-to-manzanar


Farewell to Manzanar
by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston

Farewell to Manzanar is the autobiography of Jeanne Wakatsuki, who was seven years old in 1942, when the U.S. government forced Japanese-American families from their homes, and relocated them to internment camps.  She tells the story of life at the Manzanar camp, as well as her family’s difficulty in resuming a normal life after the camp closed, including her personal struggle to fit in with white kids at school.

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