biography

Stranger in the Shogun’s City — A Japanese Woman in Her World

Posted on by mkaustin221

Amy Stanley’s Stranger in the Shogun’s City — A Japanese Woman and Her World provides an unexpected and remarkable window into early 19th century Japan. Stanley, a history professor at Northwestern University, has carefully pieced together the life of Tsuneno and her family from their correspondence and various public records. The result is a highly unusual and profoundly human story. In this day and age, it’s not particularly shocking for a young person to leave her family and head to the big city. But there was nothing usual about the way Tsuneno chose to break with her family and spend her life in Edo (now Tokyo). I confess it never would have occurred to me that such a woman could ever have existed, and particularly not in Japan in the early 1800’s. Tsuneno’s life would seem to have been unique, and yet how much do we really know about the universe of women living in Japan in that era?

The inability of Tsuneno’s family to control her seems unfathomable, and yet that was undeniably the case. How did she even think to escape her secure and comfortable home? Fortunately, as much as Tsuneno’s family disapproved of her decision to live on her own in Edo, the family ties were never completely severed. Tsuneno and her exasperated family exchanged frank and often exasperated letters, and these letters and other records have been preserved.

Born in 1801 into the large family of a Buddhist priest and his wife, Tsuneno never fit the traditional mold and ultimately decided to got to Edo, where she lived in poverty . Her move to Edo in 1839 followed failed arranged marriages and divorces and was not supported by her family. In Edo, Tsuneno scraped by on her own initiative, even after she married a poor and unaffiliated samurai. Tsuneno’s work as a maid to a city magistrate put her right in the middle of public affairs.

Stranger in the Shogun’s City not only tells the story of an independent woman in the early nineteen century Japan, but it also provides a wealth of more general information about what life was like in those times. I highly recommend this book!

The Aspirin Age — 1919/1941

Posted on by mkaustin221

The Aspirin Age is simply fantastic. Isabel Leighton presents eclectic essays by wonderful writers who cover some of the hottest topics and players from the period between World Wars I and II. Obvious subjects such as Versailles, Sacco and Vanzetti, the Depression and Pearl Harbor are discussed succinctly and brilliantly.

I was even more taken by the essays on less events and individuals, such as Aimee Semple McPherson, the charismatic conwoman/preacher who led a scandalous life, hogged the headlines and collected millions of dollars from her devoted followers. I particularly loved Gene Tunney’s thoughtful essay on how he developed his strategy for beating the brilliant heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey. Keith Munro’a piece on the phenomenon of the Dionne Quintuplets was great fun and, like the pieces on McPherson and Lindbergh, provides bemused insight on the creation and fostering of celebrity.

For presidential history fans, there are great treatments of the brazen corruption that flourished under the hopelessly unqualified President Warren Harding. Even better was Irving Stone’s essay on Calvin Coolidge, “A Study in Inertia.” “Huey Long: American Dictator” is another brilliant and highly timely piece. Corruption is nothing new, but these pieces delve into the particularities of the period.

On a more idealistic note, Roscoe Drummond’s piece, “Wendell Wilkie: A Study in Courage” is a tribute to a politician who courageously chose to do what he believed was right for the country, even though it meant losing a presidential election. I didn’t know much about Wilkie previously and was really moved by Drummond’s admiration for an heroic figure.

ˆThe Aspirin Age” is ideal, both for history buffs who are familiar with the period and for folks who aren’t so familiar with the period, but want to get some idea of what happened between the two World Wars. By focusing on some of the most noted and notorious individuals of the day, Leighton provides a highly entertaining and informative smorgasbord, while at the same time offering a reasonably comprehensive overview of the time.

I believe this wonderful book is out of print, but happily I was able to find a reasonably priced used book on line, and I am so glad I did!

Nikita Khrushchev, One of the Most Interesting Characters of the Cold War Era

Posted on by mkaustin221

William Taubman’s 2003 biography, Khrushchev — The Man and His Era won a Pulitzer Prize, and deservedly so. Taubman is a political science professor at Amherst and has written extensively on the Soviet Union. His biography of Khrushchev is very long at 651 pages, but it provides crucial insight into one of the most unusual personalities of the Soviet era. If you want to understand Nikita Khrushchev and his place in history, this is an excellent place to start.

Khrushchev was born in 1894 and died in 1971, so he was there for the rise of Communism in Russia. Largely uneducated and often crude, Khrushchev managed to rise through the ranks and then survive the Stalinist era. No political survivor of that period could emerge with clean hands, but Khrushchev managed to avoid the worst of the blame for that period.

Taubman, in great detail, shows how Khrushchev became a Bolshevik and was chosen by Stalin to be one of his principal lieutenants. How Khrushchev managed to out-maneuver his rivals and become top dog remains something of a mystery, but Taubman offers a lot of information to consider. As a leader, Khrushchev presented a bizarre combination of bumbling peasant, lucky political tactician and good-hearted realist. At the end, he became increasingly impulsive and oblivious to the opposition to his rule. He didn’t see. it coming.

Although Khrushchev wasn’t exactly surrounded by rocket scientists, he was always insecure about his lack of education. At times he trumpeted it and claimed that he had particular insight into how collective farms and factories need to be run. To Khrushchev’s discredit, he was stained by Stalin’s purges, but to his credit, he disavowed Stalinism as he came to power. Crucially, Khrushchev was often impulsive and frequently put world peace at risk as he lurched through the Cold War period with ill-considered pronouncements and initiatives.

He risked nuclear war with some of his “antics. Fortunately, Eisenhower and Kennedy, although highly frustrated by Khrushchev’s pronouncements and behavior, generally did their homework and responded with appropriate restraints and quieter displays of force.

This book is rich because Khrushchev talked a lot about what he had done and what he was thinking. He even wrote a memoir. He may have started as a Zelig, but he became the leader of the Communist world during a particularly dangerous part of history. Because he survived, he was able to write about Stalinism and its excesses, even as he went back and forth about how much personal responsibility he was prepared to assume.

All in all this is a very good book. It is a necessary, scholarly book. It did cause me to wish at times that a more abridged version were available, a shorter book that did not describe so many meetings and so much of Khrushchev’s daily activities in such great detail. Maybe that is biography-light, but the sheer length of this book renders it somewhat inaccessible for non-scholars who could really benefit form its core content.

My recommendation is to read this book if you want to better understanding of the Soviet Union and the Cold War.

Queen Victoria, the Matchmaking Grandmother

Posted on by mkaustin221

For royalty buffs and people who like to view history through personalities and relationships, Deborah Cadbury’s Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking — The Royal Marriages that Shaped Europe is highly entertaining and informative. There is a soap opera quality to Victoria’s avid, prying interest into the marital prospects of her numerous royal grandchildren. Much as Victoria tries to identify potential highly suitable mates and head off dangerous ones, sometimes her grandchildren just didn’t listen. These are great stories, wrapped up in 19th century Euro politics. There is the drama of the highly unsuitable Kaiser Wilhelm’s nasty development and then there is the awful foreboding of the Nicholas and Alexandra courtship. Victoria desperately tried to head off what she saw as a horrifically dangerous match in a Russia headed for catastrophe, but love prevailed over Victoria’s clear-headed analysis. That is just one of the these highly personal stories — again, a bit of a soap opera on a global scale, and well worth reading. You will be informed and entertained — the perfect combination.

Royal Renegades — The Children of Charles I and the English Civil Wars

Posted on by mkaustin221

Linda Porter’s Royal Renegades — The Children of Charles I and the English Civil Wars tells the saga of Charles I, his wife Henrietta Maria, and their many children, including future kings Charles II and James II. Nearly 400 years later, it is difficult to fathom how this close family functioned at all once the Revolution hit. Family members were spread across Britain and the Continent. Communication was difficult, both because of distance and military restrictions. The parents and their children were often compelled to act on their own initiative and frequently under straightened financial circumstances. The children were young — the two eldest sons were in their early teens — when the king’s conflicts started, and the battling lasted for years. Two of the younger children were held captive in England for years, and of course the Charles I also was ultimately captured and executed. Looking back it seems bizarre that the King seemed never to have fully assessed his peril or what the consequences might be if he failed on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. Yet he was cursed with his own implacable sense of his own prerogative and seemingly had no one to provide him with realistic political advice. The Queen had managed to escape to France, her homeland, and spent her time trying to find allies and funding for the her husband. Together, she and the King might have been able to reach a less gruesome conclusion, but then again her Catholicism was one of the major reasons for the family’s unpopularity.

What happened was a tragedy for this family that somehow remained close in an era when royal parents and their children had little ordinary contact or apparent affection for one another. On the eve of his execution the King was allowed time with two of his youngest children, and the tenderness of those meetings is heartbreaking, all these years later. Those two children died, but four of their siblings lived to adulthood, with much of their time spent in France and the Netherlands before the two older brother returned to England after the Restoration. It was an oddly international family, searching for allies and coming together and then separating because of circumstances time and again. For the most part, their strategically arranged marriages afforded the children little happiness, although Charles I and Henrietta Maria, ultimately seemed to have loved each other.

This book’s strength is its portrayals of Charles I and his family, coupled with a useful history of the English Revolution and a healthy injection of the power politics of that era

Yet Another Little Known, Yet Very Consequential Woman –The Woman Who Smashed Codes

Posted on by mkaustin221

Jason Fagone’s The Woman Who Smashed Codes — A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikey Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies is a significant contribution to women’s history and to the history of code-breaking.  Elizebeth Friedman (1892-1980) carved out an amazing career for herself.  She was raised in a small town in the Midwest.  She only went to college because she insisted upon it.  Ironically, Swarthmore rejected here.   Upon graduation from a relatively obscure college,  Friedman insisted upon looking for a job befitting her talents and interests.  She had studied poetry and philosophy in college, so non-teaching jobs did not readily present themselves.  Undeterred, Friedman kept looking.  Code breaking wasn’t exactly on her radar screen, but through luck and perseverance she started working for a rich eccentric with an interest in code breaking as it related to Shakespeare.  Ultimately she broke from the eccentric’s private colony and moved on to crack bootlegging codes and then to breaking Nazi codes during the Second World War.  Very few people came close to being able to do what she and her similarly talented husband William Friedman were able to do, but their story — particularly her story is little known.  Happily J Edgar Hoover and his FBI come out looking vainglorious and feeble, as the the Coast Guard and Elizebeth Friedman shine.

The book is well written and extensively researched and provides a fascinating story about a woman most people have never encountered and whose tracks were pretty well covered by confidentiality agreements and the likes of J Edgar Hoover. Friedman herself contributed to her undervalued obscurity by generally avoiding attention and insisting that her husband was more worthy of notice.  Coming on the recent movie about Alan Turing, this is yet another important contribution to understanding how World War II espionage worked, on both sides.  This important biography also shines some light on what it was like to live and work in Washington during and the 1930’s and the war period.

Every time I run across a biography of a highly consequential women who worked in obscurity, I wonder how many more are out there.  Thank you, Mr. Fagone for bringing Elizebeth Friedman the attention she deserves.

Little Ladies — Bold Women in Black History, An Inspiring, Informative and Very Important Book for All of Us

Posted on by mkaustin221

You really need to get this book, for the children you know and for yourself.  You will learn something, and you will be inspired!

Biographies are my favorite kind of history — always more fun and memorable than lists of battles and elections.  As a child, I read probably hundreds of biographies published in the Childhood of Famous Americans series.  Those highly entertaining books gave me my first understanding of  American history from all sorts of perspectives.  I particularly focused on the books about women who were famous for what they themselves had done, as opposed to those whose fame derived from their husbands, inspired me to think about what was possible.  Their stories were really important to me.
Vashti Harrison’s wonderful Little Leaders — Bold Women in Black History is similarly important and inspiring.  Little Leaders is written for children, but everyone should read it.  Really.  I guarantee you will learn something and you will be impressed.  I wish this book had been around when my daughters were young because it is designed to  spawn countless conversations about the struggles these women faced, the difficulties they surmounted, the sources of their inspirations and then their amazing contributions.   Harrison offers up capsule biographies and appealing illustrations of 40 remarkable black women.   The title Little Leaders, together with the simple illustrations of these women as girls, make the point that all the featured women started out as girls, and that their childhood interests often led directly to their later achievements.  These stories also provide lots of good background information about what life what like for these women and others of their time.  The happy result is that the reader ends up knowing a lot more than just what happened to a particular individual.  This is such a good way to inform children about their history and to provide context for their own times and their own opportunities and responsibilities.

Harrison includes famous women, as well as women who may not be so famous but clearly deserve to be.  It is no criticism of the book that I kept thinking of other black women who might have been included.  In fact the books just made me think of a whole host of people that deserve to be better known and celebrated.

This book belongs in every child’s library.

Not Just Jane — Shelley DeWees Identifies Seven British Women Writers Who Are Probably New to You

Posted on by mkaustin221

Shelley DeWees’s Not Just Jane — Rediscovering Seven Amazing Women Writers Who Transformed British Literature provides a fascinating look into seven successful, yet relatively unknown, British women writers of the 18th and 19th centuries.  Born of her love of Austen and Bronte, in this book DeWees sets out to discover other women writers who were pioneers of their times.  I had never heard of any of the writers featured in this book.  Charlotte Turner Smith, Helen Maria Williams, Mary Robinson, Catherine Crowe, Sara Coleridge, Dinah Mulock Craig and Mary Elizabeth Braddon all enjoyed some success in their day.  Their stories tell us a lot about what was going on in England during their life times.  Many of them faced poverty and had few honorable options for earning a living.  They might become a governess or they might become prostitutes.  Faced with these options, one way or another these women became writers, and some of them became expert networkers as well.  Sara Coleridge’s story is a bit different.  She was well educated and didn’t suffer poverty, but her father, the famous poet Samuel Coleridge basically ignored her existence.  Under those circumstances it seems a shame that so much of her work was devoted to organizing her father’s work posthumously.

I have yet to read one of their books, but I certainly enjoyed reading about their lives and their environments. 

The Queen of Katwe — The Improbable Story of a Ugandan Chess Champion

Posted on by mkaustin221

Before it was a successful Disney movie (which I have yet to see), The Queen of Katwe was a book by Tim Crothers.  Crothers initially came to Uganda to do a story on Phiona Mutesi, an impoverished teenager from the slums of Katwe who had become a chess champion through an improable series of events.  Crothers correctly recognized that Phiona’s story deserved a book, and he has written a fine one.  The Queen of Katwe does an excellent job of filling in the back story of Phiona’s family, as well as the story of Robert Katende, her coach and mentor.  

Crothers does the research and asks the fundamental questions — how and why does a barely literate young girl from one of the worst slums in the entire world creep into the world of chess and use it to launch a different life?  There is no satisfactory answer.  Despite Crothers’ diligent interviews of Phiona and the people around her, Phiona remains an inigma.  What is clear, however, is that many different people contributed one way or another along the way.  There is Katende, who couldn’t get a job as an engineer after he managed to graduate from university but then somehow lucked into a job with a Christian philanthropic community because of his soccer skills and then got the idea to teach a unlikely group of slum kids chess.  (Phiona wasn’t the only impoverished, hungry child to benefit from Katende’s inspired decision to teach kids who could barely read the fundamentals of chess.). Phiona’s impoverished family helped, too. Her mother calculated that it was better for her children to attend chess classes and get something to eat there than to earn a pittance in the marketplace.  It was also no small thing that Phiona’s  brother let her tag along.  Fundamentally, at important times, there were people who looked out for Phiona as she learned chess and as her success with chess led to her engagement with the world outside Katwe.  The list of helpers and mentors goes on, but ultimately Phiona was the one who decided to follow her brother to Katende’s class and to dig in and learn the game.   Other Katwa kids may have been equally diligent, but Phiona had a gift.

This is an inspiring book.  Even if Phiona remains an unknowable figure, her story and her unprecedented accomplishments are completely fascinating.  I was left wanting to know what happens next in her life.  (Wikipedia was moderately helpful here, so we will keep contributing!)

Finally, I really appreciated the author’s ability to take a back seat in his interviews, as well as his diligent efforts to talk to so many people and to keep trying to find out more about Phiona.  Also, as Crothers notes, the book could never have happened if Robert Katende hadn’t attended the bulk of the interviews to provide translations skills.  So kudos to Katende as well!

To Tell the Truth Freely – The Life of Ida B. Wells — A Life Long Crusader Against Lynching

Posted on by mkaustin221

Ida B. Wells’s life is well-told in To Tell the Truth Freely – The Life of Ida B. Wells by Mia Bay.  Ida B. Wells is one of those African American leaders whose name is familiar, but I didn’t know enough about her.  Mia Bay’s excellent biography solves the that problem.  Much of it is based on Wells’ own unfinished autobiography.  This is a clear, focused book that fills a gap in civil rights history.

Wells was born a slave during the Civil War.  Her parents were sort of middle class by reconstruction standards, and they made sure Wells received an education.  Although she never received a college degree, Wells taught school for much of her early life.  Her relatively secure life was shattered when her parents both died and left her an orphan at 14 with a bunch of younger siblings.  Wells succeeded in keeping her family together and supported them by teaching school.  All that is remarkable enough, but then her life gets amazing.

From he beginning, Wells had a firm sense of who she was and her own personal liberties, so she didn’t hesitate to sue a railroad that refused to allow her to seat in the ladies section despite the first class ticket she had purchased.  The litigation was protracted and, although Wells prevailed at the trial court level, ultimately she lost on appeal.  It is really hard to imagine an African American woman having the nerve to sue a railroad for not treating her as she deserved in the late 1870’s.  Wells was tough and she was determined.

Wells was a writer and ultimately ran an African American newspaper in Memphis.  At the same time she found her lifelong cause – anti-lynching.  She called out lynching for what it was and never let go of the subject.  It wasn’t a particularly popular topic, but she pushed it relentlessly and actually helped save some potential victims.  Thanks to her anti-lynching activities she was run out of Memphis and her newspaper was burned out.  Along the way she became friends with Frederick Douglass and knew many of the other civil rights leaders of her day.   She and Booker T. Washington never got along — he was a sell-out in her view.  As the NAACP and other civil rights organizations were formed, Wells was frequently left behind.  She was female and she was not of the college educated African American elite of her day.  When others saw promise in enlisting white allies, Wells blazed on with her pamphlets and her lectures.  She never got the memo that she was supposed to sit down and shut up and let the men take the lead.    In that light, she was a precursor of Diane Nash, the amazing civil rights activist of the 1960’s who never got her due as the likes of Martin Luther King, Julian Bond and Jesse Jackson took center stage.  Unlike Nash, Wells refused to fade into the background.

Wells lectured all over the country and in Britain.   She ultimately settled in Chicago where she married in her 30’s and had four children.  Supported by her family, she kept up her political activities in Chicago and nationally, even as she had to take time out to make a living.   As a last point, she also engaged in direct social services activity for her community in Chicago and stymied lynching in Illinois — she was no “mere” journalist and lecturer.

There is obviously much more to her story.  I recommend this book about a strong, focused woman who was insufficiently appreciated in her day or in the years since.