The Darkest Dawn: Lincoln, Both and the Great American Tragedy

 

The Darkest Dawn: Lincoln, Both and the Great American Tragedy – Thomas Goodrich

When I first came across this book, my initial thought was “Do we really need yet another book on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln?”   Well, probably not.  This book, though, was actually a very satisfying read.  What differentiates this work from mostly what is already out there is the author’s use of mood and atmosphere; he doesn’t solely focus on the historical events but also the time and the places.  I felt like I was actually there and could experience the feelings, the sights, and the (unfortunately) smells of Washington D.C. in 1865.  If ever I was commissioned to write a screenplay for a movie of this catastrophic historical event, I think I would use Thomas Goodrich’s book as my main source. This is a book that really makes the reader feel.

As the subtitle suggests, this book does a great job showing the “great American tragedy” that John Wilkes Booth’s bullet set in motion, and many would argue has never recovered. As tragic as the U.S. Civil War was, this book takes place immediately after the surrender at Appomattox. Abraham Lincoln is re-elected for a second term, and the entire union is relieved and ecstatic at the victorious conclusion of the war. Obviously, there are still some on the losing side that can’t (not “won’t”, but “can’t”) accept the outcome, and confederate sympathizer and well-known actor John Wilkes Booth’s gun ends the very short time of jubilation and manages to plunge the nation right back into turmoil. 

Yes, the details of the assassination and the aftermath are told to us here, but what makes this book different is how this event sparked panic, fear, and a lot of ridiculous speculation into the minds of the common man in the streets of Everytown U.S.A.  Citizens everywhere are mad and unnerved and frivolous witch hunts are conducted everywhere en masse in the midst of frenzied mobs.  If you even look suspicious, you could find yourself at the end of the lynch man’s rope.  Also, God forbid if you manage to say anything negative about the recently deceased president, or if your neighbors don’t think you’re “mourning enough”.   This was a crazy time.

Although the author does give these events their due diligence (and we must remember that much of this turbulence in the streets has been overlooked by historians who mainly cling to ‘facts’) he does tend to overdo it a bit.  It seems like Thomas Goodrich is trying to uncover every single memory of every single citizen in every single town about the aftermath concerning every single feeling after the assassination. I feel he could have cut back on many of these instances of recollections he presents and still have told a great tale.

There are many elements of this tragedy that the author focuses a shorter amount of attention to, such as the plot to kill (or kidnap) all of Lincoln’s high level cabinet members including Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of state Frederick Seward.  Yes, these events are mentioned, but there’s not a lot of intricate details about the planning and failed execution that one may find in other historical works.  The same can be said for the pursuit of Booth as he tries to escape towards Maryland and is eventually shot and killed inside a burning warehouse.  We do read about the events, but not as much detail as one may wish.  Again, though, the main goal of the author seems to be more about the broken spirit of the country and how the citizens tried to cope.

Speaking of the spirit of the country, we also read quite a bit about the capture, trial, and execution of four of the conspirators who were involved.  Although “involved” might not be the best word to use.  We read about how three of the four doomed individuals probably only had a very minor role in the events and certainly didn’t deserve death by hanging, but the mood of the country was so dark and the citizens were rapaciously wanting revenge, that lesser heads end up prevailing.  There’s a quite a bit here about the actual event, and it’s quite sad, scary, and tragic to read about the events and how people who didn’t deserve to die in such a way were forced to feed the fire of the ignorant mobs.

For novices who know little about the assassinations, or even for readers who are very familiar with the events, this book was a good introduction or supplement to one’s historical education about arguably the darkest time in the country’s history.  One has to seriously ponder that the path of the United States might have been much brighter had Lincoln lived and guided the country through the aftermath of such a terrible ordeal.

The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book

 

The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book – Timothy Beal

With a book title such as this, it just might easily scare away many of the devoted devout. So the first thing that needs to be said in order to allay any potential fears of believers is that the author of this book, Timothy Beal, is in fact a Christian.  The difference between Timothy Beal and many of the mainstream familiar Christian authors today is that Beal actually reads and studies history.  He can answer questions that most regular church attendees (and leaders) cannot.  Most Christians, if we’re honest, believe certain things because our leaders tell us they’re true. If there’s a consensus among like-denominations everywhere concerning questions and answers about our faith, then what we’re all told over and over again must be true. Right?

Especially when it comes to the Bible.  A challenge: navigate to any Evangelical, Reformed, and/or Bible church website and read their “mission statement”, or “statement of belief”.  What you will find in the statement is that the particular church believes that the Bible is the “inerrant and infallible word of God”.  If this is your church (and it probably is), is there any harm in asking why your church believes this?  What exactly is the difference between “inerrant” and “infallible”?  If you’re a Christian, do YOU know?  I didn’t think so. And more importantly, does it really matter?  Professor Beal thinks it definitely matters. In fact, the idea that our Bible is “inerrant” has only been around for a couple of hundred years.  So the fact that this “new” belief now exists, it has caused a bit of recklessness and turmoil in the church today. When we look at 21^st century Christian culture, we can easily see that Bible, in a sense, has replaced God.  We’ve turned the Bible into a God. But since, we argue, it essentially IS God, there isn’t any harm in this practice, and it should probably be encouraged as well.  Beal educates us in this work that this was never the intention of the Bible at all.

It needs to be pointed out that the author is not trying to “challenge” nor “debunk” the Bible. He claims there’s nothing to debunk.  The problem, as this book illustrates, is that Christians, particularly in the last couple hundred years, have been reading the Bible incorrectly and have been treating it in a way that it was never intended.  In summary, the author attests that the Bible was never written to be a “Book of Answers”, yet it was instead written to be a “Library of Questions”.

He uses a lot of analogies that are incredibly insightful, yet somewhat silly as well.  Our Christian culture today, he tells us, is inundated with “Bible everything”.  We have so many different versions and translations to complement our pop culture, it makes our head spin.  We’ve all seen the ubiquitous “kiddie” Bibles that permeate Wal-Mart’s bookshelves with picture filled, “pop-up” Bibles for toddlers less than one year old.  We also have publications of things such as the “Golfer’s Bible”.  No, this isn’t a book devoted to everything related to golf, but rather an actual Bible with a catchy leather-bound cover with a drawing of a golfer.  Of course, interspersed between the pages of actual scripture, there are supplements included on things such as “How to Improve Your Swing.”   Yes, today’s market does have a demand for such things.

Yet as we explore the history of Christianity, we learn that the Bible has never had the same level of reverence as it does today.  Most don’t know that our compilation of the scriptures that was included in a single “book” didn’t exist until the late 4^th century.  Ask yourself this: If God really wanted to give mankind a book such as a Bible that was “THE ONLY SOURCE OF TRUTH”, would he really have waited until 400 years until after Jesus?  We must then remember that over 90% of Europeans couldn’t even read until the 11^th century, and that “books” as we know them today certainly didn’t exist when Jesus had his Earthly ministry.  (Side note: the author talks a lot, too much really, about “scrolls” which were used when writing before the 2^nd century.)

So we read a lot of church history and the Bible’s role in it. To be honest, I wished there would have been more in-depth details about the last 2,000 years than what is actually here, but he does include enough to show us how we didn’t always revere the Bible quite the same way many do today. We come across a lot of “modern” beliefs about the Bible that have only existed for a couple hundred years.  It should be pointed out, for instance, that the “The Rapture” has only been taught for the last 200 years or so.  (Roman Catholics have always believed it to be nonsense.) Before the 18^th century, the church has always believed that they were in the midst of something called the “end times” but a concept of being “left behind” while the most holy were zipped up to Heaven before any sort of tribulation was non-existent.

This book is a very important book.  As I look around many Evangelical and Bible churches, it’s shockingly sad and somewhat scary to see how far the church has removed itself from Jesus.  Many today seem more concerned about politics and ridiculous conspiracy theories about everything than they do about loving, forgiving, and helping the poor.  In fact, I wish the author would have expounded a bit more on these issues.  He talks about some things in this book, yet I wish he would have gone more in depth. As an example, he doesn’t believe homosexuality was ever meant to be looked at as sinful in most aspects, yet it would have been more insightful to have read more than what he actually provides. 

Books like this are very necessary for present-day Christianity, and one hopes that it can, as the Bible is supposed to, get us asking a lot more questions as a family instead of turning into a “members only club” that mainly focuses on vehemently barking angry answers at strangers due to our flawed interpretations. It saddens me that so many younger people have either stopped going to church or left the faith completely.  Although when I see what many churches actually say and do, it sadly isn’t surprising.  We definitely need to study our history more; and not be afraid to ask more questions.

Drug of Choice

 

Drug of Choice – Michael Crichton

An early book written by one of the most famous authors of the 1990s which was actually one of several penned under the pseudonym John Lange.  Apparently Crichton was a young medical student when he wrote this one, and writing novels was more of a hobby as opposed to a serious profession.  It’s a bit of a shame since this is kind of obvious.  This a book with a pretty good premise but needed to be worked through with a bit more care.  This thing had potential.  It’s not that it was bad, it’s just that for a book with such serious ambitions of being taken somewhat seriously, it needed a lot more polishing.  In other words, you can tell it was written by a young medical student during his spare time.

The story centers around Dr. Roger Clark.  He’s on staff at a hospital, and in a fairly short time, there are a couple of mysterious cases involving patients brought in who are in a coma that also show a bizarre symptom of blue urine.  When the patients miraculously recover in a very short time with no residual side effects, Dr. Clark starts an independent investigation.  He uncovers what we would call the bizarre and the unlikely, but this really isn’t that uncommon for those who know the work of Michael Crichton. Remember that this is the author that convinced us that dinosaurs could be cloned and shown off in an amusement park due to their DNA being extracted from prehistoric mosquitoes.

Clark’s journey comes across as a bit silly and there were a few bizarre plot turns that seemed inconsistent with the characters in this inexplicable story, but I suppose most young people who were writing as a side gig when they were studying medicine probably wouldn’t be able to do much better.  My guess is that if he never published this book (under the name John Lange) he could have picked up his manuscript several years later after he learned the tricks of the trade and made this thing much more interesting.

In fact, this thing might (just might) make a good movie if the right director with an adequate budget attempted to transfer this story to a work of visual art. I’ve seen a lot of movies that were very good that were based on books that were less than spectacular, so such a thing could be possible in this case.  This book was a decent read, but the seams definitely show.  Fans of Michael Crichton would probably enjoy this more than others since it shows traces of his writing styles and ideas, but don’t expect anything as breathtaking as “Jurassic Park”, “Sphere” or “Congo”.