A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland

 

A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland – Troy Senik

Several years ago I was on a quest to read at least one biography of every U.S. President. The hardest part was that the more obscure guys in the Oval Office didn’t really have a whole lot of offerings to choose from when searching through the pages on Amazon. One of those presidents was Grover Cleveland. I did find one book, but it was one of those offerings that if I had seen the actual book in its physical form, I would have passed.  It had a nice cover (all you can see on Amazon, mostly) but it wasn’t very detailed. Sadly, the writing came across as rather tepid, and not only was it a hagiographic conservative rant, but it read like a high school term paper.   When people ask me my opinions of all the biographies I’ve read on the U.S. presidents, I’m always happy to reply that the vast majority have been very good.  Sadly, the first Cleveland offering wasn’t one of them.

Well, fast forward several years later, and there is finally a ‘legitimate’ offering of the 22^nd (and 24^th) President of the United States. I’m actually a bit puzzled as to why.  This simply wasn’t an exciting man, nor an exciting president.  Even the fact that he ran for the office for three consecutive terms didn’t really make this book that interesting.  We can’t fault the author. In fact, Troy Senik (a former George W. Bush speechwriter) is rather colorful in his language and descriptions.  It was actually a bit much, but what else do you expect from a speechwriter trying to spin favor with his subject?

Yes, Senik points him in a rather favorable light, yet overall I thought the praise was justified. It’s always fascinating to me to discover that back in the 19^th century, those who are elected into the highest office in America never seemed to be particularly driven to hold such a title.  It’s almost as if they’re genuine when they say ‘I don’t want it, but I’ll do it if that’s what the people want.’

There wasn’t much that happened in the country’s history during his two non-consecutive terms as president that really warranted much interest.  I guess that’s actually good, but in hindsight it can make a rather bland read.  The best part of the book is when doctors were worried that Cleveland had a cancerous throat tumor, and they had to perform the operation on a ship out on the water somewhere.  Why?  They didn’t want the public to know.  I don’t exactly remember the reason why, but I guess it’s always a bit of a concern when a potential life-threatening illness can threaten a sitting president.

I’ve read a lot of biographies of presidents that were twice as long as this one (I seem to recall it was about 350 pages), but had the author attempted to make this one of similar length, it would have been quite the slog.  It’s just the right amount since the life and presidency of Cleveland simply wasn’t really that interesting.  The fact that the author could be quite descriptive with plenty of colorful adjectives adds to the somewhat mundane history.

I can’t imagine many people wanting to read such a biography, but if you’re a geek like me when it comes to reading about presidents, this one will scratch the itch just fine.

Imperium

 

Imperium – Robert Harris

The sign of a great historical fiction novel is one that makes you want to visit the place where the story takes place and, more importantly, the time.  Robert Harris’ novels aren’t necessary historical in the same sense of a James Michener, and Edward Rutherford, or a John Jakes, yet he focuses on key events in world history, and crafts very well done “what if” yarns.

This is his second novel that takes place in, of all places, ancient Rome; specifically the century before Christ.  Unlike his first novel of the Roman Empire, this book is part one of a trilogy.  It focuses on the real-life solicitor and statesman Marcus Cicero. It’s an incredibly well-told tale and teaches the reader an awful lot about the place and times.  To my knowledge, each of the three books focus on Cicero, and my knowledge of the man is quite limited, so I can only comment on the man based on how he is presented here.  The story is told by his servant/slave Tiro.  Tiro has an incredible secretarial gift of scribing in a sort of shorthand, which means that most everything that Cicero does and says can be recorded.  Quite the accomplishment when one thinks of the limitations of writing that existed two millennia ago.

Cicero’s ambitions are political.  We see that the politics of ancient Rome aren’t that much different than they are in many cultures today, and if one wants to succeed, they can’t simply ‘do good’.  There are a lot of palms to grease, a lot of promises to be made, and a lot of relationships that need to be culled; regardless of the likability of such individuals.  It can be a slippery slope.  We all know how politicians can be cruel and ruthless in trying to achieve their career ambitions. Fortunately, we don’t see that with Cicero.  We see mostly good things that he accomplishes yet we know not to kid ourselves.  His motivations are far from altruistic.

This book doesn’t have singular focus or story.  There are several different stories within the pages. If one were to make a visual representation of this story, it seems as though it would be adapted better if it was a tv series as opposed to a linear film.  The focus here isn’t to tell a story, but to immerse us in the world of the Roman Empire as seen through the eyes of Marcus Cicero.

In addition to paying great detail to the character, it’s also worth noting that the author succeeds in transcending his audience into the streets (roads?) of the actual empire.  One gets the impression that the society was much more advanced than we imagine a civilization 2,000 years ago to look.  It actually looks like a rather neat place to be.  Truth be told, though, there was only a small minority that lived in such luxury and comfort.  Rome did a lot of conquering, and the subjugated enemies are mostly now consigned to slavery (as our narrator Tiro), so the small number of fortunate citizens had an awful lot of other people doing the hard work for them.

The biggest fault of the book is that Robert Harris hurls constant Roman names of people at an uncomfortably breakneck speed.  I lost count of how many people were named something like Quintus, or maybe Quintius, or Quinterelous etc. and it’s awfully hard to keep all of these names straight in one’s head when reading.  To be fair, this has always been a weakness of mine, and perhaps other readers can adapt and assimilate better than I can, but I did find that if I made an effort to really try to remember who was who throughout the book, the story was much more rewarding.  Not really an easy feat, but worth the effort.

I’m eagerly waiting to continue the story.  A fascinating picture of one of the most famous periods of history that most of us know far too little.

The Korean War

 

The Korean War – Max Hastings

As I’ve mentioned in countless reviews I’ve written over the years, it’s a blessing and a curse finding a wonderful book by a ‘new’ author. The temptation, for me at least, is to find as many other works by the author, and if the joy is consistent, it means yet another pile of books to add to your ‘to read’ list.

Such was the case with author Max Hastings after I read his wonderful (yet harsh) account of the Vietnam War.  A search on Amazon shows a host of other offerings, many devoted to 20^th century conflict. When one reads multiple offerings about the same subject matter, it takes an awfully impressive account of something you’ve read before to make you pursue other offerings. Such was the case with Hasting’s Vietnam account (the best I’ve read), so it wasn’t at all an internal debate to snag up his account of the Korean ‘police action’.

The good news is that is it very enjoyable reading.  Unlike the Vietnam book though, there were other accounts by other authors that were superior. Perhaps this was because the Korea book was written several years earlier when the author hadn’t found his groove?  Or it could be that the Korean War simply didn’t have as much ‘detail’ in it as other wars; especially Vietnam.  ‘Detail’ might be the wrong word, but I think readers of this review know my allusions.

This was overall a good account, but I honestly didn’t really learn anything new.  The discussion that scholars puzzle over is the fact that this conflict wasn’t nearly looked at in retrospect as nearly as horrible as Vietnam, yet there were a lot of similarities between the two. (Hastings suggest TV could have been a factor. In the early 1950s, most didn’t have television sets that gave them carnage-filled updates every evening.)  At least, unlike Vietnam, this war sort of ended in a ‘tie’.

Since the progression (for lack of a better word) of this war ended about one year after the beginning of the war (Summer of 1951), there really isn’t a lot noteworthy to comment on in the book. The author wisely goes on relevant diversions to talk about all things going on behind the scenes during the war, so even though the action stops, the narration doesn’t. Fortunately the interest doesn’t wane.  One notable mention is that since the author is British, we read a lot of anecdotes about the British military involved in the ‘police action’ which I’ve never really digested before.  True, this was the first United Nations conflict, yet most of the headlines were dominated by the U.S. forces who unofficially ‘led the charge’.

There are better accounts out there, yet if one comes across this one, it’s still a very good narrative. Maybe I’m biased because his Vietnam offering was so strong.