“Dickens: A Biography”, by Fred Kaplan

607 pages, William Morrow & Co, ISBN-13: 978-0688043414

In Dickens: A Biography Fred Kaplan has set forth a full scholarly account of Charles Dickens, as the extensive notes attest to. I was most struck by Dickens' phenomenal energy in writing all those novels, doing public readings, walking miles a day and raising a family of eight children (though not on his own). Dickens' interactions with women was also very interesting to say the least, as his strained relationships with his mother, wife and an early love, Maria Beadwell, all testify to, and even reappear in his writings (he also had very close sister/wife relationships with two of his sister-in-laws and his daughters. Hmmmmm...) Although it may never be fully understood why Dickens separated from his wife Catherine after 23 years of marriage, Kaplan does a fairly good job of explaining this situation. Over all, one can't help but be impressed by Dickens' energy, his flair for the theatrical and his overwhelming genius. This biography does a very good job of painting a portrait of Charles Dickens the man and his many activities although, towards the end, there are times when Kaplan chronologically jumps and repeats certain events out of sequence. This, and several photos from 1865 labeled as 1845 are about the only faults in this very well executed biography.

One of the reasons I think Kaplan is so successful in his portrait is that he weaves numerous quotes from letters by Dickens and his many correspondents almost seamlessly into the text. It gives more of a feeling for Dickens as a man of his time as opposed to looking back and trying to compose a modern view of him. I also like the way Kaplan shows Dickens as an acute observer who integrated people and places he knew into his fiction. There are risks in reading a novel too biographically, but it is interesting to try to pin down an author's inspirations and themes. Kaplan handles this quite well but he doesn't go into any of the novels in depth so someone unfamiliar with Dickens' books might have trouble in some places. The key word is “scholarly”: if you want the run-of-the-mill pulp bio, you won't find it here, but what you will find is a treasure of information on Dickens and his life. This is solid work, from a solid researcher.

“Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause”, by Tom Gjelten

480 pages, Viking Press, ISBN-13: 978-0670019786

There has recently been a renewed interest in prerevolutionary Cuba, steming from the fact that Cuba today is so unromantic, so poor and stricken with prostitution, that people want to understand the prehistory of Castro, for there really is a lot to learn about this island nation that the sumbitch dominated for so long before he ever came to power. This has given us new studies of the Mafia in Cuba and recent books on the Americans who fought in the revolution, while Tom Gjelten's Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause examines a previously unstudied subject, the history of the Bacardi rum family and the nation of Cuba. Most would have assumed the family, being some of the wealthier citizens of the island, would not have been Castro supporters or progressive in the least bit. But the truth is quite different.

Looking for insights on Cuban history, culture, politics and, yes, Castro, Gjelten has written a good historical exposition of a country that has gone through more turmoil and experiments in government than perhaps any other in the Western hemisphere. Looking as well for an informative and exciting narrative about a family owned company, Gjelten has simultaneously written a moving story of a strong-willed entrepreneurial family blessed with three masterful CEOs in succession who figured out how to succeed worldwide despite being headquartered in a relatively unsophisticated financial backwater. Put these two stories together and the result is the proverbial whole being greater than the sum of its parts: an excellent journey juxtaposing financial acumen combined with patriotism, on the one hand, against a variety of dismaying governmental experiments, on the other, including Spanish colonialism, years of revolution, US intervention, embryonic democracy, dictatorship and, finally, a destructive Marxist state economic system.

This was obviously a labor of love for Gjelten, a first rate NPR reporter and analyst, as reflected in the source documentation provided unobtrusively at the end of the book, the very thorough and useful Bacardi family tree and the extensive photograph collection that brings even more life to the already well-drawn characters. A much-needed insight into how a company and a nation can be betrayed and destroyed, yet (perhaps) still arise anew.

“The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America”, by Colin G. Calloway

240 pages, Oxford University Press, ISBN-13: 978-0195300710

The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America by Colin G. Calloway derives its name from historian Francis Parkman, who wrote regarding the 1763 Treaty of Paris at the conclusion of the Seven Years War, that “half a continent changed hands at the scratch of a pen”. What is commonly referred to in America as the French and Indian War was, in actuality, the First World War, fought as it was across four continents and upon three oceans around the globe, and the participants included not only the British and French, but Americans, Canadians, American Indians, Prussians, Austrians, Russians, Spaniards and East Indians, as well. Nearly a decade of war left both Britain and France in economic ruin, and Britain, though victorious, tried to extricate itself from the financial crisis that followed in the wake of peace by attempting to simultaneously cut costs (reducing gifts the Indians had grown so accustomed to receiving from the French) and increasing its revenue by raising taxes (on the colonials), which NEVER works. Cutting costs led in part to sparking an Indian war, and raising taxes led to an all-out revolt by the colonies. Ultimately, Britain would be unable to benefit from its newly won empire.

Calloway shows in explicit detail how the 1763 Peace of Paris Treaty had a much more tumultuous effect upon the peoples of North America than the war itself. Britain tried to divide its newfound empire into two pieces, one for its Colonists and one for the Indian tribes. The Colonists, however, had a much different view: they saw their hard fought victory in the war as giving them the right to expand into the newly conquered territory, thus relieving some of the Colony's financial burdens through land speculation and settlement. In an attempt to quell the growing anarchy in the new territories, Britain engaged in perhaps one of the first instances of bio-terrorism by purposely infecting Indians with small pox. Though successful in "thinning the herd" so to speak, British lack of government intervention and control in the territory spurred anarchy among both the Indians and the settlers. Throughout, Calloway brilliantly defines both the short and long term effects the Peace of Paris had on every venue of North America, from Hudson Bay, to Florida, to Cuba, to Nova Scotia to the Louisiana Territory. For a much better understanding of American history and the causes that pushed the colonies towards independence, this is essential reading. Professor Calloway holds the reader in his grasp with every page, with the text flowing nicely and being capped off with an exhaustive bibliography that will surely add to one's reading list.

I absolutely loved this book. It has given critical insight to not only the causes behind the revolution, but how the Peace of Paris Treaty of 1763 transformed the lives of so many then and countless millions since.