“Don't Tread on Me: A 400-Year History of America at War, from Indian Fighting to Terrorist Hunting”, by H.W. Crocker III

452 pages, Crown Forum, ISBN-13: 978-1400053636

For anyone educated by today’s milquetoast academia, Don't Tread on Me: A 400-Year History of America at War, from Indian Fighting to Terrorist Hunting is a painful reconstruction of the American military in all of its politically incorrect might. Crocker’s book is a page-turner for anyone interested in a chronological (though incomplete) history of the most formidable military in history. More recent generations of graduates of American learning institutions would do well to read a historical portrayal of America’s Best, sans the airbrush.

With that said, this book is not without its flaws. While it provides a fine overview of the many conflicts in which American soldiers have participated, it suffers from a lack of substantive discussion or analysis. The author loudly states his reverence for the average American grunt, but uses precious little in the way of primary sources to illustrate his point and spends most of the book talking about overarching political events or critiquing the actions of the generals and politicians. He seems to take many of his own presumptions for granted – for example, the South had a right to secede from the Union, or the U.S. should have been pursued a more aggressive imperialist policy in the antebellum period – without supporting his claims with evidence. The author seemed to suffer from bipolar disorder, vacillating between a factual overview of American military efforts and a conservative rejection of politically correct liberal histories.

However, one of the reasons I like this book is because the author chose not to go through the politically correct route, and his book is refreshingly different from most other books because of its admitted bias. For all that, any history buff reading this book will probably learn something new, and while I think the author has done an honest job in researching and presenting his facts, his interpretation of certain facts may serve to take away from his work in the great scream of things. But then, this is how history is to be told; give the honest facts, both positive and negative, and let the chips fall where they may.

“Cathedral, Forge & Waterwheel: Technology & Invention in the Middle Ages”, by Joseph Gies & Frances Gies

368 pages, Harper Perennial, ISBN-13: 978-0060925819

Conventional wisdom once told us that there the Middle Ages was a time of stagnation rather than of innovation, but Frances and Joseph Gies make a strong argument, with many examples, in their book, Cathedral, Forge & Waterwheel: Technology & Invention in the Middle Ages, that technological developments from 500 to 1500 AD transformed Europe and enabled both the Renaissance and the European conquest of the rest of the world.

At the fall of the Roman Empire around 500 AD, Europe was little more than an illiterate, rural backwater. Except for a few items left behind by the Romans, virtually all of mankind's significant technology was in the hands and minds of the Chinese, Indians and Arabs. European towns north of Rome were small and dirty, and produced little except subsistence level farming. However by 1500, the end of the Middle Ages, Europeans had thrown back a major Muslim invasion, lived in large cities and fortified castles, carried on an active trade with China, India and Arabia, had developed full-rigged ships and navigation instruments capable of crossing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and developed weapons that would soon enable them to conquer almost every other civilization on Earth. Admittedly much of the new technology originated in China and Arabia, but the Europeans refined it, improved upon it, and put it to practical uses such that by 1100 AD Europe surpassed its eastern neighbors in sea faring, agriculture, armaments and day-to-day business practices. Even mundane skills like bookkeeping, credit, and insurance proved important in that they created the means to finance undertakings far beyond the capabilities of any one merchant family or sea captain.

That said, Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel is a book that will appeal mostly to those who have an interest in the subject. It largely ignores the wars and plagues of the Middle Ages and concentrates instead on technological development and the lives of common people. The first two chapters (there are only seven chapters in 300 pages of text) are mostly background information on the beginning of the Middle Ages and the migration of technology from Arabia and China into Europe, and can be a little tedious to read. The text picks up in the third chapter when the authors begin to describe peasant life in the medieval villages, and these descriptions are at least as interesting as the technology improvements. Each chapter builds on its predecessor and we learn why women carried the ubiquitous spinster around all day; of the prestige of being the village blacksmith or master mason; of the impact of the first printed books; and how the appeal of a trading economy spurred changes that improved everyone's life. Well, almost everyone’s.

Because the text addresses both people and technology, it is not necessarily riveting for every reader. You have to wade through descriptions of technology and engineering to get to the good stuff about the people – or read through stuff about medieval villagers to get to the good parts about technology, depending on your point of view. But Frances and Joseph Gies know their stuff and this is a great description of the impact of developing technology. Between them they have authored or co-authored more than twenty books on European and American history, and are among our foremost scholars on Europe in the Middle Ages.

“Rules for Radical Conservatives: Beating the Left at Its Own Game to Take Back America”, by David Kahane

304 pages, Ballantine Books, ISBN-13: 978-0345521866

Rules for Radical Conservatives: Beating the Left at Its Own Game to Take Back America is a sobering wake-up call which illuminates the low level tactics the Left has been employing over the last 40 years or so. Conservative author Michael Walsh takes on the fictional persona of “David Kahane”, a Hollywood screenwriter with impeccable leftist credentials – son of 60s radical parents, graduate of Columbia University, etc. – to tell dumb conservatives how the left works and how to counter the tactics described in the liberal playbook, Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals (interesting side-bar: the pseudonym “David Kahane” was the name of the radical screenwriter character played by Vincent D'Onofrio in the movie The Player who was killed by Griffin Mill, played by Tim Robbins).

Kahane’s style is tongue-in cheek and rather rambling, but that has the effect of giving his message resonance. His chief point is to take off the gloves and realize the nature of the opponent. Political correctness is DEAD. Truth is the new “hate” speech or so the Left would have us believe. No more acquiescence to the left on anything! He shows how Hitler was originally on the political left (pg. 58) before leftists eventually pinned Hitler on the political Right. He describes the Frankfurt School (pg. 56-57) of neo-Marxists (helpful in the Election Year 2012 with neo-Marxist President Obama). The neo-Marxists attack not only capitalism and religion, but also virtually every western value and institution. Instead of using the Gulags to silence their opponents, neo-Marxists use such things as tolerance and political correctness. These are disguised as quelling the afore-mentioned “hate speech” and protecting minorities. Actually, they are forms of mind control, a “fascism of the mind” designed to protect liberals from criticism (pg. 112). And so on and so forth.

The last part of the book, which dealt with the solution and discussed how conservatives should respond to the nasty tactics used on them by liberals, was excellent. Conservatives tend to be too nice. They don't want to offend anyone. According the author of this book, conservatives need to forget about people liking them and give the liberals the unvarnished truth about their underhanded ways. We need to call a spade a spade and keep on doing so. We need to expose everyone of their lies and continually speak the truth concerning the liberal's true agenda. As the author rightfully claims, conservatives need to understand that liberals lash out most viscously at those people they fear the most.

There is much more besides that the author has to say about how conservatives should respond to the lies and other despicable tactics the left uses to discredit them and the truth they present. All of his ideas are eye opening and need to be put into practice by conservatives. You don't win a war by being nice or politically correct for that matter either. And let’s face it, conservative Americans are in a war with the liberal left for our constitutional rights and our freedom to choose. We have to enlist in this crucial battle or the liberals will turn the United States into a socialist nation. Just when Western Europe is realizing socialism doesn't work and Eastern Europe has overthrown communism, America is headed in the same disastrous direction.