The Wolves at the Door

The Wolves at the Door by Judith L. Pearson is subtitled 'The story of America's greatest female spy', and I don't think that is an exaggeration. Virginia Hall was born into a well-off American family and could have had a quiet life tending a Victory garden during the war. But she was an intelligent and ambitious woman, so she chose a different life.

Before the start of WWII, Hall worked at several US consulates in Europe, trying to gain entrance to become a Foreign Sevice Officer. Her gender stood in her way, but so did something else: she lost part of her left leg below the knee in a hunting accident in Turkey. Her career hopes dashed just before the start of the war, she volunteered as an ambulance driver in France. Then came the Nazi occupation, and the establishment of the Vichy regime.

Hall's disgust for the invasion of a country she loved made her the perfect candidate for the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a British government shadow body whose mission was warfare by subversion. America had not entered the war, so Hall joined the British. They trained her and posted her in Vichy France, where she recruited Resistance members, aided stranded airmen, and supplied intelligence back to the SOE. Oh, and wrote articles for an American newspaper as part of her cover.

Her work drew the attention of the sadistic Klaus Barbie, a Gestapo intelligence officer known as "The Butcher of Lyon". Posters went up with the nickname 'La Dame qui Boite' (the Limping Lady), describing her as 'the most dangerous of Allied spies. We must find her and destroy her'.

After America entered the war and later the Germans eradicated the zone libre, Hall fled across the Pyrenees into Spain. She didn't tell the men she escaped with about her wooden leg, and kept up a brutal pace. The escape was not flawless, but eventually she made it back to London.

Not content to stay in safety in spite of her new notoriety and the Gestapo hunt, Hall learned how to operate a radio and transferred to the American intelligence service, the OSS (Office of Strategic Services). And went back to Paris in disguised as a frail old lady to hide her limp.

There she continued her activity, reporting troop movements, coordinating nighttime supply drops, and recruiting and directing saboteurs. Her command of French and German helped her along the way, as did her good instincts and discretion. She was recognized with high honors by the British, American, and French governments, but didn't see why doing her job was so special.

The biography is capably written, and Hall's exploits are rarely a slog. There is a brief bibliography - though I am the type of reader who wishes for much more detailed endnotes. I want to know what sources Pearson used to learn Hall's thoughts and feelings, since she was never able to interview Hall directly. In the acknowledgements, Pearson writes that 'Virginia Hall was once asked why she never told her story. Her reply was that she was never asked.' I think it's an example of Hall's innate modesty and perhaps some leftover habits from years of covert operations.

If you are looking for the story of courage, superb judgment and incredible danger, Hall's story has it all. What a person! During the chaos and moral darkness of WWII, people like her were the reason for hope that the world could recover. It is an important story, and I'm glad that it has been told.

The Radicalism of the American Revolution

The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood takes a nuanced look at pre-revolutionary shifts in American culture, family structure, politics, religion, education, and economics. It's a complex re-envisioning that only occasionally looks at the lives of individuals - Wood does not subscribe to the great man theory of history, but is interested in the larger context. He asks, why did the American revolution happen? Americans were generally prosperous, free, and barely aware of the far-away king in England:

"By the late 1760s and early 1770s a potentially revolutionary situation existed in many of the colonies. There was little evidence of those social conditions we often associate with revolution (and some historians have desperately sought to find): no mass poverty, no seething social discontent, no grinding oppression. [...] there was a great deal of jealousy and touchiness everywhere, for what could be made could be unmade; the people were acutely nervous about their prosperity and the liberty that seemed to make it possible."

Something was different about the American Revolution, and it's fascinating to see Wood draw his conclusions from the broad sweeps of the history of ideology and economics. I found the chapter on "Patriarchal Dependence" especially fascinating for its look into the harsh and widespread system of slavery and indentured servitude. The only truly independent people were "large portions of white male society", but everyone was aware of the dark side of dependence on another's will: they experienced it in daily life, after all. The seed for universal suffrage was planted, though it would take centuries to mature.

Our current assumptions about human nature and human relationships stand out in clear contrast to the beliefs of the founders - the America of the Revolution really was another world. Their reshaping of the social fabric, reimagining the ties that held people together, led to the America of today in ways that the founders never would have predicted (and even would have hated), but to us seem inexorable. The bonds of noblesse oblige and gratitude were neatly severed, imperfectly replaced by religion, trade, and mutual self-interest.

This isn't a book I'd recommend for a casual reader, or to those who like more traditional narrative histories like David McCullough's 1776. Fans of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States may enjoy Wood's insightful new take on a familiar era. Revolutionary War-era buffs or policy wonks looking for an unusual history with a commanding sense of an era's subtle movements will find their perfect match here.

Quotable (all emphasis mine):
"Because monarchy had these implications of humiliation and dependency, the Anglo-American colonists could never be good monarchical subjects. But of course neither could their fellow Englishmen 'at home' three thousand miles across the Atlantic. All Englishmen in the eighteenth century were known throughout the Western world for their insubordination, their insolence, their stubborn unwillingness to be governed."

"Monarchy presumed what Hume called a 'long train of dependence,' a gradation of degrees of freedom and servility that linked everyone from the king at the top down to the bonded laborers and black slaves at the bottom. The inequalities of such a hierarchy were acceptable to people because they were offset by the great emotional satisfactions of living in a society in which everyone, even the lowliest servant, counted for something."

"People labored out of necessity, out of poverty, and that necessity and poverty bred the contempt in which laboring people had been held for centuries. Freedom was always valued because it was freedom from this necessity to labor. Most people, it was widely assumed, would not work if they did not have to. 'Everyone but an idiot,' said the English agricultural writer Arthur Young in a startling summary of the traditional view, 'knows that the lower class must be kept poor or they will never be industrious.'"

"The gentlemanly elites of the eighteenth century could condescend and be affable with their subordinates and inferiors because they often thought of themselves as parents dealing with children. Since most relationships in this hierarchical society were still very personal, they were also necessarily paternalistic."

"In the colonies servitude was a much harsher, more brutal, and more humiliating status than it was in England, and this difference had important implications for the colonists' consciousness of dependency. Colonial bonded servants in fact shared some of the chattel nature of black slaves."

"Many colonists, therefore, not only black slaves but white servants and young men and a variety of tenants and of course all women, knew firsthand what dependence meant. Dependence, said James Wilson in 1774, was 'very little else, but an obligation to conform to the will ... of that superior person ... upon which the inferior depends. People who were dependent could not be free; in fact, 'freedom and dependency' were 'opposite and irreconcilable terms.' Dependents were all those who had no wills of their own; thus like children they could have no political personalities and could rightfully be excluded from participation in public life. It was this reasoning that underlay the denial of the vote to women, servants, apprentices, short-term tenants, minors, and sons over twenty-one still living at home with their parents."

"No doubt the cost that America paid for this democracy was high - with its vulgarity, its materialism, its rootlessness, its anti-intellectualism. But there is no denying the wonder of it and the real earthly benefits it brought to the hitherto neglected and despised masses of common laboring people. The American Revolution created this democracy, and we are living with it still."

Hard Times

Hard Times by Charles Dickens
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Louisa Gradgrind's hard-nosed education, driven by her factory owner father's ideals, fails her and those around her in one of Dicken's shortest works.

Louisa Gradgrind was brought up in the industrial grime of Coketown, trained in nothing but facts. To Mr. Gradgrind and his friends, "wonder" is a dirty word. Alienated from everyone around her, Louisa's education takes a spiritual toll, leaving her world-weary and nihilistic.

Louisa makes a terrible marriage to a man 30 years her senior; she then finds herself the intended prey of a bored aristocrat and the focus of a malicious widow's spying. Her worthless brother, Thomas "The Whelp" Gradgrind, sponges off of her, taking advantage of her love for him.

The innocent around the malformed Gradgrinds suffer, too - innocents like "Hard Times" himself Stephen Blackpool, an honest factory worker: "It is said that every life has its roses and thorns; there seemed, however, to have been a misadventure or mistake in Stephen's case, whereby somebody else had become possessed of his roses, and he had become possessed of the same somebody else's thorns in addition to his own."

It may be hard times all around, but Dickens' comic touches and tear-jerking moments make this a virtuoso performance by the master of character and observation. Good may not entirely win out, but bad certainly gets its comeuppance. It's especially gratifying to see the fruit reaped by Mrs. Sparsit's nosiness and Mr. Bounderby's constant boasting. The story isn't as rewarding or as exciting as Great Expectations or A Christmas Carol, but fans of Dickens should definitely read it. (I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point for his works, though.)

Most Dickens characters easily lend themselves to being nicknamed, they are so distinct and often outrageous, so here's my list:
Thomas "The Whelp" Gradgrind - "It was altogether unaccountable that a young gentleman whose imagination had been strangled in his cradle, should be still inconvenienced by its ghost in the form of grovelling sensualities; but such a monster, beyond all doubt, was Tom."
Josiah "Blowhard" Bounderby - A self-made man with "a moral infection of clap-trap in him": he's the original humblebragger as he boasts about his beginnings in a gutter
Mrs. Sparsit the Sneak - A dependent widow, the proud possessor of a Roman nose that she likes to stick in everyone else's business
Stephen "Hard Luck" Blackpool - Perpetually down on his luck, but honest and good-hearted
Sissy "Saintly" Jupe - A young woman the Gradgrinds take in after she is abandoned by her father, who is a circus performer
James "Superfluous Man" Harthouse - a Byron wannabe who tries to gain the married Louisa's affections

Dickens uses the lives of these characters to illustrate his own ideas about hot-button issues of his day: education, laissez-faire capitalism (there were almost no protections for workers, who were often children), divorce (so expensive it was only achievable for upper-classes, and almost impossible for women to gain), the rise of labor unions (considered criminal organizations until 1867), rapid industrialization, industrial pollution, and the cold-blooded political philosophy of Utilitarianism. Anyone who dismisses the Victorian era in Britain as uninteresting and prudish only has to read through that list to realize that their problems are our problems.

You can download a digital copy of Hard Times for free at Project Gutenberg, along with the rest of Dickens' works. A great next choice for those looking for another perspective on the mill towns of the north of England (with much more romance), try Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South (free here). For more background on the man and his writings, try Claire Tomalin's excellent biography, Charles Dickens: A Life.

Quotable:
“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!” - 1

"He had not much hair. One might have fancied he had talked it off; and that what was left, all standing up in disorder, was in that condition from being constantly blown about by his windy boastfulness." - 56

Negro League Baseball's Unsung Heroes

We are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the untold story of the Negro League, which for thirty years before integration not only drew bigger crowds than the all-white major league baseball teams but also had stars every bit as gifted as Babe Ruth (possibly more gifted, but we'll never know for sure).

Kadir Nelson tells the story with an Everyman narrator and through his vivid paintings. Nelson explains in the Author's Note: "I chose to present the voice of the narrator as a collective voice, the voice of every player, the voice of we. Under the leadership of Rube Foster, who declared the leagues' independence from major league baseball by saying, 'We are the ship; all else the sea,' the owners and players formed and sustained a successful league, demonstrating the power of the collective."

This quote also explains the terrible name of the book, which certainly doesn't scream "Baseball" at potential readers and seems to guarantee that interested kids won't find it unless a parent or teacher hands it to them. As an object the book is also awkwardly large and square to accommodate the illustrations. Sadly, there are no period photographs, just Nelson's paintings. Don't get me wrong - the paintings are lovely, but based on those alone I doubt I would recognize the major Negro League stars in real life photos. The illustrations are simply not nuanced enough, and after looking up some of the stars I don't think Nelson got the resemblances very well.

The Negro League played baseball that was swift, thrilling, and "tricky" according to Cool Papa Bell, a legendary outfielder. The descriptions of the rough-and-tumble League are enough to make you wish for a little of that old spirit and excitement in modern baseball. The narrative style conveys this excitement well, making the story zip along and feel authentic. Even those who know little about baseball will find it a quick and fascinating read, and may be inspired to pick up some of the books listed in the bibliography to learn more about the larger-than-life personalities of the Negro League's best players. (Or to watch the film 42, about Jackie Robinson.)

The Bravest Traitor

The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery by Steve Sheinkin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Before his name became synonymous with traitor, Benedict Arnold was one of the heroes of the American Revolution, and without his reckless courage the Colonies' rebellion may have ended at Saratoga.

George Washington once wrote of Arnold "The merit of this gentleman is certainly great. I heartily wish that fortune may distinguish him as one of her favorites." He was once a byword for bravery, the quintessential American patriot and man of action - but Arnold had his enemies, and earned every one of them with his narcissism, social ineptitude, and quick temper. He was a man with great gifts and fatal flaws.

Sheinkin knows just how to tell a story, and he paints a vivid portrait of this notorious general. If we are not exactly sympathetic to Arnold's treachery, at least we understand what led up to it by the end of this compelling history, which ends with this story:

"If you visit the Saratoga battlefield, which is now a national park, you may see a very strange monument, one that perfectly symbolizes Arnold's place in the United States. It's tucked away off the main path, near tour stop number seven, the spot where Arnold led his final charge as an American general. It's a small stone sculpture of a lower left leg. No person, just a tall boot.

"A plaque reads: 'In memory of the most brilliant soldier of the Continental Army who was desperately wounded on this spot, the sally port of Burgoyne's Great Western Redoubt 7th October, 1777, winning for his countrymen the decisive battle of the American Revolution.'

"Nowhere does the monument mention the name Benedict Arnold."

- p. 306-307

The Wordy Shipmates

The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The unlikely account of a modern historian's love for the notoriously inflexible Puritans, highlighting the best and worst of America's New England forefathers.

Vowell has a great deal of sympathy and affection for the difficult-to-love Puritans, and she starts with the Arbella's sendoff across the Atlantic into the New World. She touches on the complex personalities of John Winthrop, John Cotton, Roger Williams, and Anne Hutchinson: four passionate Puritans who sought to live by the essential principles of Christianity, as their consciences understood them.

Reading this made me want to veer into history books about the Boston Molasses Disaster, Dunkirk, the 30 Years' War, and the Pequot War, all of which are touched upon in the text. Vowell wrestles with the contradictory and all-to-human nature of this group of the Elect, who strove to be worthy of grace yet struggled to reconcile the sternness of their own natures with the virtues of Christian charity and mercy. At times these saints succeeded, at other times their lofty goals led to devastating failures that have repercussions to this day.

The sour note for me was an anti-Reagan screed - it felt out of place. Vowell resents Reagan's American exceptionalist use of John Winthrop's vision of "a city on  a hill" but recounts how she swells with pride when she hears Kennedy saying the same words, in virtually the same way. She's open-minded and forgiving when it comes to the quirks and shortcomings of the Puritans, but far less so for modern Republican presidents. If you are a Democrat or a liberal, you may not mind this (and may even agree with Vowell's assessment of the Reagan presidency), but for me it marred the book. (Personal preference: I avoid political books like the plague.)

Like a Boss

George Washington


Named Britain's greatest foe:

Stephen Brumwell, author and specialist on eighteenth century North America, said: "Washington scores highly as an enemy of Britain on three key grounds: the immense scale of damage he inflicts upon Britain's Army and Empire – the most jarring defeat that either endured; his ability to not only provide inspirational battlefield leadership but to work with civilians who were crucial to sustain the war-effort; and the kind of man he was. As British officers conceded, he was a worthy opponent."

Via The Telegraph.