It struck me only after finishing the eBook and skimming it for notes that The Rude Guide To Mitt was dedicated to Seamus. Oblivious to the allusion during my initial read, the irony of the dedication seemed fitting in retrospect. You see, Seamus was the one time dog of Mitt Romney, that is, until Seamus wisely ran away after Mitt strapped Seamus to the roof for a 12 hour nonstop car ride which literally scared the shit out of Seamus. Alex Pareene effectively uses the anecdote in the introduction to highlight the basic premise of his eBook, that Mitt Romney is one helluva strange guy.

The Rude Guide To Mitt is another edition to a relatively new medium called the eBook that affords publication of material much longer than a magazine length but shorter and less dense than a typical book. The strength of eBooks is that they can address transitory topics that are currently relevant in a timely manner that full books cannot, in this case it’s Romney’s bid to be President. The Rude Guide To Mitt functions quite well in that respect, and is basically what the title purports, a guidebook to who Mitt Romney is, or more apt, his shocking emptiness of being.

Pareene splits the book into eight chapters with each detailing an aspect of Mitt’s life and experiences, from his childhood, to his family’s Mormon roots, and on through his business and political careers. Throughout the book, and Mitt’s life, Pareene highlights Romney’s awkward wooden personality through several hilarious anecdotes. In fact, The Rude Guide to Mitt would probably serve well as a full season’s worth of Saturday Night Live skits, except it’s all real! Here’s Mitt in 2008 on Martin Luther King Day:

As he squeezes in to the otherwise all-black group, he says, apropos of nothing, “Who let the dogs out? Woof, woof!” He seems to have been told that “small talk” is mostly made up of cheerfully delivered non sequiturs.

On a more serious note, The Rude Guide To Mitt also highlights Romney’s political “beliefs” and how they’ve been shaped. To put it bluntly, they’ve all been shaped to fit some preconceived notion of what a modern day social conservative Presidential nominee should be, despite those beliefs not reflecting Mitt’s tenure as Governor or being anywhere close to his father’s political philosophy. Pareene mentions how this unprincipled, focus group driven assemblage of positions “seems to inspire more hatred from Republicans than…liberals.” Indeed, it is hard to see any personal aspect of Mitt’s motivations outside of a seemingly invisible hand pushing him to run and win the Presidency for winning’s sake. The only aspect or trait that seems ingrained in Mitt is his penchant for “succeeding”, which is not necessarily a bad thing except that his wins mostly seem empty or phony. Obviously I have no ear to Mitt’s inner voice so I qualify by using “seem”, however, I have no doubt that if asked about his successes Romney would not answer in a sincere fashion but in what Pareene characterizes as a Disney-esque corporatized filled lingo meant to bathe him in a warm glow of positivity.

The Rude Guide To Mitt serves as a very good primer on the man running for the most important position in the world. At around 60 pages it can be read in one sitting and the author’s snarky humor helps propel it along nicely despite being overbearing at times. The book will no doubt be characterized as leftist, or a hit piece on the GOP candidate; however, I would caution readers to give it a chance no matter one’s ideology. The “alien weirdness” of Mitt Romney transcends ideological bounds and should be witnessed by all.

Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin is worth reading if only for the utterly surrealistic Chapter 42, “Hermann’s Toys”, which recounts a Sunday afternoon at Carinhall. Hermann Goring entertains a reluctant group of diplomats at his vast estate by trying to mate two bison on command and flaunting the mausoleum that he had erected to house his exhumed dead wife. All the while making several different changes of uniform and showing off like a “‘big, fat, spoilt child.’”

Scenes like the above would be laughable except Larson’s book is quick to remind the reader that far from being just a childish buffoon, this man was a bloodthirsty thug. In the Garden of Beasts, through exhaustive research, paints a picture of the early Nazi Germany that feels more like a vivid novel or movie than a non-fiction historical account. Also clearly present is an impending sense of darkness and fear as the Nazi party continues to brutalize Jews and anyone that they perceive as a threat. Larson focuses in on the plight of the US Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, and his family, in particular his daughter Martha. Dodd was an unlikely candidate to become an Ambassador and many in the State Department considered him ill suited to serve in Berlin, in fact they actively worked to discredit him. Meanwhile, his daughter Martha was a free spirit who had trysts with several men in Germany including the head of the Gestapo and a Russian spy.

The Dodd’s story, while integral to the book and interesting, is really just a backdrop to the thrust of the book, the rise of the Nazi party around 1933-1934. Appeasement runs deep throughout the book. Whether by ignoring events and warnings or by minimizing them, nobody recognized the true threat. Dodd’s and other US officials’ warnings were set aside by a State Department and cabinet that was concerned more with German debt and not straying from the foreign policy of isolationism. It’s also clear that there was an anti-semitic element in the WASPish upper government at the time. Whereas in Germany many were concerned with the tactics that Hitler and the Nazis were using but assured themselves that it would not last long and that the Nazis would be quickly deposed. Perhaps the only real check against Hitler was President Hindenburg who commanded the loyalty of the army (Reichswehr) yet was unmoved to stop Hitler.

The Nazis and Hitler remain today as a symbol of evil and the example of a totalitarian state, yet symbols are often empty because the reality that derived them is abstracted. It’s hard to see Nazis without the cartoonish evilness attached to them or the pop culture portrayal. Whether it be in Indiana Jones movies or YouTube videos of Adolf Hitler raging, their is a distance between the symbol and the real evil it represents. Erik Larson’s biggest achievement in In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin is to bring the evilness back to life and to see it in full display. The reader is able to witness the capricious cruelty and the brutish political intrigue where power is acquired by eliminating enemies. Most importantly, Larson describes a world where people like Goring may one evening be entertaining a large dining party and the next evening be ordering the death of many innocent men. In essence, he shows that these are not just symbols of evil but also humans and with that Larson brings to life the darkness of human capability in a way that is atypical of most historical books.

Generally, our living situation plays a very large role in life. Location, rent, transportation, and probably most important, with whom we share our space with are all personal factors that drive our housing decisions and circumstances.  Yet, along with the personal factors above that play a part, there is also a broad swath of social policy and economics that help determine where we live and what prices we pay. In his new e-book, The Rent Is Too Damn High, Matt Yglesias delves into the policies of housing, density, and regulation to argue that the free market is being restricted by regulation and is creating an artificial housing scarcity in desirable areas.

Yglesias’s main assertion is that there are two ways to lower prices of housing, either lower demand or increase supply. Lowering demand would entail making an area less desirable, so it’s preferable to increase the supply in order to lower prices without harming the value of the land. Since there is little to no technological barrier holding us from increasing density by building up, then the supply is not being increased due to some other reason or reasons. According to Yglesias, the major reason is burdensome regulations imposed by the new rentiers and the thrust of the e-book is that this is harming everyone in American society.

Yglesias takes care to explain the difference in the value of housing and land, going even further to explain that the real value of land is derived from the “permission to build.” However, the density restrictions, such as height or parking mandates, drive up prices and drive people out to the suburbs and even exurbs in search of affordable housing.  After describing the price paid by suburban sprawl and examining the exodus to the Sun Belt, Yglesias then moves on to claim that there is a new rent seeker in the form of incumbent land owners who restrict in their own self interest but harm potential future residents. Also discussed in the chapter titled, “The Politics of Urbanism,” is the problem of political identity which unfortunately tends to keep both Republicans and Democrats on the same side, that is, against urban development. In the case of Republicans, it’s ignoring free markets in favor of “conformism-minded suburbanites.” For Democrats identity politics entails demonizing the developers and ignoring that scarcity is “inherently anti-egalitarian.”

Yglesias brings the same tight logical construct to The Rent Is Too Damn High as he does on his blogs which makes the book a quick but insightful read. He posts a lot of ideas in a rather short space, and that’s fortunate in this case. The format of the e-book is well suited for policy topics such as urban density. This is mainly because the time investment is not very high which allows the ideas to be more prescient and reach a wider audience. Anyone that is the least bit interested in public policy, economics, or city planning should definitely take the opportunity to read The Rent Is Too Damn High.

That being said, despite the book being a great discussion starter in this topic, I fail to find the Yglesias’s case for urban density overwhelmingly compelling. This is primarily due to three reasons:

1) The housing costs in the desirable locales may be higher, indicating there is demand. Yet, they’re nowhere close to a breaking point, like Yglesias would portray. Manhattan restaurants are not having a crisis because waiters can’t find a place to live and work near enough to the restaurant. Sure, there may be some burden placed on Manhattan waiters that is undesirable and, maybe, even fixable (!) but that doesn’t make it a compelling priority. Optimal takes a back seat to practical in many cases. So after reading this, it’s not as if I’m going to so wildly inspired as to run down and knock on the office of my City Manager and start complaining about burdensome regulations.

2) Related to the above point, is that Yglesias never addresses any of the negative aspects of increased density and why many may not find it as appealing. Now, Yglesias does cross his t’s and dot his i’s by noting that many will still prefer the suburbs and will have the option to live there, but that rings hollow after continuously extolling the merits of higher density in the chapter, “The Virtues of Density.” One example is crime. One could make the argument that crime stats would stay the same per population, or even decrease with higher density, but it would be impossible to claim that people’s proximity to crime wouldn’t be increased. Let’s face it, a lot of the flight to the suburbs is to escape, or be far away, from those types of things that density by nature brings with closer proximity (crime, trash, noise, etc.), whether it’s economically rational or not.

3) Finally, it seems to me that the distinction between value and desirability is tenuous in the case of land for urban use. Incumbent owners want to maintain high prices and either use existing regulations or form covenants to protect that price by creating scarcity. This exclusivity is what drives the desirability, and once the exclusivity is gone so is the desirability. That creates the whack-a-mole scenario where hot-spots of desirability are going in and out all over the city, which is what Yglesias wants to allow by letting developers build wherever the market dictates. Yet people don’t want to do that dance every year or so when their neighborhood changes identity at the whim of the free market. Most people that are not young, single, mobile, and well-off want to stabilize and to protect the neighborhood’s desirability from the free market for price reasons and quality of life reasons. If people cannot, it’s then that they head out to the suburban oasis to do so. This desire for stability shouldn’t be ignored.

Again, I’m a big fan of most of Matt Yglesias’s blog writing and I believe this book is a solid entry into the discussion of urban policy; but there were definitely areas I would have liked to have seen addressed, mainly a more thorough comparison of the virtues of density versus the disadvantages of density. The bottom line is, despite the fact that I agree with many of his assertions and his ideas are insightful, there’s a certain sense that you’d be forcing policy changes on a large segment of people that don’t want it and have valid reasons for being against higher density policies and there’s little recognition of that in the book.

** Since I link to Amazon in order to find the book, I feel obligated to mention that many of the reviews on there are purposefully denigrating the book without having read it. This is more of an attack on the author’s political bent than the merits of the book.

The title, How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III, could not be more ominous or, depending on your perspective on nuclear weapons, alarmist. Author Ron Rosenbaum has a definitive point of view about the danger of nuclear weapons as he waxes throughout the book about holocausts and the immorality of mass retaliation. Rosenbaum does not, however, ignore the side of the nuclear believers who state that nuclear weapons, through deterrence, have actually made the world safer and saved millions of lives. Rather than a driven point of view, Rosenbaum instead takes the reader on a meandering path pondering the history, danger, role, and, most importantly, morality of nuclear weapons.

Rosenbaum takes on a rather passive role as an observer and questioner throughout the book. The heart of the book is really posed in the question of mass retaliation. That is, if a nation has been destroyed or nearly destroyed, is it moral to retaliate for no other reason than vengeance which may likely end the human race? Rosenbaum asks various powerful or influential people including the US commander of nuclear weapons this question and to Rosenbaum’s apparent dismay, none would or could responsibly give a valid answer. But of course, to answer that “forbidden” question is to undermine what’s been the status quo since the Cold War and what we now rely upon: deterrence.

Deterrence is the theory that mass nuclear retaliation is an inevitability for any nation that launches a first strike nuclear attack. In other words, if you unleash nuclear weapons, you too will be destroyed by a retaliatory attack. Proponents of deterrence say that not only has it prevented nuclear war, but it has also saved millions of lives by preventing non nuclear wars from either occurring or escalating. Yet there is a very real and discouraging paradox that underlies deterrence as it relates to the morality of retaliation. Any mention that a retaliation is not inevitable intensifies the probability that a party attempt a first strike against the nation. So there’s this Faustian deal that is implicit with nuclear weapons, in that there is no middle ground and retaliation must be guaranteed. The safety provided by deterrence is guaranteed by the promise of mutually-assured destruction.

Mutually-assured destruction (MAD) was a very real possibility in the midst of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and the US always at a “hair trigger” notice. In fact, Rosenbaum goes through in the beginning of the book a series of near misses that the world has already witnessed. However, in the Cold War there was some level of stability between the two superpowers and deterrence worked as well as could be expected. Post Cold War is a period of nuclear instability as countries like North Korea gain nuclear weapons. We see a tense Pakistan and India situation with the added concern of terrorists accessing Pakistan’s nuclear stock. Also, the problem of the Middle East as a whole being a tinderbox for igniting a global nuclear holocaust seems all too real. Rosenbaum does an excellent job at highlighting both Cold War and post Cold War areas of concern, some of which like the “hair trigger” alert levels still haven’t changed despite the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Rosenbaum also highlights the Israel attack on Syria in 2007 that, again, could have possibly started a World War III with nuclear weapons involved. The end of the Cold War has not given any relief to the notion that nuclear holocaust seems probable, whether by accident or by malice if history stays on course.

Ultimately, that’s where Rosenbaum’s book comes through strongest: nuclear weapons being unleashed are only a matter of time and scale. If changes are not made to the status quo, it’s quite likely (even statistically quantifiable) that we will see the engagement of nuclear weapons. At that point, the “forbidden question” will require an answer and that answer will shape the future of mankind. In his final chapter, “Endgame,” Rosenbaum does lay out some proposals to mitigate the risk. Rosenbaum also delves into the deep, inherent problems of “Zero” or eradicating nuclear weapons all together. The “Zero” policies, while idyllic, are pragmatically impossible as the knowledge will always be available which creates too many problems for any nation to give up nukes 100%. Rosenbaum instead settles on the notion of minimal deterrence, the least amount of deterrence needed to prevent a nuclear war but not risk mass destruction of humanity.

The threat of nuclear destruction is one of the most pressing concerns of humanity and one that most of us probably feel utterly powerless about. Even the knowledge of the threat provided in How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III begins serves more to scare than to provoke into action. Nuclear policy is not like other political issues, like say tax policy or even Iraq War policy, where in a democratic nation one can have their voice heard and their vote accounted for. Nuclear policy and decision making will be made by likely a few people, maybe not even elected and it will be made in the course of minutes not election cycles, and that is a scary thought. As Rosenbaum pointed out, a possibly unbalanced Richard Nixon made the point very succinctly when he stated, “I could leave this room and in 25 minutes 70 million people would be dead.”

The sad truth is that American students perform worse the longer they stay in our public schools…

That the American educational system has fallen behind globally is not debatable. Children are simply not learning to the level that they need to in order to compete in a global market and to maximize their own self worth and value. The problem is recognizable by all, yet the causes and solutions are entrenched in the status quo and endlessly mired in debate and politics. In his new book, Push Has Come to Shove: Getting Our Kids the Education They Deserve–Even If It Means Picking a Fight, Dr. Steve Perry nobly attempts to bring this dysfunctional educational system out of the shadows of the status quo and illuminate all the flaws that prevent children from learning effectively.

As the title suggests, Dr. Perry takes a very confrontational and in your face tone throughout the book. Perry colors his language with war terms like “front line” and also uses colloquialisms freely which gives the text the tone of a passionate speaker rather than an academic treatise. It’s apparent that Perry is trying to reach out and hook a very broad audience of parents and concerned educators rather than aim for the formal educational crowd. In fact, several times in the book Dr. Perry expresses his frustration with academics like Jonathan Kozol and Dianne Ravitch whom he believes had their time to reform and failed.

The meat of the book, and where it succeeds, is Dr. Perry’s attack on the failure of our society to hold teachers, schools, and everyone else involved with the education of our nation’s children accountable. Dr. Perry deftly describes how even the language and attitudes have been shifted to the point we accept ineptitude in our public school systems when we wouldn’t accept it in any other business or area of our life.  Perry writes:

No other group in the economy, from professionals to blue-collar workers, stays employed with failure rates as high as America’s educators.

Educators get away with failing to teach our kids to state and local standards by falling back on the same old defense: I tried. As long as we can say – not prove – that we tried, we can hand out diplomas to kids who can’t even read them and keep on shouting that it’s not our fault.

The strongest chapter in the book, and the reason why we accept this incompetence, is the titled “Gatekeepers” and describes the power of the teachers’ union. Simply, any attempt at educational reform is countered by the union which carries immense political weight. Reforms from school choice, certification, and the school calendar are thought by many to be beneficial to the education of students but may obviously negatively impact the entrenched position that teachers have dug in for themselves. So the fight for the status quo remains the top priority for the unions, not improving the education of children. Dr. Perry illustrates this point by documenting how difficult it is to remove even clearly incompetent teachers that cannot stay awake during class. If nothing else, the price of the book is justified by that chapter alone.

Though Dr. Perry’s screed on the problems of our educational system is both powerful and effective, his solutions are less so. Dr. Perry is first a Principal and administrator and, it appears, a very effective one. He lays out an effective outline in Part Three about how to find great teachers, enact engaging lesson plans, and he aptly describes the role of the Principal and parents. In Part Seven he lists several proposals to better the overall system, such as lengthening the calendar and modernizing the curriculum. However, the biggest criticism that can be levied against the book is that while Dr. Perry gives a great game plan on how to run an accomplished school, he fails to show how it can be scalable throughout the nation. The fact is that the reason there are so many incompetent teachers is not only because the union protects them, but also because good teachers are in shortage. Dealing with the problems that Dr. Perry illuminates require a lot of data, detail, research, and pragmatism and unfortunately Push Has Come to Shove come up short on the nitty gritty aspects of solving the problems. The solutions are presented but not much effort is put forward to justifying them with any data, everything is anecdotal or assumed to be true.

Despite the lack of research and data presented, which Dr. Perry seems to disavow anyway as someone on the front lines, the book is very effective at bringing attention to the failing of the public educational system and the sense of urgency that we must acknowledge it. Dr. Perry’s book should be a must read for any parent, if for no other reason than to change the expectations that a parent should hold. As a taxpaying citizen, one should demand that public schools fulfill their obligations and refute the language that anyone other than the educational institution is at fault for the failure to educate children. The status quo is not working and for reformation or transformation to occur on a nationwide basis people have to be aware of the problems.  Push Has Come to Shove effectively introduces the reader to the quagmire of today’s educational battles and is an excellent first step in striving for change.

Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Suskind’s most recent work, Confidence Men, tears down the walls of the White House to readers to give an inside glimpse of President Obama’s handling of the domestic and economic policies in the first years of his term. The book paints a picture of an inexperienced President encountering an economic crisis unrivaled since the Great Depression. Along with the crisis comes an opportunity to change the system and culture of Wall Street, a very Roosevelt moment in time, and Suskind deftly explains why and how that campaign promise of change was never able to come to fruition.

Suskind’s strength is to take the heavily researched material and compact it into a riveting narrative tale. Throughout the book, the paragraphs can quickly shift from wonkish policy to high Shakespearean drama within the administration. This style lends a lot to the readability of the text but opens up Suskind to the charge of coloring the story with his own brush rather than reporting a drier set of facts. This occurs throughout the book when he inserts into the text lines such as “in a stage whisper”  which work, in this case, to elevate the drama. In addition to coloring the text with the choice of language, Suskind also clearly frames the heroes and villains in a blunt manner. There’s no doubt in Suskind’s text that Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and Rahm Emmanuel are the confidence men referred to in the title, those who “gain the trust without earning it.” It’s just as clear that the heroes in the book are the few that were shut out of policy making or governing but that were champions for change, like Paul Volcker and Elizabeth Warren.

It’s President Obama, though, that the book is really about. Suskind uses all of Part I to describe the campaign while in the midst of the impending economic crisis, and those are the times when Obama shined brightest. Unfortunately, he was not able implement the rhetoric of the campaign into real change, despite having immense political capital. Confidence Men is primarily an examination of why President Obama failed in his first years as President. The following reasons all contributed greatly:

1)      President Obama lacked experience, especially in management. The knock on President Obama throughout his campaign with McCain was the lack of experience. Obama was only a little more than four years removed from serving as a State Senator in Illinois and had never led any type of large sized organization or business. This lack of experience showed up frequently in the next two years as the administration consistently failed to either take advantage of timely opportunities or failed to execute the desires of the President.

2)      President Obama surrounded himself with the wrong people. This is partly due to his lack of experience that he came to depend on Washington insiders and former Clintonites rather than the people he surrounded himself during the campaign. Suskind frequently refers to a Team A of Volcker, Austan Goolsbee, Bob Reich, Robert Wolf, and Paul O’Neill; and a Team B comprised of Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and the Bob Rubin acolytes. Obama chose the Team B, most of who were behind the deregulation that had in fact caused the economic crisis and had no interest in altering the status quo. Using their philosophy “first, do no harm,” they were able to avoid any real punitive measures for the finance industry and any real reform.

3)      President Obama attempted to tackle too much. Obama was dealing with the economic crisis, financial reform and health care all at the same time. Suskind writes “no one had the temerity to say, ‘Mr. President, any one of those three would be more than enough to challenge a new president with so little executive experience.’” Remember, also, that this was all on the domestic front and that President Obama was also fighting two Middle Eastern wars. See here.

4)      President Obama’s style was to try to build consensus. Suskind describes the President as extremely intelligent, impressing many that met him. However, he tended to try to bring opposing opinions together in a campaign like effort, rather than using his power to coerce. There were several opportunities in both financial reform and health care that the President needed to use the spear. His inability or lack of desire to do so cost the administration dearly and may have lost them the opportunity to enact real change. Also, his technocratic way of thinking led to an administration that would constantly relitigate issues over and over leading to a paralyzed executive branch.

In Confidence Men Suskind is a much harsher judge of the advisers who often whipsawed Obama around and even, in the Treasury Department’s case, slow walked direct policy orders. Suskind seems willing to give a benefit of the doubt to the President as he replaces most of his initial senior staff and old hand Pete Rouse begins to take charge. Yet, despite Suskind’s somewhat sympathetic tone towards Obama, it’s shocking how the President could allow so much insubordination and lack of accountability in the White House. It points to a weakness in the ability to not only create policy but also make sure it gets executed. In short, Confidence Men is an indictment on the executive ability of President Obama.

The whites…dealt unjustly by me. I came to them, they deceived me; the land I was upon I loved, my body is made of its sands; the Great Spirit gave me legs to walk over it; hands to aid myself; eyes to see its ponds, rivers forests, and game; then a head with which I think. The sun, which is warm and bright as my feelings are now, shines to warm us and bring forth our crops, and the moon brings back the spirits of our warriors, our fathers, wives, and children. The white man comes; he grows pale and sick, why cannot we live here in peace? I have said I am the enemy to the white man. I could live in peace with him, but they steal our cattle and horses, cheat us, and take our lands. The white men are as thick as the leaves in the hammock ; they come upon us thicker every year. They may shoot us, drive our women and children night and day; they may chain our hands and feet, but the red man’s heart will always be free.

History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842 by John K. Mahon is the source for the above quote by the brave Seminole warrior, Coacoochee. Mahon’s work is one of the few books to illuminate an oft forgotten about American War, one that had lasting implications and a dramatic story. The Seminole War involved a colorful cast of characters, extremely harsh environs, treachery and bravery, and a war of insurgency that teaches us lessons to this day. The Seminole Wars are but just one chapter in the long story of the Indian Wars and John K. Mahon gives a very clear and concise account of those wars of Florida.

Mahon structures the book chronologically, starting with the background of the First Seminole War and the series of treaties that followed it. Even from the beginning, coexisting with the Seminoles was not in the plans of the settlers of Florida, nor strongly supported by the U.S. government. Horribly debilitating treaties essentially took the land out of the Seminoles hands for nothing. The plan was to move them west of the Mississippi along with the Indians of Georgia. Skirmishes continued throughout the years of 1818-1835, as many Seminoles refused to yield. Finally, under the Presidency of Andrew Jackson, General Winfield Scott was given command in 1836 which marks the beginning of the Second Seminole War. Mahon then takes us through the rest of the war in chapters split up by the six commanding officers, describing events under each officer’s command.

Most attribute the Indian Wars as a natural consequence of Manifest Destiny and in the case of Florida and the Seminoles, it played a part. However, the most important factor may have very well been the slavery issue. Southern states were infuriated by the fact that slaves would escape to Florida and find sanctuary with the Indians. Reclamation of property was a leading reason why the Department of War and the state militias felt compelled to remove the Seminoles from Florida. How to treat the Black Seminoles became one of the most divisive issues to every commanding officer in Florida. Along those lines, the commanding officers also recognized that the “crackers” were also to blame for much of the violence between themselves and the Indians, and that too represented a major problem for the officers. Had it not been for the runaway slave issue, Florida may have been ignored for quite some time.

Anyone that has lived in Florida or spent a fair amount of time in Florida can attest to the brutal environment of Florida in the summer, even now with the advent of AC. War in the unforgiving swamps of Florida tested the hardiest of soldiers and often broke them. Disease, humidity, sawgrass, never ending rain and moisture, snakes, and alligators all posed just as much as threat to the Army as the Seminoles. In fact, disease killed many more soldiers than the Seminoles. A telling anecdote is that Colonel John F. Lane, deranged by fever and fatigue, ran his sword through his right eye. The fact that most soldiers considered Florida the poorest land ever fought over exemplifies the runaway slave factor. The conditions were brutal and the pay miserable, yet many future officers of the US Army gained considerable experience in Florida and would use that knowledge in future Indian Wars and the Civil War.

History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842 is a dense history and definitely does not fit under the breezy category. At times it can as trudging of a read as the Seminole War was a long, brutal trudge for both sides. However, Mahon provides an endlessly fascinating account of the Seminole War and the politics of the Seminole War. History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842 is a must read for anyone interested in Florida history and/or in general US history during the mid 19^th century.

PoliticalBooks.org prides itself on providing original and provocative reviews, however, there are times when it’s important to acknowledge that another reviewer nailed it so perfectly that there’s little to add. A high profile release such as Known and Unknown: A Memoir by Donald Rumsfeld will have no shortage of analysis and review, yet none have been as comprehensive, damning, and precise as the following review by Max Boot for tnr.com which can be found here.

The aspect of both Rumsfeld’s memoir and Boot’s review that is worth a deeper look is, to what degree of failure is attributable to the limits of human knowledge? Specifically, was bad intel the primary reason for poor decision making in the Bush administration? Boot harshly writes:

In other words, all this mock-philosophical reflection is really a not-so-subtle plea on behalf of Donald Rumsfeld. I did the best I could based on the information I had; don’t judge me too harshly. Rumsfeld would be more sympathetic if he were to come out and just throw himself on the public’s mercy. But contrition and humility are utterly alien to the cocksure former Navy fighter pilot who is forever poking his finger in someone’s chest, literally or metaphorically. By invoking the limitations of human knowledge, he is merely providing an alibi for his own failures, without quite coming out and saying so.

Obviously Rumsfeld’s arrogance and lack of grace doesn’t win him many sympathizers, yet, it is the folly of hindsight to condemn decisions made without the same perspective. That Rumsfeld uses the limits of knowledge as an alibi, as Boot suggests, to excuse past decisions does not mean that the alibi has no merit. It does not seem disingenuous, even in hindsight, for Rumsfeld to assert that a major concern of the administration and of President Bush was to prevent Saddam Hussein from disseminating WMDs to terrorists, especially when their intelligence backed up that concern. Nearly eight years after the invasion of Iraq it might be a productive exercise to imagine a counterfactual in which the U.S. did not invade Iraq. Regardless of what one concludes from that exercise, it would be unfair to not imagine a possibility of a much more dangerous world without the Iraq War decision. Obviously that doesn’t absolve the administration from the poor execution, diplomacy, public relations, and further poor decisions made with better intelligence.

Ultimately, Rumsfeld won’t be able to escape the fact that even with the best intentions with regards to decision making, the implementation was often severely flawed. Rather than take responsibility and explain what went wrong on his part or his department’s, Rumsfeld often casts blame at the foot of others – most notably the State Department and Condi Rice. This is where the memoir particularly stands out as a clean up job.

Donald Rumsfeld has had a remarkable career, even with his failures in his second reign as Secretary of Defense. The memoir is filled with interesting anecdotes and notable names. It serves as a first hand perspective from one of the most influential figures in U.S. policy in the last 50 years. Despite Rumsfeld’s mendacity, Known and Unknown: A Memoir is still an important volume in the canon of the Bush Presidency and an entertaining flight through U.S. contemporary history.

America’s relations with former nemesis Russia are as important as they have ever been, yet to many in the West the view of Russia is often clouded with misperceptions and a quick to demonize attitude. China’s rise, global terrorism, two wars in Central Asia, nuclear containment – these are all issues that the U.S. is dealing with and will need the cooperation of Russia to succeed going forward. However, it will be difficult to engage Russia without having a clearer idea of their history and interests. Daniel Treisman authors an extensive work on Russia from Gorbachev to Medvedev which tears down some prevailing beliefs of the West and illustrates the factors and personalities which led Russia to its present day status as a returning power.

Treisman uses an odd format for presenting his book, ignoring a conventional linear layout and instead uses the first four chapters to highlight each of the four Russian leaders since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The first four chapters briefly touch on the issues of 1990-2010 with the emphasis being more on the leader. He then returns to specific periods with more depth in the following chapters. At times this layout can be confusing and redundant, yet the first four chapters highlight what may be one of the most determinant factors in modern Russian history, the personalities and characters of the leaders.

The ninth chapter, “Falling Apart”, is where the book shines and is most compelling because it strictly relates the foreign policy between the U.S. and Russia. Treisman separates the chapter into the “View from Moscow” and the “View from Washington” giving each side a balanced perspective and reasoning for making the foreign policy choices it has.  Russia’s perspective, according to Treisman, is that:

• The U.S. failed to provide economic aid to Russia after the breakup of the Union equivalent of other nations. More damaging was the refusal to forgive the loans that Russia alone was burdened with from the Soviet Union. The West did little to aid Russia’s transformation into a democracy.
• NATO quickly expanded right up to Russian borders which was a clear betrayal of former promises. In addition to the betrayal it was seen as a threat and not as an action of a country that wanted to support the transition to democracy. Also, by expanding NATO so quickly into the Russian sphere it enhanced the chance of a war between the two powers. The issue with Georgia is along the same lines, with Russia upset at perceived American hypocrisy.
• The leaders of the U.S. were strangely condescending towards Russia, a nation that still remained a global power.

The US perspective, according to Treisman, is that:

• Economic Aid was not politically possible. Congress would not grant the aid, especially towards former Soviet soldier’s housing, when their own citizens and soldiers were living in subpar accommodations.
• Including Russia in NATO was an impossibility because Russia would never agree to play 2^nd fiddle to the Americans. Therefore, enlarging NATO to serve the U.S. interests was the rational and necessary choice.
• Russia appears to often act in defiance of the U.S. for no other reason than to be difficult. This difficulty works against Russia’s interests in the West by redefining their identity to many as a state unwilling to cooperate, or worse an enemy.

Going forward it’s in both nations interests to have a working relationship and according to Treisman, Obama is beginning to open doors that were shut during the Bush administration.

The Return: Russia’s Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev is an excellent narrative of modern day Russian history; in fact the chapter dedicated to the Chechen Wars is alone worth the price of the book. However, more than constructing a narrative, Treisman tries to shed some of the Western notions about Russia as an autocratic nation on par with the Arab states. He illustrates that when it comes to liberties, democracy, and economics, Russia is more similar to other emerging nations such as Brazil rather than Yemen as many would have you believe. Treisman’s writing style may be wanting for a little more color at times, but the depth and extensive material on Russia for the last twenty years is not at all lacking. Anybody interested in how Russia came to its present day status and its role in modern day global affairs would be well advised to check out The Return: Russia’s Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev.