Andy Weir is an immensely talented writer. His first science fiction novel, The Martian, was an outstanding read (and a pretty good movie, too). Project Hail Mary, his latest, is fascinating and an even more engaging work. Tucked in between and published in 2017 is Artemis, an adventure caper set on the moon. The book highlights Weir’s strengths as well as some his weaknesses.
The story is told in the first person. Our narrator is “Jazz” – a twenty something who lives on Artemis, the only city on the moon. She is an ethical smuggler, a great friend with edges, and a troubled protagonist. A complicated back story founds out the picture. Solicited into a crime much more serious than smuggling, with all manner of complications, Jazz works to resolve her personal problems through ingenuity, courage and a healthy does of science. The city is saved along the way. She is a very smart, well-rounded heroine.
The science in Artemis is extraordinarily interesting. Physics, chemistry, and advanced technologies are examined in great detail. Weir’s world building is outstanding. The book even comes with schematics. If you follow along closely, it’s possible to imagine and see much of the action. It may be science fiction, but the book is far from fanciful.
While the story is strong, if a little convoluted, the characters other than Jazz are thinly sketched. Internal dialogue, complexity of thought and nuance simply are not part of Weir’s focus. They are types, and in some cases, stereotypes. The characters serve in function of the plot. Weir gives more attention to the airlock mechanisms than emotions. Artemis lacks the staying power of Weir’s stronger books. The technology and science are simply what interests him here, along with intersecting plot lines. It is fun to get caught up in remembering high school chemistry to guess next steps.
Artemis is entertaining, a good read for a summer holiday, but not for extended consideration.
James Mann is a journalist and author. An expert on American foreign policy, he does his research thoroughly and writes with clarity. One of Mann’s strengths is that he knows how to build a narrative with direction and surety. Read his works and one comes away with a real sense of learning something.
Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet is Mann’s best-known book. Published in 2004, it straddles the boundary between journalism and history. It was a best-seller for good reasons. Mann tells the history of the six key figures in President Bush’s war cabinet: Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Powell, Deputy Secretary of State Armitage, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz, and National Security Advisor Rice. Collectively, these well-known leaders helped to guide Bush and America into the invasion of Iraq. Understanding the team, their backgrounds and values, goes far in explicating the Republican foreign policy establishment. That goal – explication of them and how they thought – is the goal of Mann’s book. It is not an examination of how and why the US made the decision to invade.
The book spans more than three decades. We learn of the figures’ childhoods, education, and their rise to influence. As one might expect, amid the diversity of backgrounds there were multiple alignments and affiliations. One of Mann’s skills is teasing out those connections, something akin to backwards looking analysis. The book makes clear how the right background, ambition, and ability to skillfully play the Washington “game” of power could situate one in a position of privilege. Mann’s study likewise illustrates how the wrong choice, the wrong move, or simply bad luck could derail or delay a career. For each of the six, success was neither instantaneous nor assured. Each took different paths to secure a spot in history.
Mann sees the Bush group as representing both Cold War and post-Cold War thinking. He rightly stresses the prevalence of military thinking to the group. They had outsize faith in military solutions, regardless of the source of the issue. Accordingly, the group consistently advanced a military-first mindset, shaping policy and American priorities. Their influence spanned decades and remains a vital strand of thinking. The nickname “Vulcan” was self-assigned. The group believed that they were forging a military machine that would protect and advance US interests. Interestingly, that outsize belief may have been one of the reasons that they were chosen to be in Bush’s cabinet. Criticized for his lack of foreign policy bono fides, Bush intentionally sought out cabinet members that would burnish his reputation.
The traits that all shared, that seem to have pervaded the Bush establishment, included confidence, optimism that America was in the right (if only be default), and that American knowledge, values and problem-solving would eventual prevail in any situation. Mann is very effective in demonstrating how their confidence emerged, was rewarded and reinforced. We know more today about the missteps, the assumptions, and the outright errors of the Bush team. Mann, writing at the time, was able to forecast the strengths and weaknesses that could lead to all manner of consequences, good and bad.
Entertaining, illuminating and disheartening. Rise of the Vulcans remains a relevant book. One of Mann’s strengths is his ability to know how to explain while remaining disciplined. He does not pretend to explain broad historical movements. Nor is this a study of causality. Rather, the book humanizes political leadership and group think, something we would be well-served to always keep in mind.
How the South organized and worked to become an industrial force is the focus of Katherine Rye Jewell’s Dollars for Dixie: Business and the Transformation of Conservatism in the Twentieth Century. An outgrowth of Jewell’s Boston University dissertation, this closely researched book is very interesting. Using the SSIC (Southern States Industrial Council) as a framework, Jewell traces evolving and shifting strategies on behalf of southern businesses. Politics and intentionality were critical factors in the transformation of the south’s economic profile.
Jewell, a professor of history at Fitchburg State University, begins the book by tracking the emergence of the SSIC in the shadow of the NRA. Neither fully on board nor opposed to the NRA, business rallied around the SSIC to position the south as a special market, different from the north and cities, committed to lower wages and high productivity. Textile firms made up the majority of the SSIC’s membership. Southern business leaders tended to portray themselves as civic leaders, committed to the health and well-being of their communities. It was very much business in the owner-proprietor mindset, not managerial capitalism. Furthermore, business leaders championed traditional regional values, which meant the perseverance of class, gender and race norms. Holding on to that status quo was central to the argument of maintaining southern “values” in a changing world.
The Wagner Act, accordingly, was viewed as a great threat by the SSIC. Organized labor could hardly be aligned with southern values. Voters democratic leanings in the New Deal made SSIC leadership’s commitment to conservatism clear. The response, for southern conservative Democrats has limited national power, was to advance the South as a bastion of free markets and free labor. This is part two of Dollars for Dixie.
The SSIC’s strategies included no minimum wage, linking agriculture to industry, and emphasizing southern exceptionalism. Defensive actions, all geared to preserve a class and race based economic system, kept the organization active through the end of the 1930s. During the war, decentralization of industry became a key focus. After the war, the South and the SSIC tried to position itself as a bulwark of democracy. Local control was the main message. The first political battle was against the FEPC (Fair Employment Practices Commission), which was castigated as meddlesome and intrusive. By the end of the 1940s, the SSIC’s brand of conservatism neither had a home in the national Democratic or Republican parties. Anticommunism was the path forward to garner influence and support, especially as the SSIC downplayed racial conflict. It was, after all, bad for business. The SSIC may have emphasized southern traditions, but in many ways it stressed the South’s alignment with national values. The book does not end with a hard date, but instead a soft landing in the widespread changes affecting the region in the latter half of the 1950s and 1960s. Big picture, as Jewell summarizes, the SSIC’s efforts did not stop federal interventions or competition from abroad, but did shape thinking and policy.
Dollars for Dixie teaches a great deal, from the study of business organizations to the interplay of local and national politics. It underscores the complexity of conservatism, which is best understood in context. The book further expands appreciation of the South, which was and remains far from monolithic. Jewell’s monograph also offers fascinating reminders, too, of the many arguments made over the years to keep wages low and power in place.
Manhattan ’45 is a history filled with love and nostalgia. Written in 1987 by Jan Morris, the book is an impressionistic look at New York City and the island just as World War II ended. Morris begins with the arrival of the SS Queen Mary in June of 1945, carrying nearly 15,000 servicemen and women. Morris ends with a backwards summary, stressing a deep and long-lasting affection for Gotham.
For those of us enamored of New York City, how can we not be attracted to this kind of history?
The end of the war brought tremendous optimism to the world and New York City. The horrors of WWII were ending and not yet fully processed, and to a certain degree a new age of internationalism was still a few years away. Morris paints the city in transition, shaking off an earlier mindset and beginning to think about embracing modernity – whatever that might mean. The chapters are structural, not chronological. On Style looks at manner, moralities, sights and sounds. On System describes government, leadership, the powerful and the structures of order. On Race takes in the key ethnic groups of the city: Blacks, Italians, Chinese and Jews. Celebrities, the wealthy and the less fortunate are recounted in On Class. On Movement describes the subways, busses, ferries and roads, and On Pleasure is about eating, dancing, music and performance. Last is On Purpose, which looks at business and economics.
Morris does outstanding work setting a mood through observation, anecdote and fact. Things that one might find in a history book are complemented with non-academic adjectives and tone. From trivia to important matters, the book is like a Circle Line tour of the island. Morris – whose history is worthy of a biography – wrote travel books as well as history. In Manhattan ’45 the reader is something akin to a time traveler, making sense of the center of the world at moment filled with romance and optimism.
Impressionistic and stylish, Manhattan ’45 intrigued me and made me want to wear a hat, dance at a nightclub, and enjoy the city. Thank you, Jan Morris, for a most unusual work.
The most translated novel in the world in Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. A short and attractive book, it is a deceptively accessible tale, almost a parable, of discovery. The Alchemist has the power to stick with you long after you close the cover. Told with tremendous clarity and conviction, it is a memorable read.
In the introduction to the 25th edition, published in 2024, Coelho writes that no one paid any attention when the book was first released in Brazil. He never lost faith in the book, despite slow sales and his publisher cancelling his contract. A US publisher picked it up a few years later and the book took hold. It reached critical popularity in the late 1990s and sales have continued across the globe. Coelho, who had a most traumatic life before deciding to become a writer, believes that when you want something, the whole universe conspires to help you. It helped him. That philosophy also figures prominently in the story.
Describing the book’s plot does not do it justice. It is the most basic of tales, a young boy with dreams who travels – a quest – and learns about the world and himself on the way. From Andalusia to Egypt, there are twists and turns, to be sure, but what gives the work special power is the sincerity and integrity woven throughout. While it may be in translation, there is nothing in the English language version of The Alchemist that did not ring with truth. Considering the title and overarching concept, that is no small feat.
My suggestion for this post? When you’re feeling down or a little lost, consider picking up The Alchemist. Reading it will not take much time. You will always discover or appreciate something new. And most importantly, you will be happier once you finish.
Journey, one of the most popular rock bands of all time, has been making music – and fans and money – for more than fifty years. Their songs have been heard by hundreds of millions of people and sung in karaoke bars by nearly as many. Who they are, and were, and how it happened is the subject of David Golland’s fascinating band biography Livin’ Just to Find Emotion: Journey and the Story of American Rock. Golland is a fan of the group, but this is no expanded fanzine. The book is a critical look at the history of a creative enterprise that has played an outsize role in popular entertainment.
Golland is an historian with several books under his belt. He knows research, theory and the importance of a critical lens, such as race, through which to make compelling historical arguments. In Livin’ Just to Find Emotion, he balances rigorous scholarship with genuine enthusiasm and appreciation for the music. He relies heavily on primary sources and has talked with scores of people in and around the band. Journey has a long and complicated history. Golland’s approach, as it turns out, is truly the best way to chronicle this complicated group.
Journey’s origins stretch back to the early 1970s in San Francisco. Talented musicians with connections to popular artists such as Santana and the Steve Miller Band were the initial members. Golland is good with the fluidity of the scene, explaining how musicians joined, left, rejoined and formed new bands, looking for synergy and success. Journey’s creation was mostly due to the vision of Herbie Herbert, a well-known manager who stayed with the band through the 1990s. Herbert was a savvy businessman, entrepreneur, image-maker and hustler.
Known for their take on progressive rock, Journey was not especially successful in their early years. Their record company pushed for changes. Different musicians auditioned and/or were slotted into particular roles. By the late 1970s, a new lead singer, Steve Perry, joined and took Journey to a new level. Another personnel change a few years later brought keyboardist and songwriter, Jonathan Cain. He meshed with the group’s strengths and wrote several of Journey’s most popular rock ballads. The result was several years of extraordinarily popular songs and albums. Journey’s success was, literally, off the charts. More personnel changes took place in the latter part of the 1980s, followed by a several year break, and then a reunion. The band has remained active and popular since the early 2000s, with ongoing personnel changes and several lawsuits. For many of those years, Journey toured relentlessly, building and pleasing a multi-generational fan base.
Gollands skillfully charts these changes, giving just enough detail to help us appreciate the pressures, expectations, personalities and aspirations of the musicians and surrounding teams. Happily, he does not get pulled into trivia or unnecessary details. Golland is particularly good on explaining the unusual business organizational structure that bound band members together. They established a partnership, with equal representation, and then reformulated the partnership as membership changed. Golland walks us through the consequences. He is equally informative when it comes to appreciated the grueling schedule Journey adopted. They worked very, very hard.
What is less secure, and remains a topic for music critics, is knowing exactly why Journey became so popular. Golland’s thesis is that the band’s creative appropriation of Black music, particularly through the vocals of Perry, is key. There is much merit to that argument, for it has held true for many other musicians. On the other hand, quite a few White musicians have attempted to appropriate Black music and have not been anywhere nearly as effective. Something else is at play and equally elusive is figuring out the heart of the band over the years. With changing membership, its music and emphasis shifted. That is not to say that Journey changed significantly. There is a core sound to much of their music. Furthermore, it remained a mostly collaborative enterprise. That does not easily fit with our more traditional approach to evaluating popular music, which tends to give credit to a single genius with a supporting cast. Journey was and is a team.
One consequence, at least for this reader and listener, is that while Journey has made some amazing music, it has also made quite a bit of less interesting and engaging music. Critics have labelled some of their songs as corporate rock. Golland’s book, unintentionally or not, provides some evidence in support of that criticism. Some of the choices made by Journey over the years may have been driven more by business concerns than creative direction. The band has not always challenged themselves, their fans, or pushed musical boundaries. However, central to the idea of popular music is giving people what they want. On the other hand, expectations for creative works often carry with them more than simply doing what is expected. Parts of the creative endeavor are about values that are not market driven. The challenge is between seeking creativity and popularity, which may or may not align.
Where does Journey fit on this continuum? Before reading Livin’, I had thought mostly about their innovation and good fortune. Now, thanks to Golland’s research, I give the band more credit for intentionality. Many musicians aim for commercial success. Journey paid the price, worked diligently, and made their way to stardom, hits, and popular culture. And if you’ll allow me to quote one of their hits, “they never stopped believing.”
Katrina Forrester‘s In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy is a book worthy of multiple readings. Nominally about John Rawls and the impact of his work, especially his 1971 classic, A Theory of Justice, Forrester’s book is ambitious and expansive. Forrester provides a solid and brief overview of Rawls’ life and key ideas. She follows that with an extensive, truly encyclopedic reading of political philosophers’ ideas and efforts in relation to and opposition from Rawls, really for the latter half of the twentieth century. The book is comprehensive, fair, and guided with an underlying sense of coherence that allows for reading – and understanding – a massive amount of philosophy in the context of Rawls and his thinking. In essence, In the Shadow of Justice is a course on political philosophy.
Rawls’ ideas emerged out of the horrors of WWI. The war was no abstraction for him; he served in the Pacific and saw battle. When he left the military to return to higher education, concerns about strengthening the liberal order were paramount to his priorities. Rawls worked on his ideas for decades, and as his thinking was published, he methodically responded to colleagues and critics. Through and through, Rawls was an academic who wrote, rewrote, and wrote more. His theory of justice, accordingly, shifted and expanded over time. Forrester’s tracking of this, her attention to the nuance of context, collaboration and contestation is outstanding. Reading In the Shadow is extremely educational. It is very strong intellectual history.
One key takeaway, beyond the massive material that awaits reading, rereading and consideration for this reader, is a question of who pays attention to political philosophy. Despite the widespread affirmation of much of the Rawlsean project, there seems to have been little impact on policy or politics on the part of political philosophers. Yes, there was alignment with legal studies, but when it comes to shaping political movements, parties or broad understanding of trends, there is little evidence. That is not Forrester’s primary question, but it hangs over the broader project. Why doesn’t it have greater relevance?
One reason might be that the scholars who did this work, through their their academic appointments, backgrounds or training, or some other factors, mostly avoided the public intellectual space. Liberal political philosophers seem to have engaged mostly with each other through a limited number of publications at a small number of elite institutions. They are not household names, even though there ideas undergird the liberal order. It is no small irony that broad scale liberalism, particularly when it affirmed global aspirations, is often distanced from the give and take of politics.
Forrester explores this. While her book is roughly chronological, her periodization frames debates, be it conservation and the fear of the future or the impact of the Vietnam War and what it meant to be a conscientious objector. Rawls’ justice expanded and shifted focus, accordingly, to address these and other issues. Did it lose its essence? Forrester returns to this issue several times, exploring where and how its alterations exacerbated internal tensions. Many of those tensions are with us today as many have come to question the backbone of the liberal political philosophical consensus.
I plan to return to In the Shadow. First, though, much homework awaits. There is much to read and consider. One critical question: when, where, who and why certain political philosophers have been able to move beyond academia and influence larger discussions.
History, thankfully, is never finished. While the contours and highlights of a period might be readily agreed upon, questions of causality and correlation can remain contentious. Sorting out why something happened is often extremely difficult. A well-crafted argument, from a different viewpoint, will inevitably foster new thinking and raise new queries.
Australian historian Marilyn Lake has done just that in an outstanding work, Progressive New World: How Settler Colonialism and Transpacific Exchange Shaped American Reform. Lake is a professor of history at the University of Melbourne and an indefatigable researcher, spending years in America on this book. Starting from a less considered perspective – how did Australian reformers interact and influence American thought leaders in the Progressive Era – Lake paints a fascinating picture of mutual admiration through decades of robust exchange. The book, though, is about much more than a back and forth of people and ideas. Lake fashions a strong claim for the centrality of Whiteness as an organizing principle of multiple strains of “reform.”
The book opens with a prehistory of progressivism, grounded in elite responses to the major economic and social transformations in Australia and the United States. The intersections are fascinating and telling. In the 1870s Charles Pearson, an English historian of the Middle Ages who had a farm in South Australia, wrote National Life and Character: A Forecast, spelling out how White colonialism could effectively reshape the nation. Pearson was friends with Harvard historian Charles Eliot Norton, whose cousin, Francis Parkman, wrote extensively about the American frontier. Harvard-educated Theodore Roosevelt, before he became president, was an active writer who favorably reviewed Pearson’s book, locating it within the larger context of settler colonial advancement. Lake shows how these thinkers and leaders aligned progress with White democracy, White manhood, and self-government through a particular strain of state action. Indigenous peoples, the argument ran, lacked the character and self-discipline necessary for democracy and self-determination. These claims would play out over the decades in the American west, Hawaii, the Philippines, Cuba – literally all over the world. Elite institutions and networking, as Lake meticulously documents, facilitated the mutual group-think and collective action.
The allure of the frontier, hardy White men taming the elements and creating new social structures, appealed immensely to many of these thinkers. There were many of elites who embraced the conceit, too, as Lake’s list of elite thinkers who wrote to each other, visited each other, and supported each other is extensive. Part of the book are what akin to a late 1800s Who’s Who, with Harvard connections at the core. As they traveled the United States and Australia, these reformers wrote extensively, building a case for a new kind of political leadership, a form of sate socialism that would expand democracy and preserve community. Australian political leader Alfred Deakin, for example, traveled extensively through the US and was friends with many, including Harvard philosopher Josiah Royce. Among Deakin’s political accomplishments was an Aborigines Protection Act and a Water Supply and Irrigation Act, both of which supported White settler colonialism. This sort of state involvement and action was central to conceptions of a muscular progressive government (as well as the focus on many progressive scholars and thinkers). Deakin would later serve as Australia’s prime minister, effecting a legacy that structured Australia through the early part of the twentieth century.
Lake gives close attention to the Australian Ballot, or “secret ballot,” a reform that swept through the United States. Massachusetts was the first to adopt it in 1888 and with in a decade it was the norm in American elections. In years prior, political parties gave voters a printed ballot and voting was a public exercise. Through the Australian reform, the state printed ballots and voting was done in secret. It was very well received and scholars have shown how it reduced turnout of immigrants. The reform, in other words, was not about expanding the franchise and democracy. Lake highlights how an Australian reformer, Catherine Helen Spence, gave more than a hundred talks in her travels across the United States in 1893, advancing multiple reforms and the Australian ballot. Importantly, Spence’s push for proportional representation was not favorably received.
Many key leaders in the United States met with or became connected to Spence. Women reformers increasingly were able to take important roles in the US and Australia, especially when it came to issues around suffrage. In Australia, women won the right to vote and stand for election in 1902. Lake does not go deep into the history of the fight for women’s suffrage in the US. Rather, she explores how issues of women’s rights were framed by international exchange. One of the first women to stand for parliament, Vida Goldstein, figures prominently in this narrative – as well as her time in the United States and her visit with President Roosevelt.
Progressive New World investigates other progressive themes, including child reform, labor policies and social works. Lake calls out, in detail, the complaints voiced by indigenous peoples on both sides of the Pacific regarding state-sponsored paternalism. This proved especially true in issues of education.
Lake’s rigorous scholarship gives the narrative a close-to-the-source veracity. Surprisingly missing is a high-level summary that pulls these threads together. The pieces are all present. Moreover, the very terms employed through out beg for interrogation. What does it mean to be a settler? In an urban environment, such as Chicago, or the Australian frontier, settlement houses and white settlers seemed to employ similar language and tools. How did that identity, and the values it presented, affect future generations understanding of the role of government and political leadership?
I am profoundly impressed by the Marilyn Lakes work. Furthermore, I am especially keen on seeing how a new generation of thinkers respond to her book and deepen a new understanding of progressivism.
Outstanding historical research is near – and the findings can be quite enlightening.
The Ku Klux Klan was formed in the years after the Civil War as a paramilitary terrorist organization, committed to assuring white rule in the defeated states of the Confederacy. The KKK spread violence, fear and death, murdering thousands, until the US federal government stepped in and through military, police and judicial action, suppressed it. The KKK returned in a new format in the 1910s, growing in size and influence. The early twentieth century Klan grew through mass marketing techniques, along with white robes and communal events – cross burning and lynching. Membership was possibly as high as 8 million by the middle of the 1920s. Numbers, though, dropped precipitously by the end of the decade. Ever since the KKK has existed as a fringe organization, focused on white nationalism.
The Ku Klux Klan’s Campaign Against Hispanics, 1921-1925, a thorough work of history, was written by Juan O. Sanchez in 2018. The book is the result of several decades of rigorous research by Sanchez, who tracked down and collected numerous primary and secondary source documents from the period. He focused on Spanish language publications, but as he learned more about the period, Sanchez’s reach extended. The book is a testament to dogged investigation and systematic study. It aims to document facts, not make arguments, and it does so extremely effectively.
Between a strong introductory overview and a clear summary, Sanchez’s chapters look at Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, and California. The Klan had a stronghold in Texas with more than 300 local organizations in the state. 1922 marked the KKK’s greatest electoral successes. The Klan was virulently anti-Mexican and it was only in the cities with large numbers of Mexican American was there organized anti-KKK resistance. The Mexican government was also an influence in protecting Hispanic Americans’ rights. Sanchez’s research highlights the many ways that the Spanish-speaking local press advanced pro-American anti-Klan arguments, as well as the rhetoric of KKK publications and editorials. The story was similar in other states, though the influence of the KKK was strongest in Texas. Sanchez shows how local conditions and opportunities framed local discussion, debate and action across the Southwest.
Big picture, The KKK’s Campaign Against Hispanics highlights the broad acceptance by many White Americans that Mexican Americans were dangerous criminals, robbing native born Americans of jobs, opportunities and wealth. The KKK repeatedly castigated Mexican Americans as a “mongrel race” with tendencies towards drunkenness, laziness, and criminality. Speaking Spanish was called un-American. Importantly, Sanchez’s sources underscore the KKK’s deep antipathy towards Catholicism. Religion and race were used complementarily by the Klan, which had deep ties to local Protestant churches and leadership. Mexican-Americans, they insisted, were not “real” Americans. God’s national order, the Klan affirmed, had Protestant white Americans at the top. Moreover, as Sanchez’s work documents, the KKK was as anti-Hispanic as it was anti-Black.
The KKK’s rise in the first half of the 1920s reflected long-standing trends in American society and politics. During this period controls over unions increased, immigration was great constricted, and a wide range of non-white groups were targeted. Happily, by the latter half of the decade more inclusive voices prevailed in the Southwest, thanks in great part to the organized resistance led by Spanish-language newspapers. Juan Sanchez’s scholarship ably documents a history of racism, intolerance, and resistance. It is history well worth studying and considering.
What makes a person, if not their values? A hundred plus years ago, someone who had commitment, courage and character was said to have sand. That meant they were a person of substance, someone you could trust. A person with sand would do what they promised, no matter the consequences. One earns sand, through conflict and hard work over time. Sand is a most worthy encomium. The late congressman John Lewis was a man of sand.
The historian and professor David Greenberg recently turned his practiced eye to Lewis. The resulting biography, John Lewis: A Life, bears much in common with its subject. It is a methodical, consistent and powerful study. There is nothing flashy about John Lewis or the book. It tells the history of a most compelling man who truly made a difference through diligence, courage, and a commitment to living his values. It is exactly the kind of history that stands in opposition to opportunism. Greenberg knows how to research and how to write history effectively, keeping the story moving and giving just enough detail to make you think that you might really know the subject.
The contours of Lewis’s life are well-known. He lived it, after all, in the public eye for decades. He was dedicated to public service. Born into a poor family and large family in Alabama, Lewis was an inveterate reader as a child. Small, shy and studious, Lewis went away to college just as the Civil Rights movement was starting to push for integrated higher education. Lewis wrote to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to seek his help gaining admission to Troy University, which was segregated at the time. Lewis decided to attend an HBCU instead, but he made a mark on King and others in the movement. As a college student in Nashville, Lewis studied theology and became very active in civil rights. Totally committed to the nonviolence of Gandhi and others, Lewis stood out for his discipline. He was a leader through his intensity, lack of ego, and drive. Lewis was a man of great courage: physical, moral and interpersonal.
By 1961 Lewis was one of the original Freedom Riders. He became chair of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) in 1963. As Greenberg details, Lewis was everywhere in the movement, helping others, preaching and practicing nonviolence. He was always more interested in doing the work and effecting change, not being in the spotlight. Greenberg details the horrific hatred that Lewis and so many others in the movement encountered. People were murdered, beaten, threatened with regularity. The racism of the South in the 1950s and 1960s did not change without thousands putting their bodies and lives on the line. Lewis did so regularly and he practiced what he preached, perhaps most famously in the marches at Selma. The book is a chilling reminder of the danger and difficulty of pursuing civil rights.
Greenberg’s history is balanced and comprehensive. While Lewis did so much before the age of 24, the biography gives equal attention to the other roles he placed, including advocating for voting rights and serving on the Atlantic City Council, where he fought a major highway development. Lewis entered Congress in the 1980s and he served until 1980, where he had an outsize influence in a wide range of issues. In many ways, Lewis became a moral figure in Congress, more than a politician. Several of the racist leaders who attacked Lewis reached out to him, seeking forgiveness and understanding. Lewis follow up, again and again. He was that good a person. He understood, too, that he represented something bigger than himself.
The research supporting the book is extensive. Greenberg truly did his homework, giving anecdotes and first person accounts that give the work texture and character. Lewis had edges and an ego, as he cheerfully would admit. But he also found ways, repeatedly, to push himself and others. He wrote, lobbied, and led, truly having an extraordinarily full and meaningful life. He truly was an American hero.
One of my favorite quotes is from John Lewis, something he said repeatedly throughout his life: sometimes we have to make good trouble. Lewis’s “good trouble” was the kind of activism that makes for better people, better communities and a better nation. Reading about John Lewis is inspirational. Pick up this book and you may want to engage in a bit of “good trouble.” It did for me.
