It Was Special! I Was There!

We are hard wired, the experts say, to prefer the music of our teens – regardless of its quality. My bias, accordingly, is for the late 1970s and early 1980s. But not all music from the period. I like new wave, ska, hip hop and rap, rock and dance music – the things that you might find in on an alternative radio station. It seemed to me at that time – and it does now – that it was an unusually vibrant period of musical experimentation. There was just a going on, especially if you stayed away from the “I hate disco” vs. “Rock” debates. Boundaries were blurred and labels did not matter. While I do not think of myself as especially nostalgic, I still believe it to be very exciting period for music and culture.

My assessment is not unique. While more than a few have agreed with me it the years, it was particularly gratifying to read Tim Lawrence’s Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980 – 1983 as scholarly confirmation. It was a special time and Lawrence does outstanding work tracking the hundreds of artists, the scores of nightclubs, and the rebirth of Gotham as a creative force in nightlife. This is a time of inexpensive real estate, shifting tastes, resistance to President Reagan, and a rejection of high status disco (Studio 54). What transpired – in a period before AIDS, before high rents, a raised drinking age and ATMs east of lower Broadway in Manhattan – was a flourishing of music and dance.

Tim Lawrence has written three books about music and dance. He’s a DJ, podcaster, producer, party-thrower, and professor of Cultural Studies at the University of East London. Not only does he know the music, he appreciates and values the music and the scene around it. Lawrence not a critic, keen on squeezing the life out of track or artist to make a point about theory. One of the lovely features of Life and Death on the Dance Floor are the song recommendations/references from key djs at their clubs. Many of them were deep in the crate of vinyl, too. This was, after all, before CDs. Lawrence clearly spent hundreds of hours interviewing to make the book possible.

The Mudd Club anchors the start of the book, as Lawrence’s prose is organized chronologically and roughly by nightclub. He tends to give more attention to disc jockeys than to musicians and groups, which makes for an unusual focus. It fits, though, with his overarching message of blurring and dynamism. The true superstar DJs would surprise crowds, creating memorable soundscapes. Lawrence is also good on the crossover between music and other arts. Warhol and Basquiat, for example, were often in the clubs. The story is very Manhattan-centric.

There’s a journalistic feel to the book. Chapters are brief and the structure is who, what, where, when and why. Record companies, real estate and politics are present but not fully accounted for; they lurk, appearing in some acts but not others. Missing from the work is a sustained long argument. Lawrence advances shorter arguments, and explores conflicts and resolutions, but there is no big cultural studies claim about the New York club scene in the first years of the Reagan presidency. Not that one could not mount such an argument . . . .

Lawrence’s approach is appropriate for the scope of the book, for the scene could only flower for a short period. Rising rents, changes in local laws, economic development and AIDS had a tremendous impact. It took place in a time of transition. People still went out to dance in the mid-80s, as they do today, but so many things changed.

As for the music, artists include Afrika Bambaataa, Art of Noise, Beastie Boys, B-52s (who were quite the presence in lower Manhattan), Black Uhuru, Blancmange, Blondie, Kurtis Blow, David Bowie, Bow Wow Wow, Laura Branigan, Bush Tetras, The Clash, The Contortions, Cristina, Culture Club, Devo, D Train, Ian Dury, Brian Eno, Marvin Gay, Grandmaster Flash (with and without the Furious Five), Eddy Grant, Gwen Guthrie, Herbie Hancock, Billie Idol, Rick James, James White and the Blacks, Grace Jones, Kid Creole and Coconuts, Kraftwerk, Cyndi Lauper, Liquid Liquid, Lydia Lunch, Madonna, Malcolm McLaren, Medium Medium, New Order, Klaus Nomi, Yoko Ono, Richard Hell and Voidoids, Run-D.M.C., The Smiths, Spandau Ballet, Sugarhill Gang, Talking Heads, Thompson Twins, Tom Tom Club, Was (Not Was), Jaw Wobble, and Yaz/Yazoo. There are others as well.

Life and Death on the Dance Floor is an excellent book for those looking to learn more about a particular scene in a particular period in New York City. If you knew nothing or very little, I cannot imagine a better guide. I wonder, though, about what those who were on the dance floor would think of the book. I was. Growing up in northern New Jersey, my first New York City club experience was in the late 1970s. By the early 1980s, every chance I could get I was in lower Manhattan, looking for bands and music and opportunities to dance. The talent, the diversity, the possibilities were extraordinary, inexpensive, and in constant flux. Most of all, it was great fun.

David Potash

October 27, 2025 Things someone who grew up in NJ might write No Comments on It Was Special! I Was There!

Alligator Pears Never Had a Chance

One of the best bowls of guacamole I ever ate was prepared in Texas by a fifth generation German whose family settled in the hills country around Austin in the mid-1800s. He told me that his family had loved Mexican food forever, explaining that Texas culture was a wonderful mash-up of different heritages. It was a tasty reminder of how much of what we consume and enjoy has a fascinating history.

Towards that end, if you only read one book about avocados, please reach for Green Gold: The Avacado’s Remarkable Journey from Humble Superfood to Taste of a Nation. Sound silly, I know – but hear me out: the story of avocados is extraordinarily interesting, surprisingly complicated and it comes with lessons, too. Written by Sarah Allaback, an architectural historian and Monique F. Parsons, a journalist and avocado farmer, Green Gold mixes agriculture, botany, business, economics, global exploration, history; international trade, personalities and recipes most effectively. The authors, who have been friends since childhood, seem to have had fun researching and writing the book. A genuine enthusiasm for the subject is threaded throughout.

Avocados are the fruit from an evergreen tree that grows in warmer climes. Known as the “alligator pear” in the English-speaking world until the early 1900s, the aguacate (in Spanish) was a key component in the diets of Central and South American people for centuries. It was “discovered” as a potential crop for white Americans in the late 1800s. A fascinating cast of characters grew, modified, and promoted avocados. Foremost among them and a hero to the authors was Wilson Popenoe, a USDA employee and inveterate avocado champion. Through his work and others, strains of avocados were developed, promoted and organized through a growing group of associations and partnerships. There were genuine avocado influencers and scientists across the globe.

Avocados are a complicated plant and it took many efforts (and quite a bit of science) for growers and agricultural scientists to develop strains that withstood cold weather (a problem for US growers), remain shelf-stable (an issue for wider distribution), and would yield consistently tasty fruits (an issue to everyone who likes eating them). Expanding the use and popularity of avocados was also about education, experimentation, and widening palates. The American food market needed to learn what to do with the fruit. It took decades up decades of marketing and outreach to get the public even to accept and use the term avocado. Many generations thought of it as an alligator pear. Add to that the distrust of “foreign” foods, something that has been an ongoing concern for centuries, and the challenges facing avocado growers in Florida and California are formidable. Avocados were not an overnight success. Expansion was slow through much of the twentieth century.

It was not all marketing campaigns and publicity. Allaback and Parsons’ work demonstrates that great generosity and collaboration shaped the avocado industry. Central American growers shared cuttings from their trees. People traded information and assistance, helping to advance the fruit’s popularity. Celebratory meals and mutual gratitude stand out as highlights in the book. The popularity of avocados was a collaborative effort.

A significant portion of Green Gold looks at the latter part of the 1800s and early 1900s, a dynamic period in terms of international agricultural exploration and promotion. The world became smaller and better known. However, in 1914, as relations between the US and Mexico worsened, a seed weevil threat became the basis for an American ban of Mexican avocados. Bans had happened before, but this ruling hardened into decades of exclusion. Mexican growers had to find alternative markets and the US avocado industry profited. The ubiquitous Haas avocado was developed and promoted. It is a type that does well in American climes. The book tells the story of the Haas family and their tree whose cutting changed growing patterns and expectations. Individual trees, in fact, are very important to the development of particular avocado strains.

The United States lifted the ban of Mexican avocados in 1997. Mexico, unsurprisingly during the latter half of the 1900s, had been supporting a growing avocado industry. The change upended the avocado market. From the early part of the twenty-first century, the popularity of avocados exploded. It is now a $20+ billion dollar market in the US and the world has a taste for avocado toast and guacamole. The US is a major importer and the domestic avocado industry has peaked. Avocados are grown around the world, in Central and South America, Asia, Africa and Australia.

Consider reading Green Gold. It will change how you look at the produce section in the grocery store, and give you a little frisson of knowing when you enjoy guacamole or an avocado toast.

David Potash

October 5, 2025 Curiouser and Curiouser

Coke Does What To Life?

Murry Carpenter is a prolific science journalist. His latest effort, Sweet and Deadly: How Coca-Cola Spreads Disinformation and Makes Us Sick, is a comprehensive indictment of the soda company and its dangerous effectiveness in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. In a period where public health has tackled all manner of problematic substances, Coke has made scads of money and successfully avoided regulation. It is everywhere. Coke, Carpenter explains, is a harmful product that has remained on shelves and in our homes around the world through extraordinarily effective marketing, lobbying, strategizing and deceit.

Published by MIT, Sweet and Deadly is not a scholarly monograph. It is rigorously researched, but the format is very journalistic: short chapters, lots of facts and punchy prose. It is great with factoids and weaker on the larger argument of how soda fits within national debates about health and safety.

How do we talk about public health? The familiar arc, as Carpenter opens the book, is that when a product or issue is criticized, the critics are initially dismissed as cranks. Science, over time and through research, proves that there is merit to the criticism. The industry fights back. In most cases public opinion eventually turns, legislation is passed, and the problem is addressed. That is the history for tobacco, certain drugs and many other things that have been proven to be public health dangers. It is not the case for soda, even though there is overwhelming evidence that drinking soda has awful consequences. It leads to obesity, diabetes, and a host of medical issues. It is a major factor in the poor health of people in the US and around the globe.

The soda industry, led by Coke, has been remarkably successful in fighting back regulation and undermining science through pseudoscience and misdirection. This is the heart of Carpenter’s book. He moves quickly through Coke’s history. It is the big player in the soda industry and has been for over a century. Accompanying Coke’s popularity and pervasiveness has been a rising tide of health concerns. All of these are well-researched and Carpenter is very familiar with the studies. The book makes the dangers of soda drinking crystal clear.

What gives this book special focus is not the science or the studies. Instead, it is how government, business and public officials understand, shape and act on science. Sweet and Deadly documents how how science can be distorted, complicated, and redirected. Carpenter goes deep in explaining the many groups that do soda-friendly research, the campaigns that shift the burden of obesity to lifestyle changes (just exercise more!), and the lawsuits that have surrounding the soda industry for decades. It is a primer on how very smart and capable people framed public health issues so that they, and their companies, could continue to operate and turn a profit. The book shows how money can redirect studies, how policy and public opinion can be manipulated, and how difficult in can be to make nuanced arguments to effect change. It calls into question our understanding of expertise and authority.

Reading Sweet and Deadly will make it harder for you to want to drink soda, to see a Coke advertisement without considering the health consequences, and to question, without questioning, the health recommendations of “experts.” All told, some very good outcomes. For me, it made me quite happy with a glass of water.

David Potash

September 28, 2025 American Culture Today

Who Decides & Who Is to Blame? Unaccountability Sinks and Modern Life

Making sense of what works and what doesn’t, at the big picture, at the macro level, is an extraordinarily difficult task today. Decades past we might have looked to wise elders, economics, history, or some combination of traditional academic disciplines to ask the right questions about the large systems that organize and structure our lives. We had “isms” that could guide us and help us understand. But what of recent times? Why are so many people frustrated? How is it that so many complain about feeling disempowered with their jobs, with their government, and their rights as citizens? Or as consumer? If think that people matter, why are so many feeling disempowered? Where are we headed and what is driving us there?

Dan Davies, an author and former economist, has been mulling over these and related questions for many years. He is an extremely innovative thinker, akin to a business entrepreneur, analyst and anthropologist. Davies writes across disciplines, and he is very much attuned to changes being wrought by technology. In his 2024 book The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions – and How the World Lost Its Mind, he struggles to explain something elusive that is nevertheless sensed by many. The title encapsulates the difficult task Davies has set for himself.

The book weaves together several related, yet distinct threads. Davies is most effective and successful when he looks at the ways that society, over the past fifty years or so, has steadily industrialized decision making. Big decisions, he emphasizes, are increasingly now made by systems and policies, not by groups of people responding to special circumstances. As the amount and flow of information surges, we build models so that we are not confused and overwhelmed. This, he stresses, is a normal and sensible reaction.

For example, if you are running a business, it is important to have systems and processes to figure out how pay employees, how to track expenses, how to deal with various issues. As the size of your business grows, the complexity of your systems and processes grows – often exponentially. Add tech to the mixture and it can become even more complex.

Our growing reliance – and distrust – of systems is a simple and extremely powerful observation by Davies. While it might be difficult to prove – there is no way to measure such a claim – it nevertheless resonates when we consider businesses, the economy, and so very much else. To be sure, a powerful individual or situation might break a system or render it ineffective. That power, though, merely redirects and reshapes new models and systems. It is difficult to imagine a major factor in contemporary life that does not involve large systems, governed by policies, and almost all without any real accountability.

What decisions are Davies talking about? The examples, once considered, are all around us. Did the airline cancel your flight? You speak with a representative who cannot refund your fees because it is airlinepolicy. It does not even make sense to be angry at the employee. Wonder what happened in the latest financial crisis? Untold amounts of money may have been lost, but no one was responsible. The bankers remain employed, as do the brokers, economists and wealth managers. Read about a particularly stupid decision by a government agency? The spokesperson will issue a statement citing law, policy or process – but no one ever “owns” the decision. As a memorable illustration, Davies explains how squirrels lacking proper paperwork, shipped via airlines through Amsterdam, were were eventually all killed. Policy did them in, along with an industrial chopper. It is an ugly story, pulling together rules for airlines, for the airport, for international travel, and for animals. Once Davies provides the details, it is easy to see how simple solutions to solve straightforward problems can prove to be extraordinarily difficult, leaving truly disastrous consequences.

To explain at least some of the factors that led us to this uncomfortable place, Davies looks to the history of Stafford Beer, the father of cybernetics. Beer, a business professor and consultant, was an extremely influential player in the development of many modern corporations. He advanced systems thinking, the integration of technology, advanced the power of teams, a developed what was later labeled operations research. Beer’s work paved the way for conceptualizations of organizations and their functions. Moreover, it can provide insight into the ways that different stakeholders obtain and use information for different means. Information management can be even more consequential than we realize.

Davies walks us through leveraged buy outs to illustrate the phenomenon. He is very familiar with Wall Street and the power, for good and bad, of capital. An LBO features a small amount of up front money, joined with lots of debt, to takeover a business. The business’s assets are then used for more debt and/or stripped, undermining the company’s viability. Those doing the LBO, though, face little to no risk. As “good” LBO targets are snapped up, the markets increasingly took to buy outs of poor businesses or poor targets. The financial system knows that such moves were destructive in the past and most likely will be in the future – to businesses, communities, and our collective future. But the system and processes made stepping away irrational. The very structure and incentives of our large financial systems can cause tremendous damage.

It is thinking along these lines that make The Unaccountability Machine such a compelling book. Davies is on to something deep in modern life. He has unearthed an information/system ontology that, unchecked and unexamined, is leading to tremendous inefficiencies and unhappiness. He also offers a unique perspective from which to look at, analyze, and consider these larger issues. Yet before reading this book, I had neither the observation, language or arguments to even think about what it is or what to call it. This book makes for a very interesting read.

David Potash

September 25, 2025 American Culture Today, Reviews

Horrific Press, Great Outcomes and Fascinating History: The Mongols

Few figures in history have been more feared than Genghis Khan. While there have been more than a few truly horrific political leaders able to act on global ambitions, Genghis Khan stands out as an exceptional empire builder. During his sixty-one years (1162 – 1227), he conquered created what many consider the largest state ever, covering much of Asia, from China to parts of Europe. Hundreds of millions were affected by him and tens of millions lots their lives. But what do we know of Genghis Khan as a person? Jack Weatherford, an anthropology professor and author, penned an accessible best-selling biography that has remained in print – and popular – for more than two decades. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World reads like a novel and sheds a great deal of light on this extraordinarily fascinating – and understandably polarizing – figure.

Weatherford’s aim is to explain, to contextualize, and to appreciate the impact of Khan and his empire. Questions of morality are view through an anthropological lens. Weatherford’s goal is not to judge, but to document and explicate. With that as a grounding, the book provides a extremely interesting history of a compelling man. Khan, through ruthless intelligence, was able to build power within Mongolian culture and then across a continent. He was rigorously meritocratic, restless to a fault, and innovated in how he treated and organized peoples. From military structure to rights for women to how conquered lands were treated, Khan established a kind of rough “fairness” for those under his control. His approach benefited him, naturally, and distinguished the Mongolian army and empire from all others. He sought great power without any sustained interest in cultural conversion. If one agreed to submit to the power of Genghis Khan and his taxes and wants, life could be good. Resist his empire and death was more than likely.

Without any real practice of agriculture or the making of goods, the Mongol economy depended upon taxes and plunder. Accordingly, outcomes mattered more than anything else to sustain Mongolian rule. What mattered and did not to Khan and his people is very interesting. The Mongols greatly valued Mongol life. There were no sacrifices of troops. They had little interest in torture or excessive cruelty, in contrast to many leaders of the period. The Mongols had no sense of honor and were not keen on proselytizing. The unusual admixture of traits and preferences gave the Mongols great advantages in their drive to expand. They used terror and general fear to achieve their aims. Genghis Khan, who appreciated the value of scribes, laws and structure, took advantage of all and more. They welcomed the terrible press, for it made sieges all the easier.

Weatherford’s book moves quickly. He knows how to dwell on an anecdote and when to pull back to explain broader themes. The big picture does not suffer, for he shows how the Mongolian empire had an incredible impact on world trade and commerce. Were it fiction, it would stand on its own as an incredible story. All in all, Genghis Khan is a fascinating window into an ancient and little understood world.

David Potash

August 24, 2025 Reviews

Magic of Mules

Rinker Buck is a character, a raconteur, a man you cannot help but admire. Author, former journalist and inveterate adventurer, he has made improbably journeys a hallmark of his life.

As a teenager, Rinker and one of his brothers flew a rebuilt Piper aircraft across the country. That became Flight of Passage, an award-winning book. In 2022, he wrote Life on the Mississippi, an account of his time on a home-built flatboat on the river. Between the two, in 2015, Buck penned The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey. It is a wild tale of Buck’s trip in a covered wagon from Missouri to Oregon. Rinker, by the way, came from a large family, and a different brother joined him on this adventure.

The book is a travel memoir, a personal history, a space for observation and reflection, and a training guide for those who might take DIY all too seriously. Rinker’s reason for the trip were complicated. He was reshaping a career, redirecting his life after a painful divorce, and working to come to grips with his childhood. His father, a charismatic, successful, and self-destructive man, took his children on a much shorter wagon journey through Bucks County, PA. The time in the wagon resonated with Rinker and in some ways, the entire adventure was an attempt to give himself clarity about his family and himself.

As one might imagine, the trek across the west was a tremendous adventure. No one had attempted such a feat in many decades. Complicating the effort, the history of the Oregon trail was hazy. There was no one route. People came, went, came back again over decades until train travel took over continental America. The Buck brothers met extraordinary people and made many, many friends. They had problems, disasters, mistakes and much to learn across the thousands of miles. Parts of Oregon Trail are truly funny, especially if you appreciate the challenges with trying to do something on your own. The Buck brothers also found moments of true transcendence.

The true heroes of the adventure, though, at least to me, are the three mules that made it all a reality. Rinker gives us a good history of mules, the vital role they played in American and world history, and the difficulties of finding and managing a reliable team. Mules, the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, are not so much stubborn as sensible. They are indefatigable and surprisingly interesting. Buck’s journey is wholly dependent upon the hard work of Beck, Bute and Jake. Each had their strengths and weaknesses, their personalities. Averaging twenty plus miles a day, the trio towed the Becks, their wagon, their pup wagon (worthy of its own history), over two thousand miles. Think about that!

My other takeaway from the Oregon Trail was overwhelming admiration for the courage and drive of the tens of thousands of Americans who sought a better life out West. What they endured – willingly – in pursuit of that dream is beyond impressive. It reflects something fundamental of the American story. For that and more, I am most grateful to Rinker Buck.

David Potash

August 6, 2025 Reviews

Rethinking Attica and the Carceral Imperative

The 1971 Attica prison riot lives in collective culture as a violent event during a period of historical civil unrest. It is a call out in history text books and a reference in studies of America’s criminal justice system. Details of what actually happened, though, are far from well known. As the years add up, fewer are aware of what transpired and why. Pay attention, look more closely, and understanding Attica explains a great deal about America, its political history, and the power of government to shape a narrative.

To make sense of Attica, historian Heather Ann Thompson devoted more than a decade to research, filing numerous Freedom of Information Requests and challenging New York State and other government entities for records. With perseverance and luck (her words), she found all manner of material. With great skill and insight, she wrote the uprising’s definitive history: Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy. It is truly an outstanding work, well worthy of its many accolades and awards.

The Attica State Correctional Facility is located in Erie County, New York, not far from Buffalo. In 1971, as today, many of its inmates are people of color from the New York City area. Erie County is primarily White. Thompson sketches this out effectively, along with the rebellions of prisoners across the country in the period. Conditions in many prisons were deplorable, with inmates housed in outdated facilities designed for far fewer people. Prisoners sought changes that might bring them basic decencies. Their requests were often met with retribution, violence and disdain. The problem was nationwide and linked by many to broader questions of civil rights and justice.

Thompson addresses the budding tensions fairly, as one might analyze a labor conflict. She explains, expands, and teases out the nuance that is woven into change, resistance, and negotiation and/or resolution. We meet prison officials, prisoners, and numerous figures involved in the criminal justice system in New York State. The riot, or takeover of part of the prison, happens almost accidentally. There was initial violence, with a guard severely beaten (he later dies of his wounds), a prisoner murdered, rape and other terrible trauma. Surprisingly quickly, however, leadership among the inmates took hold. The inmates organized and began to think about their situation and requests. Their prisoners – guards – were protected. In a fluid situation, leadership among the prisoners sought stability and some relief. The inmates negotiated, seeking protections and greater opportunities, such as competent medical care. Elected and civil officials from around the country made their way to Attica. It was a major news story and a flashpoint for race, law and order.

NYS Governor Nelson Rockefeller, ambitious for the presidency and publicly supported by President Richard Nixon, decided to end negotiations. He ordered NYS police and others retake the prison by force. Hundreds of criminal justice professionals, armed to the teeth, stormed the prison and began shooting everywhere. They killed 39 people, hostages and prisoners, and wounded hundreds more. The prisoners were not armed. It was a naked display of power.

Government officials lied and/misled about the nature of the attacks, the violence, and what was transpiring in the prison. Worse still, as the prison fell under official control, wounded inmates were beaten, tortured and denied medical care. Thompson provides chilling details of the violence, which was truly terrible. It was also not initially reported to the public. Much of what happened took many years and court cases to emerge. Many records remained sealed to this day. In brief, Attica was a bloodbath, a site of racist violent retribution of government officials against prisoners. The weeks following the Attica uprising were horrific for the inmates. “Blood in the Water” is an apt title for the book.

The story does not end in 1971, though, for the state worked hard to prosecute prisoners involved in the riot. Thompson tracks the court cases, the multiple investigations, and the four-decade plus push for accountability. She documents how police and other state officials murdered and tortured inmates and then covered up crimes. The details of Attica emerged slowly, report by report and case by case. Lawyers, both for the state and the prisoners, devoted their professional careers to cases both holding prisoners and officials accountable. So, too, did coroners, prison officials and many others involved. Ultimately, no government official was ever held responsible for the deaths in retaking the prison or the following deplorable behavior of prison officials.

Thompson brings the history into a full circle through investigation of the lives of the guards and their families. Families of guards killed during the retaking of the prison struggled to find justice and support. Over time, many found connections with the inmates. The entire hisstory calls into question what justice might or could mean.

Thompson raises so many questions. Blood in the Water is more than a moment in history; it is a study of how broader societal trends in law, crime, and criminal justice intersect with civil unrest, political ambition, and the tremendous power of the state.

David Potash

August 5, 2025 American Culture Today, Reviews

A Celestial How To Do It

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.

David Potash

July 14, 2025 Reviews

Martial Mindset: Bush’s War Cabinet

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.

David Potash

July 6, 2025 Reviews

Southern Industrialism, New Deal to Civil Rights

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.

David Potash

July 1, 2025 Reviews