American History Class

A friend recently asked me to create a little curriculum for him - everything he should read over the course of a few years to have a solid handle on American history. I thought I'd share it with you.

This list does not intend to be comprehensive. It is a mix of scholarly works, popular history, and historical fiction. And there is no doubt that I've missed many many wonderful books. Looking over the list I notice that I don't have any David McCullough, who I admire, but I have two books from Stephen Ambrose, who I have mixed feelings about. What can I tell you?

Finally, I would describe this list as middle-brow. A very serious reader may see I've included a fairly pulpish book about the battle of Thermopylae rather than the works of Herodotus, and scoff derisively. But this list isn't for post-grad students - it's for the general reader.

ANCIENT HISTORY

Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
Steven Pressfield

I know. I said this is a list of American history books, and I'm leading off with a novel about Greek history. But American history is really the story of representative government, or as Lincoln would put it, “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. That starts with the ancient Greeks.

And democracy was nearly strangled in its cradle. The mighty autocratic Persian Empire invaded Greece early in the 5th century BC. The Greeks – really a collection of city-states - banded together to defeat them. This war was immediately followed by the Golden Age of Athens (Socrates, Pericles, Aristotle, the Greek dramatists). If this war had gone differently, the whole course of human history may have gone differently.

This is an entertaining and informative novel about the most famous battle of that war – in fact, one of the most famous battles in all of human history. (And yes, it is the battle dramatized in the movie "300".)


COLONIAL HISTORY

Crucible of War: The Seven Years War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766
Or

The War that Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War
Both by Fred Anderson

Okay, skipping ahead 2200 years…The Seven Years War, more popularly known here as the French and Indian War, led to the American Revolution as surely as World War I led to the WW II. It was also, in the words of Winston Churchill, truly the first world war.

As Americans, we think of the French and Indian War as a minor conflict in the woods of Western Pennsylvania, the lakes of upstate New York, and the cliffs of Quebec. But that was only part of a much larger war that included Frederick the Great fighting epic battles in Western Europe, and French and English armies clashing as far away as India and South America.

These books mainly focus on the North American part of the war, however, and how it ignited the flames that led to the American Revolution.

Both are by Fred Anderson. I read the first, the definitive book on the war. It is a longer, scholarly but very readable treatment of war, its political and military aspects. It is one of my favorites, but probably goes into more detail than most readers want. The second book is his scaled-down popular version of the first, which I haven’t read.


REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD

John Adams and the American Revolution
Catherine Drinker Bowen

There are so many tremendous books about the American Revolution, it is difficult  to narrow it down. But I’ll start here. Scholarly historians have issues with this book, which is a sort of novelistic history. I choose it for three reasons:

1. To understand the Revolution, you need to understand the period from the end of the Seven Years’ War to the Declaration of Independence, and Adams was the man in this period.

2. No book better captures the drama of July 2-4, 1776.

3. I dig this book, and its my list.


Washington’s Crossing
David Hackett Fischer

The colonists have declared independence; now all they have to do is defeat the mightiest army on earth. How did they do it? This book answers that question as well as any other. Fischer and James MacPherson, two great historians, are editing a series called “Pivotal Moments in American History”, and in this book Fischer argues Washington’s Crossing of the Delaware was one of those moments.

But it's about much more than that battle. It is about how Washington built an army, held it together, and yes, defeated the mightiest army on earth.

It’s also about myth and history. In the last few years, academic historians have attacked icons like Washington and Lincoln, arguing that too much credit has been given to Dead White Males. Fischer, taking the famous painting of Washington’s Crossing as a starting point, argues that sometimes the myth is true.

Miracle in Philadelphia
Catherine Drinker Bowen

Independence is declared; the British have been beaten. Now all that is required is a government.

This book is a dramatic re-telling of the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

(The link above is to a beautiful hard-cover edition that can be purchased online cheaply.  Like most book lovers I lament the struggles of independent bookstores, but at the same time it's wonderful that you can find many of these books used, even in hardcover, at incredibly low prices.)

Founding Brothers
Joseph Ellis

This is more a collection of essays than a unified history, but great stories are told about the major founders: the Hamilton-Burr duel; the dinner at which Jefferson and Hamilton negotiated the location of the Capitol; the ups and downs of the 50 year friendship between Jefferson and Adams. The essay on Washington’s Farewell Address is particularly good.

My favorite period in American history is the 1790’s, the period after the Constitution up to Jefferson’s Presidency. This book tells some of the great stories from that period.


The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789
Robert Middlekauff

What I’ve done with the 4 books above is cover the 3 key parts of the Revolution: the pre-Revolutionary period, the War itself, and the creation of a government. But I’ve skipped huge parts, mainly through my somewhat eccentric choice of the Fischer book. Fischer’s telling of Washington’s Crossing illuminates the entire military story of the Revolution, but it doesn’t tell it. So if you just read the 4 books above, you’ll still be short on facts about Bunker Hill, Saratoga, Yorktown, and the other key battles.

On the other hand, you can skip all four books and just read this one. This is a volume of the outstanding Oxford History of the United States, and is a well-written and thorough account of the period covered by all 4 books.


BETWEEN WARS I
Undaunted Courage
Stephen Ambrose

The Lewis & Clark Expedition was an historically insignificant event.

They failed in their primary mission to find a Northwest Passage (because it didn’t exist); the path they took to the West was so arduous as to be completely useless to future pioneers; and the naturalist work they did wasn’t published till long after it would have been useful. In short, they did not open the American West.

But as Ambrose says, "the Lewis & Clark Expedition was the greatest camping trip of all time, and the greatest hunting trip." Worth reading for the adventure alone.

The Life of Andrew Jackson
Robert Remini

The towering figure of the antebellum period is Andrew Jackson. He is also the most entertaining. And few historians dominate their subject matter the way Remini does Jackson. This book is the single-volume condensed version of his definitive 3-volume bio.

It has everything: backwoods adventures, frontier gunfights, Indian fights, the thrilling Battle of New Orleans, a ruffian in the White House, and a fundamental change in the perception and practice of American democracy.

The Gates of the Alamo
Stephen Harigan
Another historical novel about gates…this one about what is arguably the most famous battle in American history.


THE CIVIL WAR

Battle Cry of Freedom – The Civil War Era
James McPherson

I’ve told many people over the years – if you read one book about the Civil War, make it this one. It’s an extraordinary historical achievement, covering everything that is important from the end of the Mexican War (which reignited the slavery debate) to the end of the War. An excellent narrative by one of our greatest historians.

The Killer Angels – A Novel of Gettysburg
Michael Shaara

My favorite historical novel. Read it. (Also, the basis for the great TV movie "Gettysburg").

Lincoln
David Herbert Donald

There are so many great Lincoln books. I'm partial to a book called Lincoln's Virtues. I love Gore Vidal's novel. And of course, there are many wonderful books that highlight certain parts of Lincoln's life - like Garry Wills book about the Gettysburg address. But Donald's book is probably the best single-volume biography that captures the whole life, and isn't dauntingly long.

A Stillness at Appomattox
Bruce Catton

This is the 3rd volume of Catton’s Army of the Potomac trilogy, covering the final year of the Civil War. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, it is worth reading for the surrender scene alone.


BETWEEN WARS II

Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Big Horn
Evan Connell

Using Custer at Little Big Horn as a focal point, Connell tells the story of the Plains Indians wars. He is a novelist writing history, and it is beautifully written and a bit idiosyncratic. But I’ve read a fair amount of books about this period, and this is my favorite.

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
Edmund Morris

Forget about history books – this is one of my favorite books, period. TR’s life before the Presidency was amazing; Park Avenue socialite, cowboy, war hero, city cop, writer, politician. And Morris is a stunningly brilliant writer. (And, apparently, the basis of an upcoming Scorcese/DiCaprio flick. Not Morris, the book...)


THE FIRST WORLD WAR

The Guns of August
Barbara Tuchman

This doesn’t really qualify as American history, since it’s very specifically about the start of the Great War, and the Americans didn’t show up until 1917. But it’s one of the finest history books I’ve ever read, particularly the first half which focuses on how the war ignited.

The First World War
John Keegan

If you want to know about the entire war, then this is the book to read, from the finest military historian of the 20th century.

All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque

By now, you know my fondness of learning history through fiction. This is probably considered the greatest war novel ever written.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929 – 1945David Kennedy

This is another book in the Oxford History of the U.S. series. It takes a gifted historian to cover, in a mere 900 pages, virtually all of American history from the stock market crash to the surrender of the Japanese on the deck of the U.S. Missouri. Like the McPherson and Middlekauf books above, if you read one book, make it this one.

At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor
Gordon Prange

The genius of this book is that it tells the Japanese side of the story as well as the American – and the Japanese side is much more interesting. The Japanese decision to attack Pearl Harbor – arguably the biggest strategic blunder in the history of warfare – is told side by side with the planning and execution of the attack – arguably the greatest tactical success in the history of warfare. The politics, the backdoor diplomacy, and of course, the attack itself, are all marvelously told.

War & Remembrance
Herman Wouk

Another novel. Wouk tells the story of WWII through one family, the Henrys, who conveniently have family members located in every theater of the war, including the concentration camps. The highlight of the book is the account of Midway.

The Liberation Trilogy:
Volume I: An Army at Dawn: The War in Africa 1942-43,
Volume II: Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy 1943-1944
Rick Atkinson

It appears that Atkinson is the Second World War’s Bruce Catton. Catton was a journalist turned historian who wrote two brilliant trilogies of the Civil War. Atkinson is a journalist turned historian who is writing a trilogy about the U.S. military in the European theater of WWII. The first book, focused on the least known part of the war, was outstanding, and the second fulfilled the promise of the first. I can’t wait for the third, which will obviously go from D-Day to Berlin, and will presumably feature the word “night” or “evening” or “dusk” in the title…

Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany
Stephen Ambrose

I’m not a huge fan of Ambrose’s. I find his writing to be a bit melodramatic. But this is a terrific book, because it is based on terrific research. Ambrose has interviewed thousands of soldiers, and tells the story through their stories – amazing, extraordinary stories – and does so in the larger context of the war in Western Europe.


Post-War Period

Sorry, I’m not your guy for this. I’ve never read a book about JFK or Eisenhower’s presidency or the Korean War or the Vietnam War or the Cold War. Volume II of Taylor Branch’s biography of Martin Luther King sits on my bookshelf unread. (I can never quite bring myself to read multi-volume biographies. I like to wait for the condensed single-volume.) I’ve been told by many people that Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York” is the greatest book about the wielding of political power ever written, but it remains on my “someday” list.

So I’m going to go ahead and recommend a book I haven’t read:

Great Expectations, The United States 1945-1974
James T. Patterson

Yet another volume in the Oxford History of the United States. I’ve read 3 volumes in this series, so I can vouch for the quality of the series. It did win the prestigious Bancroft Prize in 1997. And the critics loved it: The Wall Street Journal called it “a tour de force” and the Washington Post said "One can hardly imagine a better overview of American life during the Cold War, the struggle for civil rights, and the debacle of Vietnam.”

Hmm…maybe I should take my own advice and read this one…

Update (7/3/2013):  Since writing this, I've read several books on the post-war period, including Volume II of the MLK biography and Robert Dallek's biography on JFK.  You can find my comments on those books here.  I also read Robert Caro's latest installment in his LBJ masterpiece, The Passage of Power.  Still haven't delved into Vietnam (though I've read some excellent novels like Matterhorn, The Quiet American, and the wildly underrated novels of Charles McCarry).  But The Bright Shining Lie is on my list.

Follow up on Last Movie Star

Yesterday’s piece on George Clooney got a ton of traffic (by FreeTime’s incredibly humble standards), thanks to Jason Kottke mentioning it on his hugely influential blog (thanks, Jason). Many of the comments people made, though, disagreed with my thesis, or at least, tried to explain to me why Clooney is so popular. (It’s my own fault for focusing too much on his box office weakness.)

I understand why he’s popular. I get that he’s handsome and debonair and charming, that you can drop him in his tuxedo right into the 1952 Oscar ceremony, and he’d fit right in. I get that he has an interesting mix of movie-star glamour and eclectic choices. But my point still stands: where are his great movies? Not his really really good movies, but his great, classic, remembered-for-all time movies?

If he is going to inherit – if he is going to deserve - Jack Nicholson’s throne in the front-row middle seat of the Oscars, he needs a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Plus a Chinatown and a Terms of Endearment. The Departed and The Shining. He needs hugely memorable performances like the Joker and Colonel Nathan Jessup. Jack’s filmography is such that I haven’t even mentioned seven other films for which he was nominated for an Oscar, including one in which he won Best Actor (fun game: try to think of them).

I realize I’m setting the bar high here, but that’s what great movie stars do. They make multiple movies that are praised by critics, loved by audiences, and remembered for decades. Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne and Tom Hanks made those kinds of movies. George doesn’t have a single Maltese Falcon or African Queen, much less a Casablanca, on his resume, but is treated as if he does.

His continued struggles at the box office may mean the window could close soon. Unless he starts making some classics, he may get bumped back to the 16th row at the 2012 Oscar ceremony.

The Last Movie Star?

There are many quantitative ways to measure the…hmmm, what’s the right word... brightness of a particular movie star. You can count Oscar nominations and box office receipts, magazine covers and Barbara Walters interviews.

But mostly it’s a feel thing. It’s this complex alchemy of critical acclaim, glamour, box office success – and perhaps most importantly, indelible screen moments. John Wayne framed in the door in The Searchers. Cary Grant chased by a plane in North by Northwest. Jack Nicholson poking his face through a crack in the door. Tom Hanks on a park bench.

Then there is George Clooney. Clooney seems to have inherited the mantle of the supernova movie star. One way you can tell he’s being groomed to replace Jack Nicholson as the Zeus of the Hollywood Olympus is the deference he is paid at awards events. He’s the guy that the emcee and the other actors give a shout out to from the stage, that the camera constantly seeks out. Last night on the Oscar red carpet, Regis Philbin gushed that it used to be "everyone in this town wanted to be Cary Grant, and now they want to be George Clooney”.

And this week's Time magazine has a cover story titled "George Clooney: The Last Movie Star" in which the author says "this guy...really is a movie star. Maybe the only one we have now."

The only one we have. Wow. There's one teensy-weensy problem, though, that nobody seems to have noticed. One tiny little thing missing from the George Clooney is the World's Biggest Movie Star storyline...nobody watches his movies.

O Audience, Where Art Thou?
Since 1996’s From Dusk Till Dawn, George Clooney has been in 20 movies. Five of them have grossed more than $100m at the box office:

Ocean’s Eleven: $183m
The Perfect Storm: $182m
Ocean’s Twelve: $125m
Ocean’s Thirteen: $117m
Batman & Robin: $107m

But only The Perfect Storm, released during the Clinton Administration, can truly be called “a George Clooney movie” in the way that, say, Forrest Gump is “a Tom Hanks movie” and virtually every Tom Cruise movie is, in fact, “a Tom Cruise movie”.

Batman & Robin was the pathetic remnant of a once-proud franchise – plus top billing went to a true box office king, Arnold Schwarzenegger. O11 was a genuinely big hit (though it barely edged out Jurassic Park III at the box office) – but Ocean had an ensemble cast that featured a proven movie-carrying superstar, Julia Roberts, not to mention Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. O12 and O13 were lame sequels that fans of the first movie (including this one) were duped into seeing.

After those five “hits”, things get really bad.

The next top-grossing film in the Clooney filmography is Three Kings, which in 1999 did $60m at the box office. How good – or bad – is $60m? It was good enough for 39th place in 1999, just behind She’s All That and ahead of Bicentennial Man.

Mind you, this is one of George’s big hits. His next biggest hit, Syriana,took in a $51m, good enough for 56th place between Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Diary of a Mad Black Woman.
And so on. The nadir was 2006’s The Good German. Despite the presence of his Ocean director Steven Soderbergh, as well as Oscar winner Cate Blanchett and Spiderman Tobey Maguire, it did a grand total of $1.3m at the box office. How bad is that? I don’t know because the site I’m getting my data from, Box Office Mojo, only tracks 150 movies per year, and German didn’t come close to cracking the top 150. But let's put it this way: Gigli did six times better.

Feet of Clayton

Perhaps the surest sign that movie fans aren't particularly interested in George Clooney's movies is the failure of Michael Clayton. Clayton was lavishly reviewed – and not in a highbrow, “this movie is important but baffling” way (like Syriana), but as a compelling legal thriller with knockout performances. It was heavily-marketed. It was even released twice – in early October, when it bombed the first time, and again after the Oscar nominations came out.

It had everything it needed to succeed. Advertising support, critical acclaim, Oscar nominations for three cast members, and, you know, George Clooney, "the world’s only movie star". It should have been his Erin Brockovich ($125m). And yet, with $48m at the box office, it came in 55th place, in between two movies I’ve never heard of (This Christmas and Premonition).

What is A Movie Star?
Being a movie star isn't just about the box office - but the box office is a big part of the mix because it shows how you connect to audiences. As to artistic achievement, I think he’s a charming enough actor, albeit with the limited range one usually associates with handsome leading men. I thoroughly enjoyed some of his minor hits, especially Three Kings and the very underrated Out of Sight (the best movie made from an Elmore Leonard novel). And I appreciate some of the risky choices he makes.

But there is a huge disconnect between the praise he receives and the almost total indifference with which audiences greet his movies. Further, he has yet to make an iconic movie - think Tom Hanks with his 90's trifecta of Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, and Saving Private Ryan. Does Clooney have even one movie that has made an impression the way any of those three did? In fact, does Clooney have a cinematic moment to rival scenes from Apollo 13 (Houston, we have a problem.) or Castaway (Wilson the volleyball) or even Big (Hanks and Loggia dancing on the keyboard).

And how about Will Smith? Since 1996, he's made 13 movies:

Independence Day: $306m

I Am Legend: $255m

Men In Black: $251m

Men in Black2: $190m

Hitch: $179m

Pursuit of Happyness: $164m

Shark Tale: $161m

I, Robot: $145m

Bad Boys II: $139m

Wild Wild West: $114m

Enemy of the State: $112m

Ali: $58m

Bagger Vance: $31m

Wow. Only one flop (though it didn't flop as badly as Solaris or The Good German or Confessions of a Dangerous Mind or...). The only other sub-$100m movie, Ali, garnered him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. (He was also nominated for Happyness). Billions in box office. Multiple Oscar nominations. That, my friends, is a movie star.

There are many more actors who have a better mix of critical and commercial success. Russell Crowe. Denzel Washington. Even the much-maligned Tom Cruise had 7 straight $100m flicks before Lions for Lambs flopped. The 3 Mission Impossible films did about $100m more at the box office than the 3 Ocean films, and Cruise carried them by himself. Even Vanilla Sky did $100m.

Now What?
George Cloooney seems like a great guy to get a beer with, but he may be the most overrated person in the most overrated profession in the world. So what's next? The Ocean franchise has been sucked dry. His next movie, Leatherheads, well, you can check out the trailer and decide for yourself...

My guess is he'll remain popular, due to the interest in his personal life, his ridiculous good looks, and his masterful treatment of the press (read the Time story; the writer's got a serious man-crush on George). But I suspect it will be years before anybody but the readers of FreeTime and a few worried Hollywood executives will even notice that George Clooney is not the world's only movie star. In fact, he might not qualify as a movie star at all.

Update: I hate to pile on here but I had a thought. Clooney’s box office reputation, such as it is, depends almost entirely on the Ocean franchise. As I pointed our earlier, he hardly carried that franchise by himself, what with Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Al Pacino, Andy Garcia, Catherine Zeta-Jones and others kicking in.

To make it worse, though, I compared Ocean to some other popular trilogies starring actual movie stars.

Harrison Ford/Indiana Jones trilogy: $618m
Tom Cruise/Mission trilogy: $529m
Matt Damon/Bourne trilogy: $524m
Clooney et al/Ocean trilogy: $425m

The Ocean trilogy is the only one of the bunch that declined in box office receipts each step of the way (Bourne is the only one to go up each step up of the way; MI went up, then down; Jones went down, then up).

And except for Sean Connery in the 3rd Indy flick, only the Ocean flicks relies on multiple movie stars.

False Idols

There are some good things about American Idol.

The contestants can sing - you don't make the final 24 out of tens of thousands of auditioners without a halfway decent voice. Simon Cowell is extremely entertaining, in part because of his zingers but mainly because is the most honest person in a medium where everyone else with a microphone is shading his opinion for either the audience or the producers. And finally, in an era when Mom's upstairs watching Lost, Dad's downstairs watching ESPN, and the kids are on their Playstations and XBox's, any show that brings the family together is a good thing.

But still...I'm not a fan...

A half-century ago most popular music was manufactured. All the record company needed was a voice and a look - they could then build a product around that. Change their hair, pick out outfits, provide them with songs and studio musicians and a producer. Then, start making the music that the record company wanted to hear, and package it for the audience.

In the past year I read a Mick Jagger interview in Rolling Stone and a book on Tom Petty in which each of them said that in the late 50's and early 60's, the whole idea of being a musican was unattainable. After all, where would you get all the stuff you'd need? The songs, the outfits, the whole professional apparatus that came with being a musician.

Then the Beatles came along and changed everything. They wrote the music and the lyrics for their songs. They did the arrangements. They played their own instruments. They named their records and, as they grew more powerful, chose everything from the song order to the album art to the release date. They even chose their own hair styles and outfits. In the course of a few years they changed their looks and their sounds, created concept albums, and changed the whole idea of what popular music could be. With their manager Brian Epstein and their producer George Martin, they were in complete ownership of their art.

Yes, others before had done parts of that, notably Chuck Berry, and before that some of the great country, blues, and jazz stars. But the Beatles were massively popular, and became the band that launched a million bands. From the Rolling Stones to Michael Jackson, from Bruce Springsteen to Pearl Jam, our greatest musicians have been the true creators of their art.

And when they weren't - when they were primarily vocalists like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey - they had some serious other-worldly pipes. Even Madonna, who doesn't have a particularly good voice, is an average dancer, and doesn't play an instrument, actually wrote some of her own hits and was certainly the creator of her persona.

But American Idol is taking us back to the pre-Beatles era of manufactured music. Just show up with a voice and a look, maybe a good back story, and let the record company take it from there. They'll provide the songs and the outfits and the musicians and the arrangements, and they'll build this whole music product around this modicum of fame built on a TV show.

One can make a case that it doesn't matter how the music is made - all that matters is the end result. And I'm sure that some decent music is coming out of the various winners and runners-up of American Idol.

But me? I like the idea of the singer-songwriter, the recording artist. Tom Petty said in a recent interview that he came from a time "before rock stars were invented on game shows." Game show seems like the greater part of the insult, but it's actually invented. Invented by producers and record companies and television shows.

I like music created in garages and basements, bars and buses. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go fire up Guitar Hero III and make believe I'm Stevie Ray Vaughn for the next hour...

History In Rock & Roll

This piece started out as one thing, and ended up as something else entirely.

I intended to write something about the use of history in rock and roll…or to be more precise, the lack of it. Other forms of art – movies, novels, paintings – have drawn heavily on history for inspiration. But rock and roll, not so much.

And when it does, I thought, it usually screws it up. Think of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down by the Band. A great song (especially the live version) but historically inaccurate:

Back with my wife in Tennessee,
When one day she called to me,
"Virgil, quick, come see, there goes Robert E. Lee.”

I thought, those silly Canadians, Robert E. Lee wasn’t in Tennessee during the Civil War.

Bob Dylan liked to sprinkle historical figures in his lyrics (“Napoleon in rags”), but he mangled a Lincoln quote in Talking World War III Blues:

Half of the people can be part right all of the time,
Some of the people can be all right part of the time,
But all of the people can't be all right all of the time.
I think Abraham Lincoln said that.

You thought wrong, Bob. What Lincoln is reputed to have said is, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”


And my favorite, Billy Joel’s The Ballad of Billy the Kid. If you’ll allow me to quote at length.

From a town known as Wheeling, West Virginia
Rode a boy with a six-gun in his hand
And his daring life of crime
Made him a legend in his time
East and west of the Rio Grande

Well, he started with a bank in Colorado
In the pocket of his vest, a Colt he hid
And his age and his size
Took the teller by surprise
And the word spread of Billy the Kid

One cold day a posse captured Billy
And the judge said, "String 'im up for what he did!"
And the cowboys and their kin
Like the sea came pourin' in
To watch the hangin' of Billy the Kid

Well, he never traveled heavy
Yes, he always rode alone
And he soon put many older guns to shame
And he never had a sweetheart
But he finally found a home
Underneath the boothill grave that bears his name

Billy the Kid was not from Wheeling, or any other part of West Virginia. He didn’t rob banks. He didn’t ride alone. He killed with a Winchester rifle, not a Colt. He wasn’t captured by a posse, and he wasn’t hung. To paraphrase Mary McCarthy, every word is a lie, including “and” and “the”.

Clearly, I thought, rock lyricists have issues with history.

Digging in the Archives
To make my case stronger, I trolled through my own 5000 song iTunes catalogue, looking for more evidence of rock’s indifference to history. And I confess, I found the opposite. More lyricists than I realized had tackled history, some quite accurately.

For example…

Mr. Churchill Says, The Kinks
Bastille Day, Rush
Sympathy for the Devil, The Rolling Stones

The first two are among the most straightforward of the history rock songs in my collection. The Kinks capture England during the Battle of Britain. He even mentions historical figures like Beaverbrook, Mountbatten, and Montgomery. Rush captures the class warfare - as well as the beheadings - of the early French Revolution.

The lyrics of both are fairly uninspired, though Neal Peart turns a neat phrase with "See them bow their heads to die, as we would bow as they rode by".


Sympathy is the ultimate rock and roll romp through history. It starts on Calvary, takes us through the Hundred Years War, the Russian Revolution, the Blitzkrieg, and the assassinations of the Kennedys.

My only quibble with the song is this lyric:

I watched in glee while your Kings and Queens

Fought for ten decades for the Gods they made.

Presumably the "fought for ten decades" refers to the Hundred Years War. While many wars were fought over religion, this wasn't one of them.

Oliver’s Army, Elvis Costello
Not a history song at all, but one that requires knowledge of history to understand. The song is about mercenary soldiers, and Oliver refers to Oliver Cromwell, who rewarded his mercenary soldiers with land in Ireland - something Elvis Costello (aka Declan McManus) would be familiar with. "Mr. Churchill" is a stand-in for England.

Children's Crusade, Sting
Russians, Sting

History Will Teach Us Nothing, Sting

Gordon Sumner, the former schoolteacher, is clearly the songwriter most obsessed with history, and the idea that the past can - though often doesn't - teach us about the future.

Children's Crusade is about the young men slaughtered in WWI ("Young men, soldiers, Nineteen fourteen"); Russians is about the Cold War; History Will...is more of a political song:

Convince an enemy, convince him that he's wrong

Is to win a bloodless battle where victory is long

A simple act of faith, in reason over might

To blow up his children will only prove him right

History will teach us nothing

Buffalo Soldiers, Bob Marley

There isn't a lot of history in this song, but what little there is seems accurate. More importantly, Marley captures why history is important in this lyric:

If you know your history,
Then you would know where you coming from,
Then you wouldnt have to ask me,
Who the eck do I think I am.

You said it, Bob.

Let It Be

(Roger Clemens is on Capitol Hill this morning to defend himself against the use of performance-enhancing drugs. He was accused by his former friend, trainer, and supplier, Brian McNamee. His former teammate, Andy Pettitte, has already confessed, and implicated Clemens. Makes me wonder what might have happened if the House of Lords, in the mid-1960’s, took an interest in the use of marijuana in rock and roll).

Member of Parliament
The House of Commons calls Paul McCartney from the Beatles. Mr. McCartney, thank you for joining us here today.

Paul
It's wonderful to be here. It's certainly a thrill.

MP

Mr. McCartney, we hope you will be honest with us here today.

Paul

Everybody's got something to hide except me and my monkey.

MP
Mr. McCartney, have you ever taken marijuana in order to enhance your abilities as a songwriter and a performer?

Paul
No sir. All you need is love.

MP
We have sworn testimony from a Mr. Robert Dylan, given to Joni Mitchell, that on August 28, 1964, he provided you with marijuana at the Delmonico hotel. Is that true?

Paul
He may have had some rolled up tobacco cigarettes, always trying to act like a cowboy, that guy. Look at the bloke's record. His real name's Zimmerman, you know? He's always knockin' on heaven's door, ringin' some new religion's bell... Do us a favor, Bob, open the door, let one of 'em in and stick with it.

MP
We are not here to talk about Mr. Dylan, but about your performance. Let’s look at the record, please. In your rookie season, 1964, you wrote lyrics like

Oh yeah, I´ll tell you something
I think you'll understand
When I say that something
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand

Impressive. Especially that part where you rhyme “something” with “something”. Or this one from that same year:

She loves you, yeah yeah yeah
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah…yeah

Not exactly Shakespeare, is it?

Paul (mumbling…)
Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting...

MP
Then, after the meeting in the Delmonico, your lyrics, as well as those of your partner, John Lennon, showed a dramatic change. Here, from your 1965 season:

Eleanor Rigby
Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream. Waits at the window
wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

Quite an improvement, hmm?

Paul

Yes, I was getting better all the time.

MP
Or this one, from your 1967 season:

Picture yourself in boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

Do you honestly expect this committee to believe this improvement came about through good old-fashioned hard work?

Paul
Ah well, that one's all John.

MP

Ah yes, your bandmate, John Lennon. Mr. Lennon, in testimony given to us last week, corroborated Mr. Dylan's testimony. He said that he did, in fact, smoke marijuana that he received from Mr. Dylan.

Paul

Listen, do you want to know a secret? Transcendental meditation. Had a profound effect on my lyric writing. [to the audience] Who is this guy anyway? Are we really sure if he's even from the House of Lords?

MP
Thank you Mr. McCartney. We now call to the witness stand, Mr. Keith Richards...

Follow up on Divisiveness

David Brooks in the Times today shows how a Democratic President will have a hard time keeping a unity promise, even within his/her own party. This all rings very true to me...

Losers Beat Nobodies

Last month, I wrote a piece proving that most Super Bowl winning coaches have been (at the time of their hiring) either Losers (have NFL head coach experience, but of the losing kind) or Nobodies (have zero NFL head coach experience). Nobodies won 25 titles, and I suggested that hiring a Nobody was the best way to go.

Since I wrote that, every head coaching vacancy has been filled by a Nobody. Harbaugh in Baltimore, Sparano in Miami, Smith in Atlanta, and now Zorn in Washington. They are all following my advice!

But...I've changed my mind. Well, tweaked it actually. I just heard Jim Fassel being interviewed on ESPN Radio. Fassel led the 2000 Giants to the NFC Championship, but has been unable to land a head coaching gig since. In fact, he just lost the Redskins job to a Nobody, Jim Zorn. Zorn has some fame as a QB, but as a coach, his resume is pretty thin - he has never been a head coach or even a coordinator on any level.

Fassel made an interesting point: he said that 8 of the last 10 Super Bowls have been won by guys on their 2nd job. I checked, and he's right:

1. Tom Coughlin - Giants (Jags)
2. Tony Dungy - Colts (Bucs)
3. Bill Cowher - Steelers (first job)
4. Bill Belichick - Pats (Browns)
4. Belichick
5. Jon Gruden - Bucs (Raiders)
4. Belichick
6. Brian Billick - Ravens (first job)
7. Mike Shanahan - Broncos (Raiders)
7. Shanahan

Three titles were won by guys who were succesful, but ringless, in their first job (1,2,5). Five were won by two guys who were unsuccesful in their first job (4,7). And two were won by guys in their first job (3,6).

So, new rule for the 21st century NFL: hire a guy with NFL head coaching experience, whether it's modestly succesful or not. By this rule, it appears the Seahawks, who just announced Jim Mora Jr. will succeed Mike Holmgren in 2008, made the right call.

All the other teams, who probably made their hire after reading FreeTime, I offer my apologies.

Redesign

Like it? I worked really hard on it. It took two whole clicks of the mouse.

In Defense of Divisiveness

A big theme in this year’s election is unity. John McCain, the Republican most beloved by Democrats, and the soothing Democrat Barack Obama, both promise to end the political divisiveness that has plagued our national politics through the Clinton and Bush Administrations.

There is a lot of debate about whether or not they can succeed. But does anyone stop to wonder if, perhaps, unity is such a good thing?

Put differently: has anyone noticed that the list of America’s most successful Presidents is remarkably similar to the list of America’s most divisive Presidents?

The list starts with Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is widely considered to be America’s greatest President…but he’s got the Divisiveness Crown well in hand, too. Lincoln was elected President on November 6, 1860. He was inaugurated on March 4, 1861. In the 4-month interim between election and inauguration, 7 states seceded from the Union. They were so appalled at the idea of a Lincoln Presidency, they chose to leave the Union and start their own nation. Four more would follow.

Obviously, the divisiveness was more tragic than that. The Civil War ensued from the secession, and 600,000 American lives were lost. That, my friends, is divisiveness of the highest order.

While no other example is that stark, most great Presidents have not had the admiration of their political opponents:

FDR
Franklin Delano Roosevelt led a unified country through the Second World War, but his New Deal policies were fiercely contested by his political opponents through the Depression. As FDR began losing those battles in his 2nd term he unveiled his “court packing” plan – the idea was to simply add 5 new Supreme Court justices.

Republicans and conservative Democrats were disgusted at this power grab, and the Democrats were slaughtered in the mid-term elections of 1938.

Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was one of the first master practitioners - and victims - of nasty, partisan politics in American history. We know now the Sally Hemings story is true, but that doesn’t change the fact that his enemies hated him so much that they’d print it.

But TJ was no shrinking violet himself – he even secretly financed a newspaper to attack his opponents. The Federalist-Republican feud in the early 1800’s was a vicious back-alley fight that makes today's feuds seem like high tea at Harrods.

Jackson
Andrew Jackson was more despised by his political opponents than even Bush or Clinton could claim. He was even called a murderer – one campaign bill featured a picture of 6 coffins representing men Jackson had executed in court-martials or killed in duels. The attacks on him were so severe he blamed them for his wife’s sickness and death.


Coincidence?

What does all this mean? Is it merely a coincidence that great Presidents inspire the deepest hatred among their political opponents?

Of course not. Greatness only comes to the bold, to those who have and act upon strongly held convictions. Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt were all powerful and effective leaders who had a very strong vision for the United States. They were attacked by those who disagreed. The South, for example, realized that Lincoln's positions on slavery were dramatically different than the wishy-washy compromisers who preceded him.

You want unity? Try Warren Harding on for size. Harding ran on a “let’s all get along” platform. His most famous speech came while running for President, in which he argued for normalcy:

"America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality...."

Yawn... But seriously, if you heard Barack Obama give this speech, would you be surprised? (Well, maybe at the use of the words nostrums and equipoise.) Would you nod your head along in agreement?

Harding was immensely popular while in office, but today, historians rank him among our least effective Presidents.

So, the next time you hear one of the candidates tell you that they are going to unify the country, stop to ask yourself if that is all it’s cracked up to be.


Sidebar: McCain may be the Democrat's favorite Republican, but he's the conservative Republican's least favorite Republican. Rush Limbaugh, whom you would assume is dedicating every waking moment to fighting the Clinton Restoration, in fact spends most of his time attacking John McCain. In this respect, McCain is similar to FDR, who sometimes inspired more vitriol from conservative Democrats than from Republicans.

More Nicknames for Tyree Catch

Via the Max Kellerman show on ESPN Radio:

His-Tyree.

And more nominees from the crowd at BigBlueInteractive:

The Dynasty Killer

The Great E-scape

The Glendale Grab

The Reception that Ruined Perfection

Houdini & The Helmet

The Clutch (since Eli escaped the clutches...and Tyree clutched it)
(see more below)

Dewey Beats Truman

Nicknames for Tyree Catch

I started a thread on BigBlueInteractive to nickname The Tyree Catch. Here's what we/they've come up with so far. I've bolded the ones I like the best:

The Hel-Mitt Catch

The Hat Trick

The Great Escape

No name, just a signal. Place both hands about a foot over the top of your head with criss crossed fingers

The Holy MutherF'ing Sh** Catch

The Slip, Whip and Grip

The Crowning Moment

The Reach

The "Kiss from God"

If Tomlinson is LT to ESPN Then this is "The Catch"

The Helmet Catch

The Helmet Grab

The Great Escape... then the Great Capture

THE CLAMP

THE PLAY

The PERFECT catch

I AM LEGEND

The Scrambling Houdini

Update: Sports Guy is calling it "the Miracle Play to Be Named Later"

Perfectville

The New York Football Giants

Wow.

I doubt that I have anything original or insightful to say about this that you won't find anywhere else. But I can't not write about the greatest sporting event in my life, so here goes:

1. Dwight Clark had "The Catch". Franco Harris had "The Immaculate Reception". Gerard Phelan caught the "Hail Flutie". I hope to God somebody comes up with a nickname for that miraculous David Tyree catch on the winning drive. It was really two plays in one - Eli escaping from a near sack, and then Tyree making the spectacular falling-down-press-against-helmet-one-inch-off-the-ground grab. Any suggestions?

2. Are we allowed to say Tom Brady choked? I realize he is one of sport's untouchables, that he is, in fact, allowed to go on vacation with his girlfriend after stinking it up in the AFC Championship game and get no criticism. But in the biggest game of his life, he saw pressure, and played poorly. That's a choke, isn't it? This is a year after the Patriots blew a 21-3 lead at halftime of the AFC Championship game.

3. Back to Tyree...it was against Rodney Harrison, one of the game's dirtiest players. Bonus.

4. Why is there any debate about the Patriots' place in history? It's very simple: they join teams like UNLV 90 and Seattle Mariners 01 and the Colts and Orioles in 69 that had wonderful regular seasons and lost when it mattered. They are not allowed in the "greatest teams in history" conversation. That is for champions only.

5. Did I pick a great time to start a blog or what? If I can brag just a little bit:

• On December 16th, I wrote a column defending Eli. If I may immodestly quote myself:

Do Giants fans remember that game-tying playoff drive last year? 2nd & 30, down 7 points, in the 4th quarter, in a playoff game, at Philadelphia of all places – and Eli completed consecutive passes of 18, 14 and 11 yards to Plaxico Burress, the last one in the end zone. How can you watch that and not think this kid has what it takes?That was not his first, or last, 4th quarter
comeback. His first win, against the Cowboys, in 04. The Cowboys again in 05 (blown by the D). The Broncos in 05. The Bears in 07.

• On December 26 I wrote a piece called "The Fate of the Pats", that talked about how how-flying offensive teams tend to fall in January. Key line..."And yet...I think they're going down in January."


• I refused to outright pick the Giants to win, but outlined the reasons they could here.

6. This is the best thing that could happen to The Sports Guy's writing. The source of his greatness - besides the fact that he's a deceptively talented writer - is that he's a fan. Most sportswriters seem, after a while, to hate sports. Too much time spent in locker rooms with guys that are bigger, stronger, richer, and more beloved than they are...and are often jerks. So they turn on these guys, and the whole stench of professional sports. But The Sports Guy has kept his fan's perspective.

But being a Boston guy, he has had an unnatural amount of winning the past few years. And his writing suffered. Read - or try to read - this interminably boring piece predicting the Patriots will crush the Giants. No way he writes something this turgid about a team he cares about that is playing poorly.

This one should put his writing back in order. Welcome back, Bill.

7. I went to 4 Giants game this year, including the debacle against the Vikings. Everybody talks about how at 0-2, down 17-3 at halftime to the Redskins, you wouldn't have picked the Giants to do this. But more importantly, go to that Vikings game. Giants lost 42-17. At home. In late November. To the Vikings.

8. I just went to the Wikpedia entry on David Tyree. It already includes a description of his catch. What if we call it the "Hell-Mitt Catch"? Nah. How about "Hat Trick"?

9. I just went in the fan forum on Big Blue Interactive and started a thread to nickname the catch...Hopefully by tomorrow morning there will be some good suggestions.

Update: some folks have already made some suggestions: The Great Escape...The Slip, Whip & Grip...The Play...and The Holy MutherF'ing Sh** Catch

10. If you were running the "Eli Manning Sucks Blog", would you continue to say he sucks? Well, you have to admire this guy's tenacity...

11. I know...I've rambled on for hundreds of words and haven't even mentioned the real reason they won - pressure on the QB. What can I tell you, it's late. Good night.

Final Thoughts on SB XLII

Why Petty?
I've heard people wonder why a 57 year-old guy who hasn't had a hit in years is the Super Bowl half-time act. The answer is easy: classic rock dominates the concert scene. The Top 10 tours of 2007 were:

1. The Police
2. Justin Timberlake
3. Van Halen
4. Rod Stewart
5. Genesis
6. Bon Jovi
7. Dave Matthews Band
8. Billy Joel
9. Roger Waters
10. Bruce Springsteen et. al.

7 of these acts began their career in the 70's - or earlier. Most of them don't have a new album to promote. Only one of them, the cute kid from the boy band, had a Top 20 album in 2007 (though I'm sure Bon Jovi's concert sales were helped by opening-act Daughtry, who had one of the best-selling albums of 07).

So, if you're for a lip-synced performance that's heavy on dance moves, by all means go for the 20-something singer/dancers who have nice voices but have never touched an instrument in their life. But if you want a live performance, it's only rock and roll for me.

Spygate
I haven't touched yet on Spygate. I know the conventional wisdom on this is that spying on the other team is the football equivalent of driving 65 in a 55 zone: everyone does it, there is no harm, and nobody should be punished.

Maybe that's true. I don't claim to be an expert on what teams do about signs, or whether or not it helps much. But I do have one problem with the whole thing: if it wasn't a big deal, why did Roger Goodell hit the Patriots with the biggest fine in league history?

Belichick got hit for $500,000, the team for $250,000 and a first round draft choice. That is a killer penalty. An interesting part of the penalty is that the NFL officially claimed it was for the Patriots' "totality of conduct" and not just the Jets game.

The massive penalty (given by a league that would rather not draw extremely negative attention to its most admired team) and the fact that it was for more than just the Jets game, suggests to me that we still don't know the full story here.

(Update: interesting piece in the Times today, in which former prosecutors question the NFL's investigative techniques. It's highly unusual, they say, to investigate wrongdoing by merely asking the "suspect" to turn over whatever evidence they deem appropriate.)

Play Ball

That's all I got. I can't read, much less write, another word about Coughlin's gregariousness, Plax's knee (and mouth), Eli's vindication, Brady's foot, or anything else. It's time to play the damn game.

The Obama Letdown

I remember calling my Dad the evening of October 3, 2000, and telling him that Bush had just won the election.

October 3 was the night of the first Bush-Gore debate. Gore entered the debate with a tiny lead in the polls (48% to 46%). He was a sitting Vice-President, the country was at peace, and the economy seemed strong (though in, fact, the recession had already begun). Polls done immediately after the debate suggested that Gore had, barely, won the debate.

So why did I think Bush had just won the election? Because he was the beneficiary of low expectations.

As I’ve written before, our reaction to many things - movies, books, restaurants, vacations – is decided largely by our expectations. We all know that feeling from movies – the anticipated blockbuster that fizzles, or the small movie that takes you by surprise. We're less aware of it when it happens in sports, but it's just as strong: Alex Rodriguez gets booed while David Wright, not playing nearly as well, is cheered. It’s all about expectations.

This is true of Presidential candidates, too. Most Americans don’t follow politics very closely. They pick up snippets from Leno and Letterman, hear a celebrity make a crack to Matt Lauer, listen to Jon Stewart’s monologue and interviews.

And if, in the fall of 2000, if you were one of those people who hadn’t really tuned in to the election yet, Jay and Dave and Jon and everyone else had led you to believe that George Bush was just about the stupidest human who ever walked the face of the earth. This man couldn’t tie his shoelaces. He couldn’t feed himself. He may have degrees from Harvard and Yale, but this was only because of family connections; he should have gone to the Rocco Globbo School for the Galactically Stupid.

Huge numbers of Americans then tune in to that first debate – 75 million on the night of October 3. And something amazing happened in that debate…George Bush did not drool on himself. He did not perform magnificently, or even particularly well. But he did fine, and more or less held his own. Al Gore, the great intellectual, was supposed to wipe the floor with George Bush, the class dunce. And he failed.

George Bush was the beneficiary of low expectations.

What does this have to do with Barack Obama?

Does Barack Obama have low expectations? Er, no. He is a knight in shining armor, the great orator of his day, the man who will ride in on a white horse and single-handedly save America from its enemies within and without. He is John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, with a dash of Abe Lincoln and a teaspoon of Bono.

I’m exaggerating a little, but not much. The late-night comics are reluctant to go after him. The Clintons got hammered for playing hardball last week. And if Jon Stewart had a writing staff, they would know damn well that their audience adores this guy.

But one has to ask…is he being set up for a fall? I think so. A line in a Times article just before the New Hampshire primary caught my eye:

Political pied pipers often prove ephemeral. Mr. Obama’s support among a focus group at Dartmouth sagged noticeably after students watched him debate more veteran Democrats.

Dartmouth students fit the Obama demographic perfectly. They are young. They are educated. They are affluent. They are extremely excited about Barack Obama. But when they actually saw him go toe-to-toe with “veteran Democrats”, he didn’t live up to the absurdly lofty expectations they had for him.

It’s the opposite of George Bush. At some point, perhaps against Hillary, perhaps against McCain, there will be an Obama letdown. Will it stop him from reaching the White House? I think so.

His first try, anyway.