I decided to throw a bone to the right coast, right wing, wrong-headed writer, East Coast Don, with whom I share this blog. Midwest Dave will get a pass on these current comments. The bone – a choice to read a novel by ultimate right wing guy, Newt Gingrich. The choice is born from the philosophy of learning from the enemy, i.e., Patton read Rommel’s book. I mean, I even searched out the works of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz in an attempt to understand why they thought we should invade Iraq. That effort only further convinced me that they were either delusional or just liars. But, I digress.
This novel was not much of a political work. Mostly, it was just some good propaganda about our first president and Thomas Paine, who was the best American propagandist ever and our first great battle correspondent. This story does a good job reliving the first six months of the revolution, from the Declaration of Independence on 7/4/1776 through the battle at Trenton which took place on 12/26/76. After an early victory in Boston, the Continental Army had one defeat after another until their unlikely victory at Trenton when they routed the Hessians. Newt (we’re on a first-name basis) presents the idea that if Washington had lost at Trenton, that the revolution would have been lost right then. I doubt that is true, but it would have taken a long while to recover from a defeat, if it had occurred. I clearly remember the stories about Washington crossing the Delaware to get to Trenton, but I did not remember the horrific conditions in which he did so or the battle-weary, sorry state of his troops who made the crossing with him. The battle showed remarkable heroism by Washington and his troops, no doubt. It was worthwhile to review the early details of the revolution and the difficulties that the colonists were facing. I thought Newt got pretty schmaltzy at times, especially with regard to the speeches that Washington gave to encourage the troops, but his leadership skills must have been impressive. It is also an understatement to say those were dire times. Overall, while it was far from being a great book, it was a good historical fiction and a good read.
To quote a great philosopher, "Wha' ch'you talkin' about Willis?"
ReplyDeleteGingrich and Forstchen did a Civil War trilogy that started off with this interesting premise: What if Lee had won at Gettysburg? In the end, no difference, same eventual outcome. The big difference was Lee capturing Baltimore and then a huge battle at the northern entrance to Washington. Grant is brought in and bring the war to an end with an iron will and superior resources. That trilogy was pretty good and the authors seemed to have high regard for Grant.
And be careful, you might be speaking ill will of the next VP! Won't that give you nightmares.
and sorry. I tried to read Audacity of Hope.
Failed miserably.