The Society for Useful Knowledge by Jonathan Lyons

Colonial America was a place that demanded much of settlers. While many appreciated the value of book learning, many came to America because of their strong opinions about a particular book, their new home required them to focus on practical knowledge for developing land, repairing hard-to-get goods and getting the most out of one’s one labor. In The Society for Useful Knowledge, Jonathan Lyons explores this emphasis on utility and its influence on colonial science and the revolutionary generation.

Ben Franklin is the most significant figure discussed by Lyon. He developed an appreciation early in life for the value of skilled labor, he was a printer himself, and he maintained this even as he became America’s most famous scientist and the new nation’s representative in Europe. Franklin’s influence in the American scientific community was huge even though he spent years in Europe; his connections to European scientists were part of the reason for his influence at home.

Franklin and his compatriots saw a great value in encouraging and disseminating useful information in science and engineering, especially if it might increase the productivity of American agriculture and manufacturing. Franklin founded one of the earliest scientific societies in the colonies and it eventually had many imitators. He also supported the establishment of what eventually became the University of Pennsylvania, though he broke with the other organizers when his emphasis on utility conflicted with their desire to provide an education focused on classical languages in the European mold.

Though Franklin was not trying to establish institutions that would lead to the revolution, he and many who worked with him did it anyway. Franklin and his Quaker neighbors preferred education in useful knowledge and trades. Many colonial scientists were self-taught and learned on their farms and workshops. They saw little value in the classical education popular in Europe that distinguished the aristocracy and upper class from others, but did little in their minds to suit a person for a role of value in the community. Americans needed to get stuff done and they didn’t care much about a person’s pedigree. This opened up opportunities for people of low social status to grow in wealth and influence. (Even in Europe, amateur scientists from many classes were common and it especially leveled the social ground around England’s coffeehouses.)

Franklin’s circle of mechanics and part-time scientists influenced the generation that followed them. Franklin’s personal reputation allowed him to be a leader in that generation who became the founders of the United States. The emphasis on practicality and experience, with the accompanying devaluing of ancient authorities in dead languages, influenced American political thought as well as its science, technology and education. The connections he made as a postmaster and scientific communicator also formed a model for the political influencers of his time.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Common Sense by Thomas Paine

46 Pages by Scott Liell

Newton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson

Lyons, Jonathan. The Society for Useful Knowledge: How Benjamin Franklin and His Friends Brought the Enlightenment to America. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

David Shenk has good news. Geniuses aren’t born, and very few of us have genetic limitation on our capacities.  Just to make sure you get it, his book is entitled The Genius in All of Us.

Shenk challenges the notion that genius, talent, and the potential to excel in a field is something a few people are born with, lucky people who hit the jackpot in the genetic lottery.  He is not entirely an advocate of nurture in the nature-versus-nurture debate.  He looks at new science that suggests that that is a false notion to begin with.  Traits, including intelligence, develop form the interaction of genes and the environment.

Genes are not a blueprint that determine out traits.  Genes influence our reaction to the environment.   The environment influences the expression of our genes.  It’s complex.  Shenk devote a chapter to epigenetics.  This is material in our cells that protect and support the function of our genes.  Our epigenes influence the expression of our genes, are influenced by the environment, and most astounding are hereditable.  Environmental and behavioral factors can change the epigenes in ways that are passed on to offspring for generations and affect the expression of genes in those offspring.

Unless we have some unusual genetic disorder, the lesson of this book is that our genes are just one card in the hand we are dealt, and genes are not necessarily the most important card.  Genes are important, but so are a lot of other things.  Our traits are malleable, shaped by genes, environment, and behavior, and to the degree that we can influence those things we can change our traits.  We can become geniuses.

The bad news is the road to genius is not an easy one.  Mozart and Michael Jordon have in common that they put in a lot of time over a many years deliberately practicing and improving their skills.  Beethoven and Yo-Yo Ma may seem like born prodigies, but they were surrounded my music, music teachers, encouragement, challenges, competition, high expectations, and opportunities from birth.  Abundant practice and continuing improvement from early childhood helped them become very competent musicians as children, and many more years of deliberate practice, commitment, and mentoring resulted in the genius they exhibited as adults.

Based on this, Shenk presents a chapter on how to become a genius.  Genius may not be quite the right word, especially if you starting something later in life after years of thinking you had little ability.  However, I think his advice is likely to lead to great improvement, even above normal success and excellence.  The first piece of advice is to find your motivation.  If you have the motivation to devote a lot of time to practice, and the commitment push yourself to always seek improvement, you will get better and with time will be excellent.  Shenk also has a lot to say about how this information can help parents and educators see the potential in children and contribute to the development of their traits and their success in any field.

I was very impressed with this surprisingly short book.  Actually, if you include the extensive notes, which are worth reading, it is not a short book.  It opened my eyes to a new, and I think more fruitful, way of looking at the way people develop.

Shenk, David.  The Genius in All of Us:  Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genetic, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong.  New York: Doubleday, 2010.

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King James Bible Celebrates 400th Anniversary

The King James Bible was first published 400 years ago, in 1611, after four years of translation by the best Greek and Hebrew scholars in Britain. The King James Bible went on to have a great influence on the English language (much like Shakespeare, who was writing his plays at about the same time). It was the official Bible of the English church and became a popular translation throughout the English-speaking world, especially in America.



I grew up hearing the King James Bible, with some mid-18th Century revisions, read in church. It was the Bible I read when I first began to study it for myself (I usually read the New King James Version now). I think its influence on my speech and thought can still be heard from me, just like the remnants of my Bootheel accent.

The King James Bible can be tough reading. The language has changed in the last 400 years. Because it was officially a revision of an earlier translation, it was a bit stodgy, formal and dated even for its time. Mostly, it was considered an incredible, accessible, beautiful and even poetic translation in its time. Even the modern ear can detect the carefulness and cleverness of the language, the sense of rhythm, mood, and storytelling. The scholars who produced this translation wanted it to be both faithful to the original language and great writing in English. It was to be read from in the churches across England, so they wanted to sound good.

In addition to enjoying the Bible, I’ve had the pleasure of reading some histories that cover the translation of the Bible into English, especially the King James Bible. Here is a selection.

Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution it Inspired by Benson Bobrick

Benson Bobrick tells two related stories side by side. One is the history of the translation of the Bible into English, culminating with the King James Bible. The second is how the concept of religious liberty, greatly tied into Bible translation, fueled thought on personal and political liberty, leading to reforms in the English government and the formation of American political thought.

Certain people serve as pins on which Bobrick hangs his narrative: John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Miles Coverdale, and King James I. Tyndale prepared an influential translation of the Bible with the support and protection of a group of English wool merchants with ties to European Lutherans. The protection was not complete and Tyndale was executed after being convicted of heresy in the Netherlands for espousing Protestant views. When England became officially Protestant under Henry VIII, Coverdale translated and published English Bibles with official approval. Coverdale’s work, and the legal sanctions for it, prepared the way for the Authorized Bible that would take form in the reign of James I.



In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How it Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture by Alister McGrath

Alister McGrath lays the groundwork for his history of the King James Bible in the Protestant Reformation and the invention of the printing press. He then presents the history related to the King James Bible itself. Like Bobrick, McGrath wraps up with the influence of this translation, though he focuses more on language and culture than politics.



God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible by Adam Nicolson

Nicolson focuses more specifically on the King James Bible and the men who prepared it than the other authors previously discussed. His choice to write less about what came before and after the King James Bible gave him room to write more about the translators, their work, personalities, and place in the spectrum of the English Reformation.



Majestie: The King Behind the King James Bible by Teems, David

This biography of King James includes several chapters on the translation he authorized. Its also provides interesting background on the man and the political and cultural climate of the times. A 17th century boy-king was not a very pleasant thing to be, and James’ journey to adulthood and monarchal power was full of danger. Teems’ style is less formal than some of the other authors on this subject.

Kirby by Mark Evanier

Jack Kirby, born Jacob Kurtzberg in 1917, picked up the nickname King when he was young. That is not the only reason Mark Evanier applies the title to him in Kirby: King of Comics. Kirby was one of the most influential creators in comics over the course of his long career, beginning in 1938 at the Eisner-Iger shop, which began in the early days of the medium.

Kirby is a coffee table book, full of images from Kirby’s work. Though Evanier’s biography of Kirby is interesting, I suspect these images, some of them large, full-page reproduction were always conceived as a major selling point of the book. Kirby was a professional artist, mostly in comics, his entire career, which was long, so it only makes sense that you need to see a selection of his drawings to understand why he had such an impact on comics.

You can see Kirby’s influence everywhere in comics, especially superhero comics. He worked for both Marvel and DC at different times, and had a hand in creating or co-creating many popular characters and settings.

More than that, he had an influence on the style and visual language of comics that writers and artist still used today. He was one of the first comic book artists to break away from strip layouts (carried over from newspaper comics) to designing for a full page. His characters busted through the panels. His drawings were dynamic and suggested powerful motion; this is a striking characteristic of his work that is discussed by nearly everyone who writes about Kirby. I find his drawings can seem strangely flattened out and dimensional at the same time.

Because Kirby worked for so long, on so many comics, for so many publishers, and had such an influence on the artists who grew up reading his work, you’ll still see many Kirby touches in current comics. I see them in the depiction of technology, the design of characters and costumes, the framing of action scenes, and even the continued use of Kirby dots (especially at DC, no doubt because they just look so cool).

He was an innovator who introduced new types of images into comics, such as collage, and new genres, such as romance. He even foresaw the future of the comic books, pushing his publishers for better quality material and printing, new formats, longer stories, and new ways to market and sell comics. Publishers balked at the cost of such innovations at the time, but many of the changes Kirby predicted and sought for the industry eventually came to pass.

Kirby is known mainly as an artist, but he was also a writer. It may be fair to say that Kirby couldn’t leave a script alone and regularly modified scripts he was adapting to drawings. His solo writing was packed with big ideas and wild concepts and sometimes had trouble finding large audience in his day, though these comics have often done well when collected and reprinted. I do not think it unfair to say that some of his best work was collaborations with other writers. For much of the first half of his career, he partnered with writer Joe Simon, with whom he created Captain America and romance comics. In the 1960s, he collaborated with Stan Lee at to co-create much of what is now the Marvel Universe.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Comic Book Nation by Bradford W. Wright

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones

Stan Lee by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Will Eisner by Michael Schumacher

Evanier, Mark. Kirby: King of Comics. New York: Abrams, 2008.

The Imperial Cruise by James Bradley

In 1905, then Secretary of War William Taft and a host of other American dignitaries took a tour of Pacific islands and Asian nations. James Bradley tells the story of this trip, along with the wider contest of President Theodore Roosevelt’s policies toward Pacific expansion and Asia, in The Imperial Cruise.

Roosevelt, with Taft as his right hand, engaged in secret diplomacy with Japan. The Senate would not have approved a treaty with Japan with terms Roosevelt wanted, and his own State Department would have strongly advised against his course. So Roosevelt sent Taft to consummate a secret deal that he could never acknowledge.

By the time Taft set sail, Japan was already responding to interactions with the West. It was remaking itself into an industrialized, militarized country in the western mold. Roosevelt saw in them American-friendly, quasi-civilized people who could expand Anglo-Saxon virtues into Asia without slipping out from under Anglo-American influence. As with almost everything related to the Pacific and Asian peoples, Roosevelt was very shortsighted.

In reading about the early 20^th Century, I’ve been struck by the pervasiveness of racism. Bradley explains how Roosevelt viewed everything through a racial lens. These were racial lenses were proudly worn by white elites at the time. The key to history was racial history. They saw the birth of civilization in the Middle East with the Aryans, who began moving west. Around the Mediterranean, where the Aryans mixed with other races, civilizations degenerated. In Germany, pure Aryans gave rise to Teutons, who inherited Aryan civilizing with values of democracy and individualism. These Teutons moved west and were further perfected in the Anglo-Saxons. Anglo-Saxon civilization leapt across the Atlantic and push aside the savages of North America. To Roosevelt, Manifest Destiny had not closed with the conquering of the continent; it was ready to spread into the Pacific. White men would continue to spread their civilizing influence, subjugating or exterminating lesser, browner races when necessary as white Americans had done to their Indian wards. White elites like Roosevelt saw their westward destiny in this racial history, and it was further confirm by science in Darwinian survival of the fittest.

History and science refute such notions now. Bradley (and I) certainly don’t try to justify the attitudes or actions of Roosevelt, Taft or others. Bradley is plainly critical of handling of Pacific islands and Asia. Roosevelt’s racial views blinded him to the abilities and patriotism of non-whites. He had the hubris to pursue diplomacy on his own, secretly, without advice from the State Department, Senate or anyone else who might raise the slightest objection or concern. He tutored Japan in the ways of western imperialism, but could not imagine how well they would learn the lessons. Bradley places at least some of the blame for World War II in the Pacific at the feet of Roosevelt, whose interventions created the powerful military empire we faced in those waters.

Roosevelt was an astute manager of his image and he understood public relations. Because of this, he sent his oldest (and nearly estranged) daughter Alice on the trip. She was a celebrity, and her presence assured a lot of press coverage. Her presence was also a distraction from Taft’s secret mission.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

The Fifth Heart by Dan Simmons

First Samuel

Life is So Good by George Dawson & Richard Glaubman

Planck by Brandon R. Brown

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose

Water by Steven Solomon

Bradley, James. The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009.

Faith by Jimmy Carter

President Jimmy Carter is well known for his Christian faith. Excepting a handful of famous pastors, Carter is one of the few Americans who is known as a Christian almost as much as he is known for other things; this is especially extraordinary for a former president.

Faith is the title and subject of his recent book. He addresses religious faith, but other types of faith are important to him as well.

For instance, each person need faith in himself to take action with hope to achieve positive results. We need faith in each other to live, work and trade together peaceably.

We even need some degree of faith in government. If we hope to achieve the ultimate purposes of government, justice, equality under the law and peace, we have to believe it can be done. Especially in a republic we need to believe we can achieve these goals through our institutions, laws and the people we elect to represent us.

“A country will have authority and influence because of moral factors, not its military strength; because it can be humble and not blatant and arrogant, because our peple and our country want to serve others and not dominate others. And a nation without morality will soon lose its influence around the world.”-Jimmy Carter, Faith (quoting a speech he presented in 1978)

There are also personal goals that require faith. Justice and equality may be the highest goals we can expect from government, but we want more. If we also hope for love, humility, generosity and kindness, we need another kind of faith.

For many, including Carter, this is religious faith. We find in religion reasons to believe that things like love are real and worthy of pursuing, even if we don’t always get it right.

For Christians, this faith is founded on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the proof of God’s loving mercy and grace. It all starts with God, and we can hope to be better people through the empowerment of God and our grateful response to His love demonstrated in Jesus Christ. As Carter puts it, “It is not what we do for God that is important but what God does for us. Faith brings about good works, but doing good things does not result in faith."

For Carter, Jesus is worthy of consideration as an example of the ideal in human character. Being like Christ is being a better human being. As a Christian and Protestant, Carter believes he has a personal relationship with an ever-present Christ. The faith that underlies Carter’s career and achievements as a politician, philanthropist and peacemaker is that he does not walk alone, but he walks with a living Christ and with other believers who seek to follow Him and see His good will done in our time.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Defining Noah Webster by K. Alan Snyder

The Faith of JFK edited by T. S. Settel

God and Ronald Reagan by Paul Kengor

Hebrews

The Language of God by Francis S. Collins

Carter, Jimmy. Faith: A Journey for All. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018.

That we think of progress at all shows the extent of the influence of Christianity upon us

That we think of progress at all shows the extent of the influence of Christianity upon us.

-John Macmurray, The Clue of History

I am convinced that words or names often have more influence on the mass of men than things

From more than fifty years’ observation, I am convinced that words or names often have more influence on the mass of men than things, and that the abuse and misapplication of terms may counteract the best, and promote the worst, political measures.

-Noah Webster

What I Read (6)

Date: October 31, 2005
Title: Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps: Empires of Time Author: Peter Galison
Thoughts: It’s amazing how many things, ideas, philosophy, technology, science, can come together within people to revolutionize our understanding of the world.

Date: November 2, 2005
Title: How We Got Here
Author: Andy Kessler
Thoughts: Tongue in cheek. Readable. Interesting.

Date: November 16, 2005
Title: Sea of Glory Author: Nathaniel Philbrook
Thoughts: A great adventure turned cautionary tale. Wilkes certainly had determination, perseverance and dedication. He lacked character, integrity and patience. With what he had he accomplished something great, and by sad display of what he lacked he denied himself the fame he sought.

Date: December 4, 2005
Title: The Power of Positive Thinking Author: Norman Vincent Peale
Thoughts: I’m going to improve my thinking and keep at it. I’m going to do what it takes to have the good life I desire.

Date: January 1, 2006
Title: Simple Pictures Are Best
Author: Nancy Willard, illustrations by Tomie De Paola
Thoughts: Possibly my favorite book. It has influence me more than any book except the Bible. I am a firm believer in simplicity.

My parents got me a copy as a child and I’ve always remembered it.

Date: January 3, 2006
Title: The Millionaire Maker Author: Loral Langemeier
Thoughts: I’m looking forward to being a millionaire. Even more, I’m looking forward to financial freedom.

Date: January 10, 2006
Title: IBM and the Holocaust
Author: Edwin Black
Thoughts: Heavenly Father, keep me always aware of the eternal value of righteousness and justice.

Date: January 16, 2006
Title: No More Christian Nice Guy Author: Paul Coughlin
Thoughts: “God is an odds-breaker—He loves that game, and when you flex even a small amount of faith, he’ll open doors for you” (quote from the book).

Date: January 16, 2006
Title: Starting from Scratch
Author: Wes Moss
Thoughts: I’m starting a successful business, too.

Other parts of What I Read:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

What I Read (2)

Date: March 9, 2005
Title: Doing Work You Love
Author: Cheryl Gilman
Thoughts: I was encouraged most by Gilman’s own story—a job hopper who pieced together what she really wanted, started her own business and did well in it. I’m looking forward to having a similar story.


Date: March 17, 2005
Title: The Road to Serfdom
Author: F. A. Hayek
Thoughts: I think we were designed to be free to largely govern ourselves, for conscious and love to be our law. When we fell, God authorized some to use force to restrain and punish wrongdoers. Now it seems government restrains everyone in everything. As important as it is to submit to proper authority, authorities must stay within their bounds.


Authors I adore:
Walker Percy
Zig Ziglar
John C. Maxwell
Isaac Asimov
Norman Vincent Peale
C. S. Lewis
J. R. R. Tolkien
Dava Sobel
Edwin Black
Dashiell Hammett
G. K. Chesterton
John Steinbeck
Raymond Chandler

Date: April 14, 2005
Title: Winning with People
Author: John C. Maxwell
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Date: April 14, 2005
Title: How Full is Your Bucket?
Author: Tom Rath
Thoughts: It is amazing how the themes of love, the golden rule, giving and receiving, sowing and reaping, looking for good in others, focusing on what is worthwhile, and building up others leads to more success for you and those you influence.

Live the life God calls you to and all is really good.



Date: April 22, 2005
Title: You Can if You Think You Can
Author: Norman Vincent Peale
Thoughts: Through this book, the Bible, and other things I’ve read and heard, I believe God is transforming me into the man He designed me to be—better than I can now imagine.


Date: April 23, 2005
Title: The Sacred Romance
Author: Brian Curtis & John Eldredge
Thoughts: “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard what God has in store for his lovers does not mean “we have no clue so don’t even try to imagine,” but rather, you cannot outdream God” (quote from the book).

John Eldredge also wrote Epic and Walking with God.


Other parts of What I Read:
Part 1

Second Kings

In the Hebrew Bible, First and Second Kings are one book.  Collectively, they are a history of the Israelite monarchy.   During most of this period, it is dual monarchies because two southern tribes make up the kingdom of Judah, the remaining tribes being Israel.

Second Kings covers a period of about 250 years.  It begins in the reign of Ahaziah.  It ends with the fall of Judah to Babylon.

Fall is an appropriate word.  The book describes the decline of the Israelite monarchy.  It is strongly associated with moral decline and apostasy.  Israel was called out to be God’s people.  Instead, they worshiped the gods of the people who occupied the land before them or of their neighbors.  Sometimes this idol worship was introduced and encouraged by the kings.  Some of the practices associated with these foreign religions included temple prostitution, sodomy, and child sacrifice.

When God established ancient Israel as a nation, he made a covenant with them.  If they followed Him, He would cause them to prosper in the land He gave to them.  If they did not, and especially if they abandoned Him to worship other gods and do evil, he would cut them off from the land and let their enemies overcome them.  That is exactly what happened.

Israel, the northern kingdom, succumbed first.  It fell during the reign of Hoshea.  It became a vassal state to Assyria.  More than that, the Assyrians removed the Israelite population to other lands and resettled Israel with people from across its empire.  Chapter 17 is an indictment against Israel, listing its crimes the judgment of expulsion from the land.

God did not let Israel go easily.  Much of the first half of the book is devoted to the exploits of Elijah and Elisha.  These prophets called people back to God and stood up against the influence of false religions.  Later, Isaiah would warn against the coming captivity to Assyria.

Judah held out longer, in part probably because of fitful reforms by kings such as Hezekiah and Josiah.   None of the kings of Israel committed themselves to god, but some of the kings of Judah turned their hearts to God, restoring the worship of God and sometimes even breaking down the idols of false gods.  Even so, they fell like their brothers to the north.

Babylon was the empire that overtook Judah during the reign of Zedekiah.  Zedekiah himself was appointed by Babylon after it took his nephew Jehoiachin as a prisoner.  Babylon also moved much of the population.  The poor were left to tend the farms, but anyone with status, military skill, training in crafts, or education was moved to Babylon to serve there.  The Israelite monarchy was finally broken and replaced with a Babylonian governor.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Deuteronomy

First and Second Samuel

First Kings

Second Kings.  The Holy Bible.  New King James Version.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

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A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

L’Engle, Madeleine.  A Wrinkle in Time.  1962.  New York: Laurel-Leaf, 1976.

Though I review all the nonfiction books I read, I write about only a little about fiction.  Sometimes a fiction book hits so many areas of interest to me that I want to write about it.  A Wrinkle in Time is one.  It’s a classic, award-winning novel.  It’s a children’s or young adult book, and one is never too old for a good kid’s book.  It’s science fiction.  It’s informed by author Madeleine L’Engle’s Christian faith.

Margaret (Meg) Murphy is an awkward girl who doesn’t fit in.  Her family is unusual, too.  Her father is missing, though Meg stubbornly clings to hope that he will come home.  Her mother is a scientists, caring but somewhat unconventional.  Two of her brothers, twins, are pretty normal, if a little rough, and the third, the youngest, is a genius and most people find him unpleasantly odd.

Meg, her genius baby brother Charles Wallace and Calvin O’Keefe (an older, popular boy who keeps his oddness better wrapped) are pulled into an adventure in space by three creatures, seeming witches, aliens and more.  On another planet, they rescue Meg’s father and almost succumb to the powerful mind that rules the planet.  It is the things Meg dislikes most about herself that allows her to prevail.

A Wrinkle in Time is an adventure.  It is also a parable.  Part of the message is Christian.  The universe is God’s creation for His glory, and good creatures acknowledge and worship Him.  Yet there is evil, and Earth is infected with it.  Love overcomes evil.

It is tempting to see a political message.  On the world Meg visits, Camazotz, a single being rules all, taking responsibility for every decision, instilling uniformity so that everybody has the same things.  It is not hard to see this as a parallel to a communist state, where the government controls and distributes all resources.  It sounds like the nanny state as well, where people are relieved of the responsibilities of caring for themselves and making their own decisions.

It is this last point that I think is important to L’Engle whether or not is has political implications.  We are made to be individuals, unique and special, and we cannot be separated from responsibility for ourselves and our decisions and still have real joy, even if we have everything we seem to need.  When the “aunts” give gifts to the adventurers to prepare them for their trial, they give Meg her faults.  As Christians, we believe that everyone is uniquely made by God.  Our faults, shortcomings, imperfections make us needy of God’s grace, and His grace abounds in us to His glory.

In addition, IT, the mind-lord of Camazotz, is a finite being with finite imagination, thus the uniformity of the planet IT rules.  God is infinite, and His creation has enormous variety, abundance, scope and beauty beyond your imagination.  We can love, serve, and worship one God, we can all be imitators of Christ, and still each be a unique individual.

Before closing, I’d like to mention another Christian sci-fi classic, The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis.  There are some parallels between the works.  For instance, both L’Engle and Lewis, in Out of the Silent Planet, depict Earth as darkened and separated from communion with the larger universe because of the influence of human sin and the dominion of Satan.  IT, a big brain, reminds me of the Head from Lewis’ That Hideous Strength.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

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Rising Tide by James M. Barry

The Mississippi River is powerful. I’ve seen it. I grew up in the northern tip of the river’s delta and now live near one of its major tributaries. John M. Barry’s history of the 1927 flood of the Mississippi, Rising Tide, is only partly about the power of the river. It is more about the power of men, particularly the political power of the men who have tried to exert control over the river.

The first political battle related to the river took place in the 19^th Century. It was a conflict between the nation’s military engineering establishment and their increasingly influential civilian counterparts over who would control Mississippi River policy. The principal actors and figureheads for the two sides were Andrew A. Humphreys, chief of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, and James B. Eads, St. Louis-based civil engineer. The Corp largely won this battle, maintaining a controlling voice in river policy, but the resulting agency, the Mississippi River Commission, adopted a theory of practice that neither Humphreys or Eads supported. It would lead to floods on the river becoming increasingly bad.

That conflict doesn’t completely disappear, but it is overtaken by the greater flow of money, politics, society, and race, mostly centered in New Orleans, Mississippi’s Yazoo Valley, and Washington, DC. It is hard to give each player his due in a brief review of Barry’s book. Barry focuses on Leroy Percy, who had great influence on river policy before, during and after the flood. He was a planter in the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta and, briefly, a U.S. Senator from Mississippi. He was also a relative of Walker Percy, one of my favorite authors.

The flood made political careers and had lasting effects. President Calvin Coolidge appointed his Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, to lead relief efforts after the flood. The publicity and public goodwill that accrued to Hoover during this period helped to usher him into the White House as Coolidge’s successor. Hoover’s lack of follow-through on promises to black leaders created a crack between in the relationship between African-American’s and the Republican Party that led to a serious split.

Huey P. Long also owed some of his success to the flood and its aftermath. New Orleans business leaders promised to provide relief to neighbors who would be flooded by the dynamiting of levees to protect the city. Afterward, these men did everything they could to minimize their liability and did not even pay one-tenth of the cost of damages caused by the flooding. Long rode a wave of resentment against New Orleans aristocrats into the Louisiana governor’s office. Once there, he used his position to strip the New Orleans elite of as much power as he could. As the city elites became more insular and focused on protecting what they had, rather than growing their businesses and community, New Orleans lost its position as the leading city of the South as other more welcoming cities grew.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman

Blue Revolution by Cynthia Barnett

Canals and Their Architecture by Robert Harris

Elixir by Brian Fagan

Life's Matrix by Philip Ball

Steam by Andrea Sutcliffe

Superman versus the Ku Klux Klan by Rick Bowers

Water by Marq de Villiers

Water by Steven Solomon

When the Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce

Barry, James M. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Comic Art in America by Stephen Becker

Cartoons did not originate in the United States, but Americans were innovative in the art, and its artists invented the newspaper comic strip and comic book. Stephen Becker wrote a survey of American comics of all types from their origins until his book was published in 1959: Comic Art in America.

Becker covers every type of cartoon in the book. Comic strips get a lot of attention because that is where a lot of the development occurred and gave rise to something distinctly American. Though comic strips are a thread throughout, Becker devotes chapters to editorial cartoons, single-panel humor and even animation.

Many of the comics Becker discusses are still published today, such as Beatle Bailey and Blondie. Others are well-known because of their former popularity or lasting influence: Krazy Kat, Terry and the Pirates, Flash Gordon. Others are largely forgotten, even if they were pioneers of their time that shaped the work of others or the popular taste. Fans of particular types of cartooning may notice omissions that seem glaring, at least in hindsight; the chapter on comic books makes no mention of Will Eisner, though perhaps his fame stems more form later work.

Of course, the intent was not to be exhaustive. It’s a single volume, not an encyclopedia. As a survey for a general audience, it works very well. At the time, it probably reminded readers of old favorites that had fallen out of print. It might introduce modern readers to those old masters for the first time. Necessarily it does not address some of the great work that came out after it was published; I suspect Becker would have been delighted by Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, as many of us are.

Becker was primarily a fiction writer. Comic Art in America is very informative, but it is not primarily an academic book. Neither does Becker come off as entirely fan-ish, though he certainly has the tone of someone who enjoys comics and finds them interesting, especially humor and editorial comics from newspapers and magazines. He mixes commentary with history and spices things up gossipy tidbits.

The book was published in a larger format to accommodate reproduction of comics that originally appeared in an even larger broadsheet newspaper. Though it has the look of a coffee table book, it is not dominated by images. The images are an accompaniment to the text. Even so, one can enjoy it for the comics reproduced in it, though many are of their time and may not make much sense without the context provided by Becker.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

American Splendor (Film)

Kirby by Mark Evanier

Miss Mizzou by J. B. Winter

The Spirit by Darwyn Cook

Why Comics? by Hilary Chute

Becker, Stephen. Comic Art in America: A Social History of the Funnies, the Political Cartoons, Magazine Humor, Sporting Cartoons and Animated Cartoons. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959.