Expansionist Views

In Larry Gara's The Presidency of Franklin Pierce, he makes clear how the United States has long entertained "expansionist views", especially when it comes to various countries both north and south of our present borders. Strange, but true.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

"Indeed, a limited civil war was already raging in Kansas." -- Larry Gara

So could the violence and bloodshed that resulted from passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act maybe have been avoided had President Pierce been more even-handed in his policies toward the new territories? 

Diaries

I really appreciate seeing these snippets of handwriting from various diaries in Rebecca Donner's book.

Bonhoeffer

"Dietrich Bonhoeffer is inside the Castle Church in Wittenberg listening to Bishop Müller blabber on about the glories of Hitler." - Rebecca Donner

Fascinating & Disturbing

Finished reading Mark Braude's The Typewriter and the Guillotine last night. A very interesting take on life in France both before and during WWII as told through the lives of a journalist, Janet Flanner, and, rather shockingly, a serial killer, Eugen Weidmann. As fascinating as it is disturbing. 

Orgeval - Bordeaux

  

In Braude's The Typewriter and the Guillotine, Janet Flanner flees Paris to Orgeval (marked), then to the port city of Bordeaux, hoping there to catch a ship back to the United States.

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days

Spotted this in my local bookstore and wondered if I might also find it in my public library. Huzzah! It was there and, better yet, available, perhaps because it was first published in 2021. 

Totalitarianism

It happened. (From Mark Baude's The Typewriter and the Guillotine) 

Hitler

"Her [Janet Flanner's] harshest criticism was that Hitler 'has mystical tendencies, no common sense, and a Wagnerian taste for heroics and death. He was born loaded with vanities andhas developed megalomania as his final decoration.'" - Mark Braude, The Typewriter and the Guillotine

Indians

 

  

"Fighting Indians provided a considerable amount of the United States' early nineteenth-century military experience, and much of that activity occurred during the Pierce years."

The Typewriter and the Guillotine

Brutal and gruesome opening chapter, so I had to temporarily put it down. Subsequent chapters, however, have kept me coming back for more.

The Election of 1852

 Gara's opening sentence in chapter 2 had me comparing our distance from the events of WWII to the distance of Franklin Pierce's election from the American Revolution.

Free Soilers & More

Free Soilers, Barnburners, Hunkers, Whigs, Democrats...oh my! How does anyone even begin to grasp the complexities of mid-19th century American politics! Evidently Larry Gara does in his "The Presidency of Franklin Pierce."

Private Ron Beal

I really appreciate how David O'Keefe concluded his book, One Day in August, with Private Ron Beal of the Royal Regiment of Canada "In 2012, after the real reasons for the Dieppe Raid were revealed to him, he said: 'Now I can die in peace. Now I know what my friends died for.'"

Franklin Pierce

Name just one thing you can remember learning about Franklin Pierce's presidency? Right. Well, you probably have a better memory than I have, 'cause I couldn't think of a single thing when I spotted this 1991 publication on my local library's shelf. So here goes one man's attempt to rescue Pierce from almost total obscurity.

Declassified Records

Still eagerly waiting to see the full extent of what declassified records say about what actually happened at Dieppe in O'Keefe's account.

Braude & Gara

Another trek to the library, this time to pick up Mark Braude's just recently released book and, while I was there, Larry Gara's biography of Franklin Pierce, first published way back in 1991.

Order of Battle

 So what went wrong? I guess I'll only find out by reading further in O'Keefe's "One Day in August".