"Dreamers and Deceivers" by Glenn Beck (2014) HISTORICAL FICTION

This is not a non-fiction book. But that's where it is being filed in the library and in book stores. It is what is known as “historical fiction” according to Mr. Beck; but that in itself is an overstatement. Historical fiction is a genre in which true events are used as a backdrop for a story. What Mr. Beck does is to take actual people; inventors, politicians and the like; and make up whole conversations and thoughts based solely on what he believes occurred. 

Actually, it is a fiction to think that this book was even written by Mr. Beck. At the end; in the section where even Mr. Beck refers to this work as “historical fiction”; he speaks of the “teams” he used to cull other peoples books and biographies to re-write them in a way which will “clarify” for the reader what the original author really meant.

Reading the chapter about Desi Arnaz is nothing more than reading a book report of Mr. Arnaz’ brilliant autobiography “A Book.” It is the same with all of the other chapters. And some of the source notes for the chapters are really almost funny.  For instance, in the notes on the chapter dealing with Edwin Armstrong; the inventor of the radio receiver which revolutionized Marconi’s wireless, as well as FM radio itself; actually read, “From an imagined conversation.”  I’m not kidding you.

This is a continuation of a troubling trend (nice bit of alliteration there) which began when the book “Dutch” was published several years ago. That book was purported to be an autobiography of Ronald Reagan as imagined by the author, who was not Ronald Reagan.

Rush Limbaugh uses horses that talk in his books “Rush Revere.” That’s okay. Those are children’s books and we all know; or should know; those horses and other animals cannot talk. That’s historical fiction. And it serves a purpose in getting children interested in reading about the actual events later on.

"Gone With the Wind" is a perfect example of historical fiction; wherein real life events serve as the backdrop to a fictitious story. Lincoln and Lee are only names in the film; and Shiloh and Gettysburg are merely names of distant battles.“Shogun” and any other number of other books also come to mind. None of which contain real people doing and saying anything. While the King may be real in “A Prince and a Pauper”, we know that the book is fiction. It is labelled that way. Even in “The Bridge Over the River Kwai”, by Pierre Boulle; which is a fictional tale about the real bridge; the author uses fictional names for the characters. (By the way, Boulle also wrote "The Planet of the Apes.")

Books like this one by Mr. Beck do a great disservice to serious history; as they will be read largely by adults who will then not read the books written by the original authors and biographers who have already carefully chronicled the true events. And, naturally, fans of Mr. Beck's TV show will be taking his books to be the "gospel" on the subjects they purport to be about. That's troubling. Also, consider the younger readers who will take this book to be all fact..

What troubles me most though is that the real stories no longer seem to be of interest to the average reader. The books have to be suggested by Oprah; or else re-written by "talking heads" like Mr. Beck. Certainly there is an agenda at work in these projects. And, even with a team of researchers and writers, Mr. Beck's book has Neil Armstrong broadcasting from the surface of the Moon in 1968. For the benefit of those who might not be old enough to remember, we didn't land there until 1969. With an error like that, how am I to trust him in the chapter about something as complicated as the Alger Hiss case?

Having a team of researchers distill the essence of other people’s writings and experiences; while adding conversations and motives not attributable to any real source other than “imaginary”; only serves to slant history and dumb the reader down. I will be asking my library to please file these types of books under Fiction, where they clearly belong. This is not just my opinion. Even the author says so on page 285. 

While the author has the perfect right to pen whatever he chooses to, he also has the responsibility to see that the book is not misrepresented as something it is not. While Mr. Beck may be blameless; leaving the publisher at fault initially; surely Mr. Beck noticed that his book was listed and reviewed as Non- Fiction rather than Historical Fiction, and yet chose to do nothing about it. 

Note: Having read almost all of the books referenced in "Dreamers and Deceivers", I was unable to finish reading this one. I made it to the end of Chapter 2 before looking at the source notes and confirming my suspicions that this is merely a collection of highly imaginative book reports. I then skimmed through the remainder of the book, which did not improve in regards to being "imagined history" rather than a collection of true biographical sketches.

However, the book is registered with the Library of Congress as a Biography; and I have registered my concerns with them about whether or not this book should even be classified as Non-Fiction, let alone as Biography. 

Here is the reply I received last Tuesday from the Library of Congress. It would appear that the book was presented by the Publisher as something which it is not.

"The original record (you see it as Cataloging in Publication Data printed on the copyright page of the book) is created pre-publication based on the minimal information provided by the publisher.  Hopefully we got the cover info, title page, copyright page, table of contents, preface, and first chapter.  We did not have page 285.  If you look at our record, one of the summaries provided by the publisher says, "The new nonfiction from #1 bestselling author and popular radio and television host Glenn Beck" and the other says, "Glenn Beck provides stories of the people who built America and the people who sought to destroy it." The table of contents provides chapter titles that show no sign of fiction.*  So to say the book is "so poorly cataloged" isn't exactly correct based on what the publisher provided to LC.  It is difficult enough to catalog with minimal information and the publisher providing incorrect information will be reflected in what you see."

David Williamson
Cataloging Automation Specialist
Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate
Library of Congress
Washington, D.C. 20540

* The original e-mail from Mr. Williamson stated "non-fiction" here in error. It was corrected later by a subsequent e-mail from him. For the sake of brevity I have inserted and highlighted the correction.

End Note: I have contacted the publisher; Simon and Schuster; about this issue and as of this writing they have chosen not to respond.

"Hiroshima Nagasaki" by Paul Ham (2014)

This is a fascinating book. I say that because it fascinates me the way that two people; in this case the author and myself; can take the same facts and reach two completely separate conclusions about an event. But that is exactly the case with this book. It’s not revisionist history per se; he doesn't change any of the facts; he merely interprets them in a way to make the point that nuclear weapons are bad; and by extension; that the United States is evil for having used them to end the War in the Pacific. So, we are left to examine the facts.

Mr. Ham makes the argument that we killed 130,000 people; that is the death toll from the immediate aftermath of both bombs; in cold blood, knowing that the Japanese had no way left to fight. He makes this assertion in spite of their still drafting 15 year olds as Kamikazes to fly wooden planes to be used as suicide bombs. The Emperor had already declared his opposition to the Potsdam Agreement of July, which stated that Japan would be subject to all the military might of the combined allies should they fail to surrender.

The Emperor and his military staff knew that Russia was about to invade; bringing with her all the hatred stored up since 1905 war between the two.  The author makes the claim that Japan would have had to surrender under this pressure from the Soviets; completely ignoring what the post war world would have looked like for both Japan and the rest of the world. Japan would probably have become another North Korea; or become subject to colonial control, like Vietnam when it was returned to France. That worked out really well, didn't it? And North Korea continues to be a threat to the world today.

One alternative would have been to continue the use of the incendiary bombings which killed 100,000 a night. The author is also critical of those raids as being inhumane. I have heard these claims before, in connection to the fire bombings of Dresden in Germany. Had we continued with those raids over Japan while the Emperor still refused to surrender, the death rate would have been much higher than even the long term death rate by the effects of the two nuclear bombs.

Moreover, the raids would not have been confined to just 2 targets, but rather have been spread over the whole country. This would have been akin to genocide of the Japanese people and Mr. Ham would be writing his book with that in mind. In other words, there is little we could have done to end the war which would have pleased him. In a perfect world the Japanese would have apologized and we would all sing around the campfire again.

But the Japanese Emperor, Hirohito, was still worried about his social position even after the devastation of the first bomb. He had been unwilling to accept the terms of the Potsdam Agreement which called for unconditional surrender. And, even after the first bomb he wanted to wait and see if we had more. The author even documents that himself. In school we were always taught that Tojo was the roadblock to peace; in reality it was the Emperor. And, in the end, he got what he wanted. He was never punished for war crimes; as Hitler certainly would have been. He remained in power until his death decades later.

Since we obviously have different opinions concerning whether or not the United States should have even developed the weapon; although the Nazi’s were working on it and the Soviets were poised to steal that information from them after they had surrendered; I won’t even belabor the differences too much. Suffice to say that if we had abandoned our efforts to obtain the bomb, then either the Germans would have had it first and won the war; or Germany would have been defeated and the Russians become the custodians of the new weapon. And while we have never used our nuclear weapons to gain new territory, Russia has tried. Remember Cuba? If we hadn't had the bomb how might that one have worked out? And what about Ukraine right now? If we didn't have nuclear weapons then Russia would already have conquered them.

But the biggest problem with this book is how conveniently the author ignores over 12 years of barbarism by the Japanese as they attempted to take over the Eastern hemisphere. As a matter of fact he never acknowledges that this was their goal.  He mentions Pearl Harbor and the Bataan Death March; but there is nary a word about the literal Rape of Nanjing in 1933. Thousands of women were tied to chairs and gang raped to death by the Japanese troops. They even took photos as souvenirs. You can view them online if you doubt me. 

The nuns in the Philippines who had their breasts hacked off with bayonets; the babies speared and stuck to trees. These are not things I am making up. These are the facts of what Japan was doing as part of her Co-Asian Prosperity Sphere. As a matter of fact I don’t remember even seeing that name in the book at all.

It is impossible to write a complete and concise history; let alone a conclusive book; about the bomb without exploring all the aspects of what made the development of such a weapon necessary in the first place. When faced with monsters sometimes it requires doing monstrous things in order to survive. Rather than take the position that we are the evil ones for having defeated these monsters, it is more accurate to blame the monsters of expansionism and the architects of war who put us in that position to begin with.

"American Epic" by Garrett Epps (2013)

I don’t often take exception with a book I have read. I either like it, or I don’t. The rare time that I do give a bad review to a book is usually a reaction on my part to some misinterpretation; or attempt at indoctrination; in a book which concerns history. This reaction is intensified when that book is about the United States Constitution. So, let’s just say that this book; while not an out and out misrepresentation; is, in my opinion, an attempt at indoctrination of the reader to the author’s point of view. And quite simply, that view is that the Constitution is flawed; and though it is never stated; the author seems to find it damaged enough to need replacing.

Whenever you read a book about the Constitution you should look for one thing immediately; the placement, or exclusion of the document about which the author is writing. If it is entirely missing from the book; as it was with Ray Raphael’s “Constitutional Myths”, which I reviewed here earlier this year; then you know something is wrong, as the author doesn't want you to see the real document in question.  

That review is here; http://robertwilliamsofbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2013/07/constitutional-myths-by-ray-raphael-2013.html

The second way to keep people from diligently comparing what the author wants you to believe with the actual text in question, is to bury that document in the back of the book as part of the Appendix, as Mr. Epps has done here. This has the effect on the reader of reading the indoctrination portion first, then the actual document; which is now perceived to be “flawed”; afterwards.

Mr. Epps takes the Constitution apart Article by Article; Amendment by Amendment; telling us all what the founding fathers really meant to write. He even tells us why. I find this fascinating, that he; and only he; can divine the true intentions of the daring and learned men who risked it all to found our nation.

The rewriting of the Constitution as envisioned by Mr. Epps begins with the very first Article in the Constitution; well; actually before that when he claims the Constitution was forced upon the States without any input from the people. This is an absurd claim, bolstered only by small anecdotal stories which are not borne out by the outcome of history. This is the same reasoning which allows people to claim that the Constitution usurped the Federalist Papers; which were a temporary and imperfect way to govern our newly formed nation, though they did serve a purpose while the Constitution came into being.

Mr. Epps claims; in a very narrow reading of events; that the Representatives of the individual States had no idea that they were assembling to write a new Constitution. They were there to amend only the existing set of rules which pre-dated the Constitution. It was all a secret cabal; a plot of which no one was aware. Not even the legislators themselves. He would have you believe that it was all so hush-hush that when these representatives went home, and the Constitution was finally ratified by all the states, no one took notice of that change.

I’ll use just a few instances to outline what I perceive to be very narrow readings of the Constitution on the part of the author;

Page 22; paragraph 3 states that nothing in Article 1 Section 8 applies to the territories annexed after 1787. That’s right; he actually says that. I do not think a response, or criticism is in order here. Just take a trip to any state which has been annexed since that time and you will see that America is whole. We may not agree on things, but the country is governed, on the whole, by the United States Constitution. I think it would be hard to find many people who would dispute that.

Page 71; paragraph 4 quotes Article 4 Section 3 as stating “no new state shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the legislatures of the States  concerned as well as that of Congress.” He then moves the semi-colon and attributes new grammatical meaning upon the whole Article based on a very narrow reading of that semi-colon. Clearly, the purpose of the Article was to bind the Colonies together as one, without having the Northeast break away from the southern states at a time when dissolving our new democracy would have been disastrous.

This was also the basis for denying the right to leave the Union to the Southern States in 1861. Had the founding Fathers not included this Article there would have been no legal basis to keep the country whole and weather the storm of the Civil War. Wise men indeed were these founding fathers of ours. I suppose; according to Mr. Epps; that West Virginia does not have the right to exist; since it violates that Article. But that would be a very narrow reading; ignoring the fact that West Virginia left Virginia when Virginia violated that Article to become the capitol of the Confederate States.

I’m going to skip forward a bit, or else this review will be enormously long. On page 174 Mr. Epps finds what he perceives to be the first time the words “the Right to Vote” appear in the Constitution, as Part of the 14^th Amendment. Technically this is true. But if you skip back to Article One Section 2 of the Constitution you will find that “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second year by the people of the several states…” The italics are mine. The meaning is clear; the people shall chose; or vote; for their representatives. Of course the 14^th Amendment was one of the so-called Reconstruction Amendments, composed after the end of the Civil War, but the difference in language aside, the intent is clear on both occasions; the people shall chose; or vote, for their representatives.

This was a difficult book for me to read and to review. The difficulty in reading it was due to the feeling that, in my opinion, this book was written with the agenda of undermining the people’s faith in the Constitution. The difficulty in reviewing it is that I dislike giving a bad review. This is probably only the 4^th such one I have done in 5 years.

Don’t take me wrong; there is much going wrong in Washington, D.C. at the present time. With that assertion I cannot disagree with Mr. Epps. But the Constitution is not the problem. The problem lies with those people in power who ignore it, and abuse it for their own gain. The answer, therefore, lies in changing those people, and not the Constitution; except, of course, by Amendment.

"The Untold History of the United States" by Michael Moore (2012)

I don’t give many bad reviews. As a matter of fact, in the 4 and a half years in which I have been doing this, there have only been three books which I have reviewed negatively. It is no coincidence that these 3 books were all written with an agenda to misinform. One was written by an Islamic, one was written by a Conservative, and now this one written by Michael Moore; no explanation of his agenda necessary. I offer this as proof on my consistency in reasoning.

As he takes us on a whirlwind tour of our American misadventures, concluding that we have met the “Evil Empire” and it is us, he neglects to position his arguments against the backdrop of history as he deplores, page after page, our imperialistic designs. His take on the acquisition of Hawaii is that we were bent on world domination. Completely ignored is the fact that Russia and Japan were already rattling sabers at one another, and would fight a horrific war between them over domination of the Pacific; its resources; and of course Hawaii. Had we not gained possession of Hawaii when we did, then Japan would have been able to launch her planes from carriers based there against San Francisco. But details have never bothered Mr. Moore before, so why was I expecting something different from this book?

Our domination of the Philippine Islands is fairly accurate, though he does seem to gloss over the fact that we did grant them Independence after helping them to defeat the Japanese. And although there have been problems with our still having troops and ships stationed there, for the most part, the people and government of the Philippines seem to regard our presence in the area as more of a positive than a negative.

This is likewise in just about every one of the 132 countries which Mr. Moore laments about, where we have troops stationed. His thinking seems parallel to that of most Conservatives, who continually lament that we cannot be the “world’s policeman.” This is odd reasoning for an avowed liberal such as Mr. Moore claims to be. It gives one pause to think about just why he writes what he does. Is it how he really feels, or just the lure of easy money? By the way, the lure of easy money is one of the things Mr. Moore complains about the most, blaming many of the world’s ills upon it.

Like a reverse image of Rush Limbaugh, Mr. Moore goes charging through the history of America with an agenda. Where Mr. Limbaugh would have you think us Gods; Mr. Moore paints us as devils. He even takes our country to task over the Cuban Missile Crisis, labeling us as the reckless aggressors, even while acknowledging the massive buildup of tactical nuclear weapons which we did not know about at the time. Had we invaded, we would have been wiped out. The policy Of Mutual Assured Destruction, often derided as MAD, is also something which Mr. Moore fails to realize actually saved us from coming to actual nuclear war. Had one side only been able to launch a first strike, there would have been a nuclear war.

Only the fact that neither side could afford to pull the nuclear trigger on the other saved us from catastrophe. Contrast that against today’s post-Cold War world, with rogue nations; and terrorists ones such as Pakistan; in possession of nuclear unarms. Do you feel safer now? Under the policy of M.A.D., there was never a nuclear confrontation after the bombing of Japan at the conclusion of the Second World War. This is something which the author fails to acknowledge, or even mention.

While taking careful and deliberate aim at the policies of the United States in the 1950’s, Mr. Moore paints a bleak picture of the hare brained schemes being considered by the scientific community. Some of these plans were outright wacky; such as the plan to use nuclear weaponry to hasten the melting of the Polar Ice Caps, raising the world’s temperature by 10 degrees; or the scheme to use the atomic bomb to change the course of hurricanes, regardless of the fallout which would occur. There was also thought given to Project Chariot, which would have had the United States military blast holes in Alaska to harvest the shale oil beneath the frozen surface. What he never tells you is that these plans were never implemented, just tossed about. In Mr. Moore’s world, even ideas are prohibited.

The book is not all negative. But even where his facts are correct, he never gives America the credit it is due for the good things she has done. For instance, what other nation in the world would go to the lengths which we did during the Bosnia-Serbian War, when we helped Islamic people from genocide at the hands of their Christian neighbors? And, we did that at a time when tensions were reaching an all-time high between America, which was being billed as the Great Satan, and most of the other Islamic nations of the world. Where was their help in the aftermath of 9/11, when they danced in the streets, while hiding Bin Laden for 10 years?

When it comes time to examine the Second World War, once again we are the evil ones who firebombed cities, which was even worse than the atomic bomb, notwithstanding that had we not done so, the world today would be desolate place as far as freedom is concerned.

In typical fashion, Mr. Moore laments that the bomb was built without necessity, since we already knew that the Germans had abandoned their efforts at gaining such a weapon in favor of further developing the V1 and V2 rockets which they were using to kill civilians in Britain. He seems not to realize that once the tide of the war had changed back in favor of the Germans, they would have continued the experiments towards obtaining a nuclear weapon, if only to subjugate the Soviets.

As a matter of fact; Mr. Moore inadvertently tips his hand here; as it was only the pressure exerted on Roosevelt by the 3 main scientists who had fled Germany, including Einstein, that the bomb was an absolute necessity if we were to win the war. They even corroborated the fact that Germany was then, indeed, working on such a weapon herself, thus fueling the Roosevelt administration’s decision to go ahead with the bomb. It was only Oppenheimer and Davis who slowed the pace down enough to ascertain that the bomb would not ignite the earth’s atmosphere and destroy all life on the planet before proceeding with the experiments. So, one might conclude that the German scientists on both sides were pushing their respective governments to obtain this new weapons technology. Therefore, it is absurd to place the blame for the resultant Cold War on any one leader’s shoulders. This whole section had me wondering about Mr. Moore squares this view of Roosevelt with his hero of the New Deal? Me, I don’t have that problem; I think he was right on both occasions.

As far as the decision to drop the bomb which ushered in the Cold War, without it we would have lost at least 100,000 more Americans in order to take the island fortress of Japan.

By page 392 it becomes apparent that this book will never cease to amaze me. The author blames the policies of Henry Kissinger for the ruin of America’s stature in the world, and uses that as a pretext for the failed Presidency of Jimmy Carter. He uses the logic that the same people were still calling the shots for the White House. Jimmy was a well-intentioned, but un-involved bystander. By this logic, Reagan was innocent of any wrongdoing during the Iran-Contra affair, and Bush was misled into the war in Iraq by faulty advisers with agendas of their own.

This is an interesting book, with a lot of information in it. As such, it needs to be read carefully. Facts are funny things, and in the hands of professional writers and movie makers such as Mr. Moore, can be bent to support whatever conclusion you care to make them support. But, in the end, this book is mainly an apology for being American, and though my government may be temporarily in the hands of idiots, being born American is one thing for which I will never apologize.

Bill O'Reilly and Gun Control - A Study in Contrasts

Bill O’Reilly, the news commentator who regularly spouts anti-gun control rhetoric, states on page 212 of his book “Killing Kennedy”; which I reviewed here on Tuesday; that Texas, in 1963, with no gun control laws, was the leading state for murders, with 72% of those murders occurring by gunshot.

It is now 2013, 40 years later, and guess what? Texas is still the most lenient state in regards to gun control; and Murder by Firearms there has almost doubled since 1963. But yet, as recently as January 16th of this year, Mr. O’Reilly still maintains that gun control laws will “not stop crazy people from committing murder”, even as he advocates for a mandatory 10 year Federal sentence for any gun crime; from killing your spouse, to robbing a convenience store.

At the same time he also feels that gun control laws; in which he claims to not believe; should be left up to the individual states. This, would of course, result in virtually no local gun control laws, leaving the prosecution of gun related crimes to the Federal Government which Mr. O’Reilly already feels is too big. It also seriously makes me wonder which side of the debate he is really on.

This patchwork, and asinine approach; pitting the States against the Federal government; will yield no other result than to fill the already overcrowded Federal Prisons, thus placing more people under government control than ever before. And, remember, this idea comes from a man who purports to be against “big government.” 

This is just one more example of why political commentators should not be writing serious books about history. It only serves to further display their already overworked misunderstanding of history, as well as calling into question just what their real agenda is.

"Killing Kennedy" by Blll O'Reilly (2013)

I had not planned on reading this book, as I was afraid that I had already prejudged it. But, in the end, the words of the commentator; for that is what Mr. O’Reilly is; will be judged for the partisan ramblings which they have produced. This could have been an insightful book were it not for the agenda of the “authors.” The pity of it is that the 24/7 news cycle generation will take this book as pure fact, without ever delving beneath the surface, which the “commentator” has not even scratched.

Even the subtitle is designed to mislead the reader into thinking that the president lived in an insular fantasy world. In reality though, the “Camelot” myth was not killed when Kennedy was assassinated, as Mr. O’Reilly asserts; it was created by Jackie Kennedy after the president’s murder. She claims that each night before retiring, her husband used to listen to the Broadway cast recording of the show. It’s a small point, but the purpose is apparent. This man will go to any length in order to vilify the President.

Civil Rights legislation was only a way of getting the black vote; the Cuban Missle Crisis was only of importance to the President because the mid-term elections were coming up and his brother was running in Massachusetts. Even the President’s military rank as an Ensign Jg. is incorrectly termed as a Second Lieutenant, which is an Army rank. The PT-109 incident was an example of Kennedy’s recklessness. He should have simply seen the Japanese cruiser in the dark of the night with no radar. Saving his crew was just a way to lay the groundwork for a future in politics, even though at the time his brother Joe was still alive and had political aspirations, which the younger Kennedy did not.

The book drones on and on in this way, with the authors misrepresentations beginning early and continuing throughout the book. While he does get things correct, he spins them in a very clever way to create failures out of successes, and weaknesses of strengths.

Mr. O’Reilly is skilled at saying one thing while meaning quite another. Every good word the “author” has to say about the President is cast in the light of failure. Basically he states that Kennedy was a just a dumb bastard who got himself killed, by way of lifestyle and recklessness, and to some extent that is true. But, the failure of the agencies, and their willingness to do their sworn duties in protecting the President, is frightening. It changed the way in which our government works, with the elected official living in fear of those who are sworn to protect him. In the case of Watergate, some of the same people involved in the Bay of Pigs and the later events in Dallas, blackmailed the President into resigning from office, blocking his policies and changing international discourse.

Most of the “Notes” to which the author credits his sources come from the Internet, rather than established literature on the subject. Personally, I recommend Russ Baker’s “Family of Secrets”, in which the author fully annotates the connections between the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedy Assassination and the Watergate affair. That book cites every source, and even credits each statement, often to the memoirs of the persons making those statements. That book; in my estimation; is the epitome of the way history should be written, by an accredited author, and not a political commentator with a known agenda.