Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide

By: Michael B. Oren

The author is the former Ambassador from Israel to the United States who served 2009-2013 and currently is a member of the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament.

Oren’s journey to this position as Israel’s representative to the United States and the man who was one of the key advisers to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began when he was growing up in a Jewish family in West Orange, New Jersey. He was bullied then as a child and experienced antisemitism at a young age. At the age of 15, in 1970, Oren visited Israel with a Zionist group where he met Yitzhak Rabin in an encounter which he describes as a life changing event.

He went on to complete college at Columbia and received a master’s degree. He then immigrated to Israel in 1979. He came back to the United States to get a PhD at Princeton. He was married in 1982 to an American woman who also made Aliyah. They went on to have three children.

Oren’s commitment to Israel was more than an intellectual and emotional one. He joined the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) and served as a paratrooper in the 1982 war and saw serious combat. He then worked with the underground in the Soviet Union and was arrested by the KGB. During the Persian Gulf War he was the Israeli liaison to the United States Sixth Fleet. In the 1980s and 1990s, he taught at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at the university in Tel Aviv. He served in various positions in the Israeli government, and in 2006, was a visiting professor at Harvard and at Yale.

Oren has written numerous articles and a few important books including New York Times listed best selling books titled Faith and Fantasy, the history of America’s involvement in the Middle East and Six Days of War, an historical account of the Six Day War. He also wrote two novels.

So in 2009, when Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister appointmented Oren as Ambassador, he was already a seasoned government advisor as well as a respected historian. He considered himself a dual citizen of Israel and the United States. If fact, he described a very painful moment when he had to give up his US citizenship in order to become Israeli Ambassador to the United States. He vividly described his emotions seeing his passport voided.

Mr. Oren obviously must have kept a very complete diary as he goes on to document his life for the next four years in great detail. The reader has the feeling that the author is reliving the experience moment to moment, telephone call to cellphone call, car ride to plane ride, and so many very personal meetings. He essentially takes the reader up to the door of the Oval Office in the White House as he steps back to sit with the other most senior advisers as President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu hold their personal meetings. There are so many stories of this four-year period which essentially chronicles the delicate situation in the Middle East and the interaction between Israel and the United States.

I came away from this book feeling that Oren was a very loyal Israeli who still loves America. I thought that despite at times his critical view of some of the actions of the United States, he sincerely believed that his first country would always have Israel’s back.

As Oren currently serves in the Knesset, it would not surprise me if he did not someday move up and become part of the top leadership in Israel. This could lead to another important book to allow historians and people like us to gain further insight into the relationship between these two great allies.

SEASON OF THE WITCH BY DAVID TALBOT

If you have ever lived in San Francisco (as I did for one year in 1965) or perhaps visited the city and have fallen under its magical spell then this book is for you. This is especially true if your connection occurred between the 20-year period of 1965 to 1985. This may also apply if you identify with the social movements or news events that originated or were closely connected to The City by the Bay.

Here is a partial list of the fascinating people, places and events that were described in great detail in this very interesting book:

Haight-Ashbury, giving birth to the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Human Be In, the Hippy Revolution, Summer Of Love.

Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Timothy Leary, Runaway Children, Beatnik Society, Free Clinic, rock concerts, and Bill Graham.

San Francisco Chronicle, Herb Caen, Mobey Grape, Openly Gay Community, The Cockettes, Finnochios, STD, LSD, CIA, Susan Atkins, Charles Manson, Sharon Tate, Hell’s Angels, Rolling Stones, and Mick Jagger.

Joseph L. Alioto, Good Earth, Vincent Hallinan, SLA (Symbinese Liberation Army), Cinque, Bill Harris, Patty Hearst, Zebra Murders, Zodiac Serial Killer, Asian Law Caucus. Margo St. James, Hookers Liberation, Lenny Bruce, Ken Kesey.

George Moscone, Harvey Milk, Dianne Feinstein, Willie Brown, People’s Temple, Jim Jones, Jonestown, Guyana, Dan White , assassinations at City Hall, Edward DeBartolo, Joe Montana, Bill Walsh, HIV and the AIDS epidemic.

Although this book leaves at the end of the AIDS epidemic, we know this is just 20 years of a small but important part of the history of this great city. David Talbot, in my opinion, has earned the title of Story Teller Supreme for San Francisco. He told it like it was and what a story it has been and continues to be.

At the conclusion of this book, we are also treated to a section with photographs of some of the important players in the history of this great city that were described. These photos and the narration that accompanies, each one of them are a special dessert to the great meal this book has been.

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT by Daniel James Brown

Daniel James Brown is an author who describes himself as someone who writes narrative non-fiction which brings compelling historical events to life. That is exactly what he does in The Boys in the Boat. To most contemporary Americans, competitive rowing is not high on the list of sporting events to follow. Even if you have heard about the 1936 Berlin Olympics, you might only think of Jessie Owens, the black track star , who won a gold medal in the face of Hitler proclaiming his master race ideas. However, there is another story that you should know about those Olympic games .

This book tells the story of nine young men from the University of Washington who had an amazing journey that also took them to the 1936 Berlin Olympics to win a gold medal. It is about much more than their Olympic triumph. It is about what they needed to overcome and how they learned to work together in a manner which transcended the teamwork required for other sports. These young men came from farms, logging towns, and other difficult backgrounds. They struggled to get to the University of Washington and then to earn a spot on the rowing team. It is also a story about their coach, Al Ulbrickson and how he coached them and treated them as individuals and as a team. It is also about George Pocock, a boat-builder who not only built the rowing shell for the University of Washington team but also for most collegiate teams throughout the country. Pocock grew up in England and intimately understood rowing from his experience with the boats on the famous Thames River. It was his wisdom and support which sustained the University of Washington team almost as much as their esteemed coach.

Mr. Brown, the author, became interested in this subject when he had a discussion with a neighbor who was the daughter of one of these rowers. He ultimately met her father, Joe Rantz, a few years before he died. He heard this story firsthand and was able to review various documents and diaries not only of this man but of the other members of the rowing team as he was introduced to their families. The result is a book which reads like a page turning novel with events and insights into the people about whom the book was based.

There is a parallel story, which the author chooses to chronicle and which adds to the significance of the triumph of the University of Washington team at the 1936 Olympics. That is the events going on in Germany as Adolf Hitler came to power and began to oppress and ultimately murder the German Jews and others. The temporary easing up by Hitler of his cold-blooded extermination plans in order to deceive the world at his showcase Olympics, was clearly spelled out in this book.

I found the author’s discussion of the German filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, quite interesting and revealing. She was given carte blanche by Hitler to film the Olympics from every angle in order to showcase Hitler’s Germany in a glorious positive image for the entire world. She worked extremely closely with Hitler and Goebbels (the Nazi Propaganda Minister) and may have been literally in bed with them. She filmed all the athletes from the best angles, sometimes from specially built trenches so she could show the marching Germans from an upward looking view. Interestingly enough, after the American team from the University of Washington won their gold medal (in a most exciting well-described come from behind victory), she was given permission to bring her cameras into the University of Washington’s boat for a special ride with them. The results can be seen in a well-preserved video of a preliminary heat won by Germany and the final won by the US for the gold medal  (see YouTube video-English  version or German  narration version  ) where she intermixes cuts of long views of the race with close ups of the rowers. Riefenstahl subsequently tried to distance herself from her close association with Hitler after the war ( see interview with Riefenstabhl). No matter what her culpability in Hitler’s propaganda show, the wonderful video of these nine men, whose self-determination, hard work, and comradeship, was very well done and will allow future generations to enjoy watching their accomplishment.

One reviewer in Publishers Weekly called this book a Nautical Chariots of Fire, which seems a very apt description. It is also rumored that the Weinstein Brothers have optioned this book for a movie which may be soon available as you read this review. I am sure it will be an exciting film but this book alone captures a vivid picture of the Boys In The Boat that you will not forget.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration

by Isabel Wilkerson

About 50 years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation eliminating slavery in the United States, there began the Great Migration. Almost one by one “colored” people in the South would realize that they were not much better off than they were before the civil war. (I have to explain that I am comfortable using the word “colored” since I feel that it has a derogatory connotation. However, the word was used throughout most of the book since it was an acceptable descriptive word in the literature and speech during the time being described.) There were still lynchings and other types of murders of colored people in the South. This took place for no reason or for unproven accusations or insignificant acts such as a colored man talking to a white woman. The victims of this death and destruction also included children. Colored people could not sit with white people in movie theaters, restaurants, etc., and had to step into the street if confronted with a white person walking towards them on the sidewalk. These kind of situations persisted in the South into the 1960s. Even after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Legislation in 1964, it took another 10 years, and the effects of the work of Martin Luther King and others to make the worst of this discrimination to be a fading but still not eliminated shame of our country. Many of my generation of white people raised in the North supported the civil rights movement and some were quite active in it, but I would say that most could not fully understand what it was like to grow up in the Jim Crow South.

This is the power and strength of this book. Isabel Wilkerson, while a first time author, had already won a Pulitzer Prize for her newspaper work in Chicago when she approached this subject, not only as a black woman who knew her own family history, but as a journalist who found personal stories which she would present in great depth. She spent about 15 years researching and writing this book. She interviewed about 1,200 people who participated in the Great Migration from the South to the North. It was estimated that 4 Million “colored” people ultimately migrated between World War I into the 1970s. Wilkerson not only explained and analyzed the underlying factors in great detail, but by choosing three people to highlight, she brought a living vibrant understanding to this story that is unforgettable. Ida Mae Gladney, Robert Pershing Foster, and George Swanson Starling are the names of the people that we get to follow. She got to know them in the twilight of their lives over several years and spent many hours with each of them. The result is really three separate stories, each of which could have been a fascinating novel. We get to intimately know each of them as well as their families and friends. We appreciate what it was like growing up in the South; their hopes and aspirations, and sometimes the severe limitations that were put on them. We see how these three people made their decisions to go to Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. We come to understand what happened to them and their families and as well as the next generation. Segments of their lives developed before our eyes in alternative chapters as we follow them into maturity and old age.

This book doesn’t end with the exodus from the South. There is an entire new complicated and painful realization that the reader has to face about the rest of the story. Employment and housing discrimination persisted in many places in the North, and unlike the European migrants who entered the big cities seeking a better life for themselves and their children, there were persistent obstacles for the people of the Great Migration and their children. Drugs, gangs and obstacles towards a good education for their children were constant issues.

Ms. Wilkerson has been recognized with the National Book Award as well as many other prestigious honors for this book. . It was also chosen as one of the 10 best books by the New York Times Book Review Section. This book should be mandatory reading for every American high school student. I found it painful but I’m glad that any repression that I may have had about this subject was reawakened.

Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Hector Tobar

If you were on this planet in 2010 when 33 miners were trapped in Chile  for 69 days, half a mile beneath the earth’s surface, you must have heard about this captivating story. During the first 19 days, they had no contact with the outside world. They only had a few days’ supply of food and the water that they found was at best contaminated. Above ground, their loved ones were gathered near the entrance of the mine and were praying and supporting the Chilean government, as they organized an unprecedented rescue operation. This involved an outpouring of assistance from all over the world. There were three separate plans to drill a hole to reach the trapped miners. There was no guarantee that they would be reached in time to save their lives. Even after one drilling operation broke through to the place where they were gathered and was pounded on by the trapped miners and painted red so the people above would know they were reached, there still was uncertainty whether they would be saved from their underground prison. Soon, food and messages were lowered to them through the small hole and they found out that the world was following their ordeal.

The 33 miners made a pact that if they survived they would all agree to tell their story in a unified way and would share any riches that would be offered to them for the details of their unusual experience. Ultimately, Pulitzer Prize-winning  author of Mexican descent, Hector Tobar, was chosen to write their story in this book. He spent untold hours speaking with the miners and their families, as well as many other people who were involved in this unusual event. Even if the reader knows all the details of the eventual outcome, this book was suspenseful and read like an adventure story which would keep the readers on the edge of their seats. One small example of the human interest that also was found throughout this book is the story of a devoted wife and a loving mistress of the same man, both of whom came to know each other as they waited and prayed for the safety of their men.

The story did not end with the emergence of the miners from the rescue capsule. It was inevitable that they would have psychological issues as a result of their ordeal. I was one of the many mental health experts who was very concerned about the sequelae that they would face (see blog). This book certainly should meet all expectations as a true to life adventure thriller. It is factual, in-depth and captures the human drama of these people. It can stand on its own, or it may be the basis for a documentary film, or a dramatic movie that should be made (or may have already been made or is in process). While I believe this book deserves all the credit that others and myself have heaped upon it, I believe there is even a better recent book of the same genre about another calamitous event. That book is titled Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink. It is about the inside story of a New Orleans Hospital isolated and with without electricity during hurricane Katrina. Both of these books are outstanding and should not be missed.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand– I read this book and wrote this review prior to seeing the movie by the same name. I do plan to see it and will review it in FilmRap.net. (click here to see review)

Louie Zampereini was an Italian-American boy from a poor family who was raised in Torrance, California. He was a rough and tumble kid who had a propensity for stealing things and getting into trouble. He was fast on his feet and ultimately developed into a record breaking track star who participated in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. When World War II came about he signed up for the Army Air Force and became a bombardier. Early in the war his plane on a mission crash-landed in the Pacific Ocean where he and two other airman survived in rafts for 47 days as they drifted 2000 miles. During this time they battled starvation, dehydration, hungry sharks and storms as well as Japanese planes that strafed them with machinegun fire. If you think this was bad you should see what happened after they were rescued at sea…by the Japanese and made prisoners of war (although they were never treated according to the Geneva Convention rules for POWs). We see how things were absolutely terrible and how demeaning the treatment of American Prisoners was, ironically clearly much worse than the German Nazis reportedly dealt with their American captives. Louis was apparently treated much more savagely once he was recognized as an Olympic track star.

Being a member of the Silent Generation and having come of age in the decade following WWII, I grew up as a kid reading all sorts of stories and seeing all the movies about this war. Even now as an older guy I am still drawn to a book such as this one. I am sorry to say that reading about the awful treatment by the Japanese of the helpless American prisoners, my old negative prejudiced feelings about the Japanese people were awakened. I know these are irrational and are related to issues from a previous generation. Although a few kind guards were mentioned, there clearly was, at that time, an institutionalized culture of cruel, vicious treatment of the Americans who were starved, tortured and made to do slave labor. We see these atrocities through the eyes of Zamperini who was officially considered dead by his government although his family seemed to have never given up hope for him. We trace his ordeal as he is moved to various prison camps and was never registered with the Red Cross as a POW although that was the usual procedure mostly followed by the Japanese who nevertheless hid their maltreatment of their captives.

The book does not end with his liberation at the end of the war. It follows Zamperini’s reintegration into civilization and his seeming resilience but also his very dark and destructive periods, which were almost as bad as you can imagine. The author Laura Hillenbrand, who previously wrote the best seller Seabiscuit had access to diaries, newspaper articles, radio and television interviews and a gigantic trove of people to interview who knew Zamperini in the various phases of his life including those who were imprisoned with him and close family members. She also had the opportunity to interview Zamperini himself more than 75 times and became quite close to him before he died in July of 2014 at the age of 97.

At times the book seems overly repetitious. Perhaps it felt that way because it was so painful. I am not giving away the ending because the title clearly does that but this book is also about the human spirit. As an outsider who didn’t live through his ordeal and didn’t live through this time as an adult, I can only try to get into Louis’ head through this book. When we try to do this, there is a tendency for us to be traumatized. At one point in the book we learn that recently there was a commemorative memorial made by the local Japanese people at the site of one of the camps at which Zamperini spent much of his time. It honored and remembered the prisoners who were there, many of them who had died there. We are also told that there are pictures of six birds flying in the sky as symbols of the memory for 6 of the prison guards who were tried as war criminals and executed! On the day that I am writing this review there is a front page article in the New York Times that discusses the current Japanese Prime Minister Abe and his hope to bring about a change in the Japanese constitution which was written post war by the Americans and forbids Japan from ever going to war again. Time marches on.

My Promised Land by Ari Shavit

If you have any familiarity with the politics of the Middle East and the establishment of the state of Israel you know it is a very complicated story. Ari Shavit is an Israeli who cares deeply about the future of his beloved homeland. He has written what appears to me to be a definitive comprehensive book about the history of modern Israel. In the course of writing this book, he has done extensive research and has interviewed hundreds of people, many who have been key players in the amazing story of Israel. Shavit is a well-established journalist who personally knows many of these people. Others agreed to meet with him apparently because of his good reputation. I am not in a position to judge if he has all his facts straight and if he has given a balanced view. I can only say that it appears that he has tried to understand and present numerous points of view, This has to be a painful book to anyone who has an affinity for Israel and what this country has meant to so many people.

Naturally, Shavit covers the story of the European Jews who escaped annihilation from the Holocaust and how many of them with literally the shirts on their back built kibbutzim, moshavim, new cities, orange groves and so much more. The transformation from scorched dessert into fertile farms while on the surface is a magical story but is one of tremendous work and dedication. Similarly the development of Tel Aviv into one of the great cities of the world seems like a fairy tale but in reality reflects the courage and the personality of the people who came to Israel.

The spirit and the work ethic of the people who made up the Zionist movement is not the only story of Israel. There is also a narrative of continued bloodshed, conflicts, ethical dilemmas and an uncertainty about the future. The 1948 declaration of a State of Israel by the United Nations was followed by an attack by the surrounding Arab countries, which is a well known important piece of history. As are the 1967 War and the 1973 Yom Kipper War. The details and the meanings behind these wars are discussed in great detail in this book. Shavit doesn’t stop there; he examines and discusses the displaced natives of Palestine and other parts of Israel where many Arabs have lost their homes. While many Arabs do live in harmony in what is now Israel, it clear that many live for the day that they can regain what they feel is rightfully their land. Then there is the situation of the Jewish settlements on the Palestine west bank. On one hand, this is viewed as undermining the one just possibility for a two state solution that might lead to long lasting peace. On the other hand, there is also the point of view of the settlers which they present as a moral and deep seated justification for what they are doing.

There is the story of the Sephardic Jews in Israel, many of whom have felt greatly discriminated against. As with each issue the author brings to life the point of view of the protagonists by not only reviewing factual historical events but also by telling compelling personal stories of the people involved.

Perhaps one of the most important subplots of the story of Israel is a secret chapter that cannot be officially told. On the other hand it is well known and documented by Shavit. In this case he does this by using mostly non-Israeli and certainly non-official sources. This is the fascinating tale but certainly true story of the development of the city of Dimona, which is where Israel mobilized it’s human resources, with some help from France, to develop nuclear weapons. While this unacknowledged fact is stated with great certainty, Israel has never overtly used this as a threat but it nevertheless has been essential for the survival of Israel.

If Dimona were the big secret that I heard about before reading this book, the discussion of the magnitude of threat to Israel from Iran was something that I never fully appreciated. The author in his meticulous style reviews the response of Israel to each step that Iran has made to develop their own nuclear weapon capacity. This includes a daring secret air attack by Israel in 1981 which demolished Iran’s nuclear plants, which were on the verge of producing weapon grade nuclear material. This leads us to the present and one of the major dilemmas that Israel faces today. Once again Iran, a country that has sworn to destroy Israel, is approaching the ability of developing nuclear weapons.

I hope I have made the point that Ari Shavit has written an amazing book that has vividly described in depth so many of the historical events that have allowed Israel to develop and flourish, as well as the issues that question Israel’s viability to survive in the future as it exists today.

Havana Nocturne by T.J. English– I thought that I was a little familiar with the history Cuba. I knew that Spain won its freedom from Spain in the Spanish American War. I knew that during the reign of the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista the United States and large U.S. corporations had a good deal and made lots of money from Cuba.  I was aware in 1959 Fidel Castro and his revolutionary army basically took over the country, nationalized US companies and threw out the Americans as well as many wealthy Cubans. They established a more or less socialistic economy as Batista escaped in exile. I also had a vague awareness that prior to the revolution Havana was a very exciting city with lots of nightclubs run largely by gangsters similar to stories I heard about Las Vegas. 

     This book written by an American journalist T. J. English fills in the details about Batista, Castro and especially the very personal story of the mafia, the mob or the gangsters who in a very deliberate manner conquered the economy of this country and ruled it’s jeweled city of Havana for almost seven years. I am ashamed to admit that prior to reading this book, I had considered that there must have been some redeeming value in Batista, if the U. S. including Presidents Eisenhower and JFK had strongly supported him However, after learning about the suitcases of money that were delivered to Batista in exchange for letting the gangsters take over Havana, I was quite surprised and disappointed.

The Cuban revolution is only a small part of this story that is told in great details (with much documentation and cross referencing in the appendix at the end of the book as if that were really needed.) This book chronicles the life of gangsters, Charles Lucky Luciano and most of all Meyer Lansky. There are fascinating behind the scenes details of historical events that most of us would never have known. We learn that Lucky Luciano might have lived most of his adult life in prison if there was not a deal made with the United States Navy who had a need to catch Nazi sabatours who were operating on the NY and Brooklyn docks where Luciano had the ability to ferret out their identities. This earned him an out of jail ticket and deportation to Italy from where he then traveled to Cuba.

On the other hand, the descriptions of the life and successful business doings of Mr. Lanksy would have to be of interest, and perhaps envy of every Harvard Business School graduate although we would hope they not follow in his unscrupulous side. Lansky knew how to involve his business associates with a piece of the action so for the most part they would be content with hardly a necessary mob hit (although there were certainly a few of them described in the book). In fact, there were the inside details of some of the biggest gangster hits of all time including the notorious Albert Anastasia

The life styles and personalities of several mobsters are describes in detail as there was a quite a large number of them who came to Cuba to seek their fortunes. Particularly prominent along with Luciano and Lanksy was Santos Trafficante Jr. who in addition to having his hooks in Havana controlled activities in Tampa, Florida. Their backgrounds, personalities and relationships with each other are all dissected. For the most part their motive was clear, money-lots of it. They saw Cuba, as a fertile field for exploiting. Havana was an immensely attractive playground for he rich as well as the wannabee rich, all who were drawn to this glamorous city. There also was an account of Frank Sinatra’s acquaintance with the mob and there even was a story about something like an orgy in which a young US Senator JFK was a participant.

English’s writing style is relatively straightforward. The references are in the back of the book but the sequences of events and cast of characters were clearly rolled out as was the various nefarious schemes. At times English would throw in a colorful metaphor such as. “ Throughout the month of December, the island seethed like a bitch with a low grade fever.” Perhaps the only thing that was not clear to me is why the influence of the exiled Cubans mostly concentrated in Florida, to this day continues to prevent the US from lifting the Cuban embargo and developing a reasonable relationship with the Cuban people. Now that Castro himself is in his waning days and island itself as we observed during a recent trip is experimenting with various forms of capitalism, it may be a short time before that occurs. It will be interesting to see when that happens if the mob will creep back into Havana in the dead of night.

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the Golden Age of Journalism- by Doris Kearns Goodwin I always thought that I was fairly well educated in American history but now after encountering this magnificent book I realize how little I knew about two great American presidents, Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Doris Kearns Goodwin, more recently known for Team of Rivals about the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, chose with good reason to couple Roosevelt and Taft in this massive writing project. My electronic reader had about 4870 pages (this will vary with the size of the screen and font) and Amazon showed the hard cover version having 910 pages including the index. In fact by my count almost 15% of the book were footnotes and the index, which is keeping with the scholarly approach of Ms. Goodwin. This does not mean that this is a slow or dry read. To the contrary, the reader is drawn into the lives of these fascinating men and the time period in which they were making American history. I had to remind myself that I was not reading a novel. Quite early in the book Ms. Kearns has chosen to demonstrate that these two men had become very good friends and in fact Roosevelt was of prime importance in allowing Taft to follow him as President after his two terms. But shortly after Taft became President, there occurred a rift between the two that essentially at one point made them bitter enemies. The book exams each of their lives and follows their trajectories. This is done by alternating chapters that shows in depth the various stages of their lives. In the course of seeing their individual assents to the top, we learn they became friends, colleagues and the nature of the extremely close relationship that developed. Ultimately we also were able to follow the lives of these two men and their careers, which is the story of the progressive movement in the United States. It also tells the amazing story of Sam McClure and the muckraker journalists. In a world where there was no mass media, no radio, television or Internet; a magazine by the name of McClure’s Magazine was extremely popular. The magazine evolved from the leading literary magazine to one that provided extensive investigations and in-depth exposes, which led to political and social changes in the regulation by the government of several monopolistic industries. Some of the respected authors and journalists who wrote for McClure include Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. When McClure moved to important political issues his authors included Ida Tarbell who told the story behind John Rockefeller and the Standard Oil monopoly, Ray Baker who wrote about the Right to Work and the terrible treatment of those who attempted to organize labor and Lincoln Steffens who was best known for his writing about political corruption. There was also a discussion about the well known muckraker Upton Sinclair whose novel The Jungle told of the horrors of the meatpacking industry. It is most striking how these writers not only had great impact on the public but also how receptive Teddy Roosevelt was to meet them in person and learn first hand of their investigations. This all led to the major reforms that were started by Roosevelt and carried forth by Taft and how Congress was pressured to respond with the needed legislation. In order to appreciate the depth and insight that Doris Kearns Goodwin was able to achieve about these two Presidents and the events of the day, you have to understand the sources, which she used. As would be expected, there are numerous quotes from the newspapers of that time which followed the contemporary political events and personalities. The personal method for communication was letter writing. A great deal of the personal and official correspondence of these figures has been preserved. There also are available to historians and writers, the diaries of many of them as well as those of people close to them which often reflect the details of events as well as the emotional tone, which occurred in various interactions. Eventually many of the key players wrote autobiographies and others wrote biographies about them. Kearns and her fact gathering team pieced things together so the book read like a well-written novel I imagine that different readers will come away with varied impressions, particularly about these two U.S Presidents. It does seem that I now know more about them than I do about many important people in the news today and probably more than I do about many everyday people with whom I interact. As much as I admire Teddy Roosevelt and appreciate his accomplishments and determination to do what he believed was right for this country (and was subsequently proven to be correct), I also appreciate his shortcomings. He became a national hero when he led, the Rough Riders into Cuba to needlessly risk his life and others which was more likely a personal ego trip. His break with his very close friend William Howard Taft was clearly his doing because he felt slighted for clearly insignificant reasons. Even his formation of the ill-fated Bull Moose Party which cost Taft the chance to serve a second term seemed to be another ego trip. On the other hand, Taft came across to be a very sincere person who not only cared about the people he served but had the ability to feel empathy for the individuals in his life including Roosevelt. It is ironic that Taft who would have chosen being Chief Justice of the Supreme Court over being president, which he probably never really wanted to be, never-the-less accomplished so much in his one term as president and then fortuitously had a chance to serve as Chief Justice in his later years. These are just a few samplings of the type of insights you may get as you read about these men and the history of their times.

5 Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink – This is a great book for anyone who works in a hospital especially doctors and nurses who realize they could be on call when a disaster might strike. Also include yourself in this group if you are a  hospital administrator or someone who likes to wrestle with ethical dilemmas. Be prepared for a lot of repetition, medical details that may all seem to be almost the same to most people as well as for some dips into the history of this hospital, other disasters and a course in ethics over the years even dating back to ancient times. If you can handle all of this, you really have an exciting, intellectually stimulating book with a look at disaster medicine, making medical and ethical decisions under difficult circumstances and some good legal battles. The main event was the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, which was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States. At least 1,833 people died in the hurricane and subsequent floods. This book deals with the impact of the storm on Memorial Hospital in New Orleans, which was a 312-bed hospital, which included patients receiving intensive care and a larger section of the hospital where critically ill patients were treated. As the floodwater rose, most of the power in the hospital was irretrievably lost. There was no sanitation, and they were running out of food. Indoor temperatures were as high as 110 F degrees. At one point there were over 2000 people in the hospital as the numbers swelled with families of patients and staff as well as refugees from the surrounding city. The hospital became surrounded by water and there was no way to leave by car. A makeshift helipad was established on the roof but to get there patients, had to be carried up several flights of stairs usually in the dark and passed through a hole in the wall to get to another part of the hospital complex and up additional stairs. There was limited oxygen for these patients and for some the nurses had to squeeze a balloon like device to get the air into their lungs and drip an IV into their veins while going up the stairs. It was difficult getting enough helicopters to remove all the people from the hospital. Decisions had to be made which patients to evacuate first. Should it be the ones that were barely alive and wouldn’t be expected to even survive the trip to another location or perhaps already had a fatal illness where their demise was expected in a few days or should the patients go first who had a better long term outlook but still required hospital care?? Should the preference or order of care be influenced if the patient had a DNR order, meaning do not resuscitate the patient if their heart stops or if they stop breathing. As the first three or four days passed most of the people were evacuated (where they were evacuated to was another problem). There was confusion and questions about the actions by the corporation that owned the hospital and what arrangements they were making to help the stranded hospital’s need for evacuation. Outside the hospital gunshots were heard and there were concerns that looters might enter the hospital by boat. There was a concern about the physical integrity of the old hospital walls. You would think that the National Guard and the US Government should have done a heroic operation to save everyone from the beginning. They apparently were saving people from rooftops of their homes, helping out in the Superdome, which was the place of last resort for the people of New Orleans who weren’t able to escape before the flood, as well as sporadically appearing on the helicopter pad.  In the end there were a small number of doctors and nurses trying to care for the remaining and sickest patients. There was concern that even moving some of them would be fatal. One man was so obese that they couldn’t figure out how to move him. Some patients were clearly in the last hours hours of their lives. Others would soon be that way if they didn’t get more intensive care. One of the remaining doctors along with two nurses was Dr. Anna Pous, a very compassionate and brilliant ENT surgeon who had a history of reconstructing patients with advanced cancer. She found herself faced with the task of trying to relieve the suffering of several remaining patients. It is well known to physicians and nurses who treat dying patients, that morphine often in combination with a rapid acting tranquillizer such as Versed, given intravenous will relieve the pain and agonizing difficulty breathing in the final stages of life. It is also known that this treatment could hasten their demise. Dr. Pous appeared to have made the decision to have several patients receive large doses of morphine and Versed, which would painlessly end their lives. At a  later point in time , this action was felt by some people to be murder. In fact, Dr. Pous  was actually arrested, handcuffed and was with two nurses charged with second-degree murder. The response of the medical community from this hospital and from across the country, the legal and emotional reactions of some of the patient’s families, the media hype and the ethical questions which were being asked, were an important part of this book. The book provides few answers and lots of stimulating questions. The author won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on this subject in the New York Times Magazine. If you are drawn to this subject you will not be disappointed.