A Cheerful & Comfortable Faith

A Cheerful & Comfortable Faith

Lauren F. Winner

Yale. 272 pp.

This was my second or third reading of Winner's book; I can't remember which. I appreciated it so much that I purchased a copy for myself. It's now one of my go-to references for many things Anglican. 

Of particular interest to me this go-around were her comments about Colonial burial traditions where she writes: One of the great mysteries of gentry Virginia deathways is who prepared the corpse for burial. English precedent would suggest that Virginians assigned this task to women lovingly preparing the bodies of their husbands and children for the grave, a last act of attentive, embodied devotion? Or did gentry delegate the preparation of the corpse to slaves? The evidence is too sketchy to permit a confident answer."

So I have to thank Winner for suggesting to me a possible future avenue of research.

The Island of Extraordinary Captives

The Island of Extraordinary Captives

Simon Parkin

Scribner. 419 pp. 

"The battle between a nation's responsibility to help those in need and to maintain national security persists in every age, every generation. The tension between the practical requirement to control borders and the moral imperative to offer sanctuary to those in need still sits at the heart of the political situation in Britain, North America, and elsewhere. The notion of the refugee who is not who he or she claims is an enduring story that can be easily co-opted and used to justify institutional cruelty or overreach. So, while the context and detail shifts, the debate remains the same, as does the potential for history to repeat as each successive generation must answer the same question: How far can we go in the rightful defense of our values , without abandoning them along the way."

The Spy Who Knew Too Much

The Spy Who Knew Too Much

Howard Blum

HarperAudio. 10 hours and 6 minutes.

Listened to this audiobook on a long road trip from Virginia to Massachusetts and back. A little hard to follow in places. Blum likes to jump back and forth between the 1980s and earlier decades as he spins this tale of intrigue. Still, the great question as to what exactly happened to John Paisley is one that will keep you guessing right up until the last leg of your trip.

Victory at Sea

Victory at Yorktown

Richard M. Ketchum

Henry Holt and Company. 350 pp. $27.50.

It's good to remind ourselves from time to time just how close the American colonies came to remaining a British possession. Ketchum's book serves as that reminder. "A haunting question," Ketchum writes, "is whether a true majority of Americans had wanted the Revolution in the first place. Chances are that they did not. If, in John Adams's colorful phrase, 'We were about one third Tories, and [one] third timid, and one third true blue,' this suggests that somewhere between a majority and two-thirds may have opposed the war."

The Majesty of Colonial Williamsburg

The Majesty of Colonial Williamsburg

Peter Beney

Pelican Publishing Company. 176 pp.

This lovely photo album with text probably would offer the first-time visitor an excellent introduction to all that Colonial Williamsburg has to offer and serve as a fine memento to share with others. 

Hitler's Furies

Hitler's Furies

Wendy Lower

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 270 pp.

I'll be direct. This was a tough read. Just when I thought I had learned all there was to learn about atrocities committed by Nazis during WWII, along comes historian Wendy Lower to uncover and to document crimes committed by German women. And these weren't your everyday garden variety crimes. These were crimes so awful that that even now I cannot bring myself to repeat them. 

Why? That's always the question that comes to my mind whenever I read of these accounts? Or, rather, how could seemingly normal people commit such terrible deeds? Studies of perpetrator motivation, Lower writes, "explain that those who incite acts of hate are seeking to rid themselves and the world around them of its unsettling, messy ambiguities and complexity." Perpetrators, she goes on to say, "often see themselves as enlightened, as holders of a greater truth, superior to their foes, above reproach and accountability, struggling to break free of a world of dichotomies."

Well, all I can say is God save us from such people, for I have no doubt that they remain among us. 

The Wide Wide Sea

The Wide Wide Sea

Hampton Sides

Doubleday. 432 pp.

Insights gained from reading Side's masterfully written narrative of Captain James Cook's third scientific voyage:

1. It took place at around the same time (1776-79) as the American Revolution;

2. he died in Hawaii's Kealakekua Bay in 1779 in a skirmish with natives of that island;

3. one of the main goals of the voyage was to discover the so-called Northwest Passage from the Pacific side;

4. Cook himself entertained certain misgivings about his company's contacts with indigenous peoples.

Christendom

Christendom

Peter Heather

Knopf. 736 pp.

A little more difficult to plow through than similar histories written by, say, Diarmaid MacCulloch or Justo Gonzalez. Interesting to me was the emphasis Heather gives here to the interplay between church and state as the primary reason for Christianity's spread between the time of Constantine and the Fourth Lateran Council. And, sure, I get it. A lot of people probably did convert to the new faith in order to--as they say--"get along" and to "go along". That's an important point to make, which Heather does . . . repeatedly. Do I agree? Maybe. For the most part. And Heather doesn't entirely discount the idea that some may have converted for mostly spiritual reasons. 

So, all-in-all, I'd say this is fair treatment of the subject, even from someone who is a self-professed agnostic.