Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington’s autobiography sees him rising from slavery to freedom, from poverty and illiteracy to an honorary degree from Harvard and relationships with Presidents and world leaders. Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community. Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jim Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

I really enjoyed this autobiography. I thought it had a really important message that young men and women should think about today – that it’s not just book smarts but practical skills that will get you farther and help you find useful employment. Too many young people waste time and money at universities that don’t teach them how to get on in the real world. Learn a trade instead. One of my favorite quotes is No race can prosper till it learns that there is just as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

We all need to learn to be self sufficient like Booker and his students.

At first his students complained and only wanted book learning, but as the school grew and they understood the benefits of their skills, they felt accomplished and had pride in what they made.

Perhaps Washington has embellished a little. It can seem to be written with rose colored glasses because he doesn’t focus too much on the obstacles (racism and segregation). He does focus on the obstacles of trying to find funds to get Tuskegee up and going, and sometimes I wondered if his luck was too good to be true. But ultimately his story was uplifting – the American Dream. I loved his persistence to work hard and make something of himself but also teach that to others so they can too.

My few criticisms are that this autobiography is more professional and not personal. Very, very little is said about his three wives (he was not a polygamist) and children. 

Second the print was so small I found it difficult to read. It took me days to read a 192 page paperback because it would hurt my eyes.

4 out of 5 Bricks.

Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I

Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I by Charles Spencer, narrated by Tim Bruce.

Charles Spencer, the bestselling author of BLENHEIM: Battle for Europe, tells the shocking stories and fascinating fates of the men who signed Charles I’s death warrant.

January, 1649. After seven years of fighting in the bloodiest war in Britain’s history, Parliament had overpowered King Charles I and now faced a problem: what to do with a defeated king, a king who refused to surrender?

Parliamentarians resolved to do the unthinkable, to disregard the Divine Right of Kings and hold Charles I to account for the appalling suffering and slaughter endured by his people. A tribunal of 135 men was hastily gathered in London, and although Charles refused to acknowledge the power of his subjects to try him, the death sentence was unanimously passed. On an icy winter’s day on a scaffold outside Whitehall, in an event unique in English history, the King of England was executed.

When the dead king’s son, Charles II, was restored to the throne, he set about enacting a deadly wave of retribution against all those – the lawyers, the judges, the officers on the scaffold – responsible for his father’s death. Some of the ‘regicides’ – the killers of the king – pleaded for mercy, while others stoically awaited their sentence. Many went into hiding in England, or fled to Europe or America. Those who were caught and condemned suffered agonising and degrading ends, while others saw out their days in hellish captivity. 

Bestselling historian Charles Spencer explores this violent clash of ideals through the individuals whose fates were determined by that one, momentous decision. A powerful tale of revenge from the dark heart of royal history and a fascinating insight into the dangers of political and religious allegiance in Stuart England, these are the shocking stories of the men who dared to kill a king.

I didn’t know that Princess Diana’s brother wrote history books. I got this from a 2 books for 1 credit from Audible. 

I never really understood how Parliament managed to execute a king and the details of his sham of a trial sheds light on that. I also knew nothing of the aftermath when his son, Charles II, took the throne back.  

I did like learning a lot of history facts. It’s really well researched and I feel like I’ll be able to answer more Jeopardy! clues. 

I had never heard of The Fifth Monarchists before. (A radical group of Puritans, they took their name from a prophecy in the Old Testament that said there had been four great empires (Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman) and a fifth would be formed by the return of Christ in the Second Coming.) And Thomas Harrison was a nut case! He punched his executioner! 

I also never knew John Milton wrote propaganda for the Oliver Cromwell regime. 

I couldn’t remember everyone’s names and sometimes my mind would wander because there were just so many Regicide men being hunted down. But there are so many little details for history buffs to absorb. Mainly what I always learn from history books is that times change, people don’t. 

3 out of 5 Axes.

A Universal History of the Destruction of Books: From Ancient Sumer to Modern Iraq by Fernando Báez

• 

A product of ten years of research and support from leading American and European universities, A Universal History of the Destruction of Books traces a tragic story: the smashed tablets of ancient Sumer, the widespread looting of libraries in post-war Iraq, the leveling of the Library of Alexandria, book burnings by Crusaders and Nazis, and suppressive censorship against authors past and present.

With diligence and grace, Báez mounts a compelling investigation into the motives behind the destruction of books, reading man’s violence against writing as a perverse anti-creation. “By destroying,” Báez argues, “man ratifies this ritual of permanence, purification and consecration; by destroying, man brings to the surface a behavior originating in the depth of his personality.” His findings ultimately attest to the lasting power of books as the great human repository of knowledge and memory, fragile yet vital bulwarks against the intransigence and barbarity of every age.

We’re going through some disturbing times right now, and social media is censoring many people. That is the modern day book burning. I saw someone suggest this book on social media so I bought a copy from a secondhand store. 

I did learn a whole lot. It really covers everything, not just censorship book burnings, but books lost in shipwrecks, earthquakes, natural disasters, and to just deterioration (bugs and acid from the glue); as well as books destroyed in fiction (think 1984, Fahrenheit 451) and authors who ordered their own books/manuscripts be destroyed as their last wish.

Which cracks me up because, why not destroy your works yourself? It’s like the writer doesn’t have the guts to do it themselves so they push the responsibility onto a close relative. 

A criticism I have is that because it really covers a universal history over so many eras that there are many little stories. I couldn’t absorb it all. It was just tidbit after tidbit. It’s more like an encyclopedia.

There were also so many destroyed books mentioned, often in foreign languages, that I would just skim those titles because  it was more like a listing of destroyed books  instead  of explaining  their significance.

I’m sure anyone who cared to look more into a certain time period, or a missing or destroyed book they can do their own research/reading. Because in the end this book is pretty thick and how many minute details do we need to be bogged down with?

In the end it is a good source to have that covers a wide range of topics, time periods, and explanations about why books are destroyed. It also just makes me sad to think of how many hundreds of millions, maybe even billions of books have been destroyed. I also wonder, what if they had never been destroyed at all. Where would we put them all?

3.5  out of 5 Libraries.

John Adams Under Fire: The Founding Father’s Fight for Justice in the Boston Massacre Murder Trial

John Adams Under Fire: The Founding Father’s Fight for Justice in the Boston Massacre Murder Trial
by Dan Abrams (Narrator), David Fisher (Contributor), Roger Wayne (Narrator)

History remembers John Adams as a Founding Father and our country’s second president. But in the tense years before the American Revolution, he was still just a lawyer, fighting for justice in one of the most explosive murder trials of the era.

On the night of March 5, 1770, shots were fired by British soldiers on the streets of Boston, killing five civilians. The Boston Massacre has often been called the first shots of the American Revolution. As John Adams would later remember, “On that night the formation of American independence was born”. Yet when the British soldiers faced trial, the young lawyer Adams was determined that they receive a fair one. He volunteered to represent them, keeping the peace in a powder keg of a colony, and in the process created some of the foundations of what would become United States law.

In this book, ‘New York Times’ best-selling authors, Dan Abrams and David Fisher draw on the trial transcript, using Adams’ own words to transport listeners to colonial Boston, a city roiling with rebellion, where British military forces and American colonists live side by side, waiting for the spark that would start a war.

RUNNING TIME ➼ 9hrs. and 52mins.

I really enjoyed this book. The narration was well done. Roger Wayne made it easy to distinguish quotes from the different witnesses and the lawyers.

It did drag a little at the end. Those closing statements were long. 

I learned a lot of new facts about the events surrounding the Boston Massacre and about John Adams. I also learned some historic tidbits too, mostly about the laws, juries, insults, and that Sam Adams wrote under the pseudonym Vindex. It was also the longest trial in colonial history. 

Transcripts weren’t taken of trials back then, but these trials were an exception. The transcript of Preston’s trial was sent to England and never made public. Others and Preston himself took notes. 

What I gather from the conflicting testimonies from the 50 witnesses called is that the a mob of civilians incited violence with sticks and throwing snowballs. Someone, (most likely Montgomery) shouted “fire” (after he was knocked to the ground). That set off the other officer (officers?) to fire too. It was chaotic and tragic. “Mobs will never do” was one of my favorite quotes at the end. 

I came away with a whole lot of respect for John Adams. He lost business as a lawyer and it damaged his reputation because he defended the British officers. But it took courage to defend the rule of law. And! He was never paid by the Crown for his service, nor did Preston ever thank him.

4 out of 5 Muskets.