history

Review: The Emperor of All Maladies

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Cover image of "The Emperor of All Maladies" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

The Emperor of All Maladies

The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee. Scribner (ISBN: 9781668047033) 2025 (My review is of the 2010 edition).

Summary: A biography of the disease, our understanding of its nature, and approaches to treating it.

Excuse my bluntness. Cancer sucks. I’ve watched friends and beloved relatives die cruel deaths from it. The survivors I know, including those in my own family, while grateful to be alive, bear the marks of their experience. The fear of recurrence is never far away. I’ve had my own brushes with cancer with skin lesions and precancerous polyps. Early detection and treatment made these just brushes. The truth is, all of us will have some form cancer or know someone close to us who does. And for anyone with a serious cancer diagnosis, life changes irrevocably on the day they receive that diagnosis.

The marvel of Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies is to write beautifully, elegantly, clearly, and honestly about this ugly fearsome disease. The title recognizes the powerful adversary cancer is. It arises when the normal cellular mechanisms that check growth and multiplication go haywire. Also, additional changes allow it to spread and resist our own defenses as well as external agents.

Mukherjee also calls this a biography of cancer. He chronicles a four thousand year history of the disease from the Egyptian physician Imhotep, who first described it to the Persian Queen Atossa, who had a slave remove a breast to fight breast cancer in 440 BC, futilely as it turned out because the cancer had spread. He traces that history down to the present discussing both our slowly growing understanding of the disease and key figures in the history of its treatment. Mukherjee also personalizes it with Carla, one of his patients, whose journey he traces at various points of the book.

He begins with when cancer was thought to be “black bile.” Yet doctors found no such substance, even in cadavers. Early on, a cancer diagnosis simply was a death sentence. Apart from quack remedies, there was no treatment. Only palliative care was possible. With the advent of antiseptic measures, surgeries were used to remove cancers, such as William Halsted’s radical mastectomies, often quite extensive and disfiguring. But quickly, doctors learned that if cancer was not local, surgery was futile. Another blunt instrument was radiation, again effective with local cancers (although it could also cause cancer).

Mukherjee introduces us to Sidney Farber, who moved from the laboratory to the clinic to fight childhood leukemia and other cancers. Antifolates and other early chemotherapies extended the lives of children. Farber teamed up with Mary Lasker to lead an effort to secure funding for research into other chemotherapies. They created the Jimmy Fund, named after a young boy, Einar Gusfson, with leukemia who was dubbed “Jimmy.” A baseball fan, he won the hearts of Boston’s baseball teams, and money poured in.

From the 1950’s to the 1970’s, Mukherjee chronicles burgeoning, hubristic efforts to win the “war on cancer” with chemotherapy. More and more extreme combinations of drugs resulted in both victories and a lot of failures. But something was missing. While throwing all these therapies at cancer, clinicians gave little time to understanding how cancer worked. Not only that, but those who researched the cellular mechanisms of cancer weren’t talking to the clinicians who treated it.

Then, beginning in the 1980’s, there was an explosion in understanding the nature of cancer, and the genetic mechanisms behind its uncontrolled multiplication and spread. Just as the human genome has been sequenced, so are cancer genomes, tracing pathways by which normal cells turn cancerous. This has been accompanied by advances in both prevention and therapeutics, including identifications of mutations like the BRCA gene that leads to some breast cancers.

Since 2010, there have been an avalanche of advances in cancer biology, prevention, and treatment. So in 2025, Mukherjee released an updated edition of the book with four new chapters detailing these advances.

Despite the heartbreaks and latent fears I’ve known, I found Mukherjee’s account fascinating. Mukherjee weaves into the history and the science real people, both those who die and those who survive. His book stands as a warning against hubris in announcing “cures for cancer.” He helps us understand why cancer is such a difficult to conquer emperor and what has been and is being done. He reflects the realistic hope of every cancer survivor who speaks, not of cures, but of “no evidence of disease” that allows one to live another day. Mukherjee also reminds us of the army of people working to prevent cancer and treat it, not giving up on conquering the emperor.

Review: History Matters

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Cover image of "History Matters" by David McCullough

History Matters, David McCullough (edited by Dorie McCullough Lawson and Michael Hill, foreword by Jon Meacham). Simon & Schuster (ISBN: 9781668098998) 2025.

Summary: Essays and lectures on the importance of history, biographical vignettes, influences on the writer, and writing process.

I became a fan while reading Harry Truman. Nine hundred pages in and I didn’t want the book to end. It was not only the subject, but the writing. And so I’ve read just about everything David McCullough has written. (Looking over his publications, I discovered I somehow had missed Brave Companions. I will remedy that soon!). And so I was delighted to learn of this new, posthumous collection of his essays and lecture transcripts, edited by daughter Dorie McCullough Lawson and researcher Michael Hill.

The pieces in this collection are grouped into four parts. Firstly, apropos of the title is a section titled “why History?” He sums it up as follows:

“But, I think, what it really comes down to is that history is an extension of life. It both enlarges and intensifies the experience of being alive. It’s like poetry and art. Or music. And it’s ours, to enjoy” (p.4).

He adds, in the words of Barbara Tuchman that the key to good historiography is to “Tell stories.” He goes on to write about American values and hid long-range optimism about the country. A short essay on luck and history explores Washington’s luck with the weather in escaping the British and McCullough’s own good fortune. The final essay in this section is a transcript of his Paris Review interview with good background on his beginnings as a writer and behind the scenes glimpses of several of his books. Most interesting was his reason for not writing on Picasso–he just didn’t like him. He found when you have to spend years researching someone, it helps to like them as a person.

Part Two is titled “Figures in a Landscape.” These essays offer vignettes of Americans against the backdrop of their history: Thomas Eakins, Harriet Beecher Stowe, George Washington, and Harry Truman. The two longest ones are on Washington and Truman. Of Washington, he described his essential trait as leadership–of people and a nation. He could call people to do things beyond what they thought their capacity. Of Truman, he argues that part of his greatness was his profound sense of history. In less than twenty pages, he summarizes the strengths and flaws of the man, considering him among America’s great presidents.

In Part Three, the topic is “Influences.” He begins with the love of learning of three Yale men: Ezra Stiles, John Trumbull, and Manasseh Cutler. The latter was a pioneer in higher education on the Ohio frontier, and Ohio University’s oldest building is Cutler Hall. He offers a profile of the actor Vincent Scully. This is followed by McCullough’s account of getting a speech idea through to Arthur Schlesinger, advisor to candidate John Kennedy. In the end, one sentence made it into a speech. I was so fascinated by his profile of Paul Horgan, I found used copies of a couple of his works. He loved the writing of Herman Wouk. Of course, one essay offers a list of his favorite books. The section concludes with a delightful Christmas ritual titled “A Book on Every Bed.”

Part Four centers on McCullough’s writing process. He begins with great writing advice and his own practice of never working from an outline, which he likens to painting by number. Like many writers, he emphasizes the hard work of rewriting, describing himself as a rewriter. He offers a tribute to his Royal Standard typewriter, on which he wrote all of his books. In his advice to writers, he advises reading widely as well as deeply and this section includes an essay with more book recommendations. The final essay is on history and art, highlighting Churchill as an artist. McCullough was as well, the endpapers featuring two of his watercolors.

If McCullough is new to you, it will whet your appetite for his books (and many others as well). For others, it clarifies the values that informed McCullough’s writing–of history’s importance, of telling a good story, of living with a character long enough to bring them to life. Finally, these essays are a workshop for writers, especially of biography and history. They represent a fitting summing up of his life.

Review: The Bookshop

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Cover image of "The Bookshop" by Evan Friss

The Bookshop, Evan Friss. Viking (ISBN: 9780593299920) 2024.

Summary: A history of bookstores in America through the lens of fourteen bookstores or bookselling venues.

As a bibliophile, I love books on books, reading, and bookstores. In The Bookshop, Evan Friss offers a history of bookshops in America through the lens of fourteen bookshops or bookselling venues. Friss tells us he prefers the term “shop” at the outset. “Stores” sound too commercial. While there is a necessity to make enough to keep bookshops afloat (always a challenge throughout their history), a theme here is the unique bond booksellers build (or don’t build, in one case) with their customers.

Friss establishes that ethos in his Introduction, profiling the small Three Lives & Company shop in New York’s West Village. From Toby the owner to “the regulars” to Miriam, who listens well to customers, one has the sense that, like “Cheers,” this is a place where everyone knows, or wants to know, your name. After this, and each following chapter, there is a vignette on bookshop life–the UPS driver, the smell of books, the store buyer, and the ubiquitous bookstore cat among them.

From the Introduction, Friss takes us on a journey in time and geography from Ben Franklin’s shop in Philadelphia to Ann Patchett’s Parnassus books in Nashville. Along the way we learn Franklin didn’t call it a bookstore. He was a printer, and that led to printing and selling a number of books, including his own Almanac. His first big hit was the preacher, George Whitefield, selling his journals and sermons. Meanwhile, in another cradle of the Revolution, also a cradle of bookselling, we are introduced to the Old Corner bookshop. It was the hangout for the likes of Emerson, Holmes, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Longfellow. Behind it was the partnership of William D. Ticknor and a clerk, James D. Fields, who rose to become a partner.

Friss introduces us to some legendary stores. Having worked in a department store, I was fascinated by the sheer magnificence of the Marshall Field book department in Chicago, especially under Marcella Hahner. Another woman-run store was the Gotham Book Mart. Frances Steloff maintained an office in this rambling store with books piled everywhere until she was over one hundred. She found a way to sell the books that were banned. And then there was the Strand, once on Booksellers Row before it moved a few blocks. A Bass family member still manages it.

By contrast, there are the niche stores. One of those was the Aryan Book Store, selling, you guessed it, Nazi literature. Friss notes similar shops around the country for workers and the Communist Party. Then there is the Oscar Wilde, a pathbreaker in the sale of LGBTQ+ literature. Finally, the Drum & Spear represents Black bookseller, on the rise with Black Lives Matter.

Friss also chronicles the booksellers who don’t sell from brick and mortar shops. Parnassus on Wheels from the early 1900’s represents the booksellers who sold books from wagons and later bookmobiles. Then there are the sidewalk booksellers in New York City and other places, following the precedent of the bouquinistes selling books along the West Bank of the Seine in Paris. In New York, we learn of the hassles they face from the city, even while building their own community of clientele. Finally, there is the story of online bookselling typified by Amazon, the behemoth. Friss also covers their misbegotten venture into brick and mortar stores, and their failure to embrace a bookselling ethos.

The book concludes with the two major players in the bookshop world of today. There are the big box chains, represented by Barnes and Noble. And there are the thousands of indies, represented by Ann Patchett’s Parnassus Books. The chapters devoted to each trace their birth and growth. For Barnes and Noble, it is a longer story, from a single New York store, to Leonard Riggio’s pivotal role in building the chain, to James Daunt’s role as rescuer, teaching booksellers to think like indies. On the other hand, the story of Parnassus is one where an accomplished author and a publisher’s sales rep team up when Nashville’s beloved Davis-Kidd store closed. and we learn how Barnes and Noble and the indies, once rivals, have learned to see each other as allies in the effort to keep bookselling personal and a presence in every community.

Of course, there are thousands of stories that go untold. Places like Austin’s BookPeople and Powell’s only have cameo appearances. Not one of the many great bookshops in my home state were mentioned. But no matter. The various expressions of bookselling were there and the stores featured are kin. Friss captures both the hard work behind bookselling and the wonder of these special “third places.” Whether the street stand, a corner shop, the indies I know of that create events and comfortable spaces in small towns, or my local Barnes and Noble, all are celebrated in Friss’ account. And because of that, I appreciate even more the gift all of these are to the common good.

Review: Challenger

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Cover image of "Challenger" by Adam Higginbotham

Challenger, Adam Higginbotham. Avid Reader Press (ISBN: 9781982176617) 2024.

Summary: The heroism of the seven Challenger crew members and why a critical design flaw was ignored, resulting in their deaths.

I wanted to engage in some “magical thinking” in reading this book. The images of the Challenger explosion played over and over on our TV screens on January 28, 1986. We realized we were watching seven human beings come to a sudden end to their high aspirations. Or as it turned out, tumbling in an intact cockpit to an ocean impact and watery grave.

Adam Higginbotham didn’t allow me to engage that magical thinking. In the Prologue, through the eyes and words of public affairs announcer Steve Nesbitt, the disaster replays, underscored by his understatement, “Obviously a major malfunction.” Still, I wanted it to be different.

First, Higginbotham takes us back to the Apollo program, begun disastrously in the capsule fire that killed three astronauts. He traces the response and the subsequent successes of the program. And then the questioning of what NASA should do next. It was a time when government wanted to scale back the massive spending of the Apollo program rather than embark on further grandiose adventures.

And so the idea of a reusable space plane won approval, sold as a way to make space flight routine. But budget constraints resulted in the design decision to deploy reusable Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) to launch the shuttle into orbit. No manned space flight had used solid boosters. But the Titan missiles used them successfully, manufactured by Morton Thiokol, who won the contract for the shuttle boosters. However, these were much larger, and needed to be assembled in sections with the joints sealed by an asbestos putty and two concentric O-rings.

In testing, engineers found that on ignition, the joints flexed in a way where a gap in the seal occurred momentarily, allowing hot gasses to escape, to burn through. These charred some of the inner O-rings but did not get past the outer O-ring, and the joint sealed. There were other problems. Valves and turbine blades in the liquid fuel main booster. And hear resistant tiles that would fall off, exposing shuttle surfaces to potential “burn through” on re-entry. Engineers found fixes, including storage and assembly procedures for the SRBs. And the shuttles were approved for flight.

Higginbotham profiles each of the people who made up the crew of Challenger. Along the way, we learn the name of George Abbey, the NASA administrator who made the final call in astronaut selection and personally contacted each person. He introduces each individual: Ron McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judy Resnik, Dick Scobee, Mike Smith, Greg Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe, the school teacher who had prepared to teach lessons from space. He traces the career trajectory that led to each being assigned to the Challenger launch.

As the astronauts are training, Higginbotham takes us behind the scenes as concerns mount about the SRB joints. The engineering team at Morton Thiokol, working under Allan McDonald, Director of the program, and Roger Boisjoly, the senior scientist on the project, find more evidence of failures of the joints to fully seal. After a cold weather launch of Discovery in 1985, a significant breach of the inner ring and major charring of the outer ring were found. The joint had held, but barely. Management delayed a redesign of the joint. Boisjoly started studying the cold weather properties of the O-rings, finding they ceased to work at cold temperatures.

In some ways, the tragic climax of the book is the night before what would be a launch in record cold temperatures. The Morton Thiokol engineers unanimously recommended “do not launch.” I kept hoping they would listen and postpone the launch. But senior executives at Morton Thiokol, under pressure by administrators at NASA overrode that recommendation. The saddest moment for me was when Boisjoly, persuaded by colleagues to watch, saw the explosion. He was never the same, despite courageous testimony before the Rogers Commission.

Finally, Higginbotham takes us through the aftermath. This includes the Rogers Commission and the effort to cover up the engineers “do not launch” recommendation. But thanks to the courage of McDonald and Boisjoly, the truth came out. Also, Higginbotham documents the recovery efforts, including the recovery of the burnt through joint of the right booster. And the recovery of the cabin, flight recorder, and remains, confirming that the cabin was intact until it hit the ocean. And at least Mike Smith was conscious to the end.

What Higginbotham traces through his book is what can happen when a corporate culture turns toxic and dysfunctional. Specifically, we see what happens when the best interests of astronauts are over-ridden by political and profit pressures. But we also see the courage coupled with hard work of the seven who flew that fatal mission. We only wish the administrators had matched their courage and integrity.. Because ultimately, it wasn’t merely a powerful rocket that failed, but rather a group of powerful people.

Review: Why Study History?

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Cover image of "why Study History?" by John Fea

Why Study History? (Second Edition), John Fea. Baker Academic (ISBN: 9781540966605), 2024.

Summary: A Christian historian explains why the study of history is important to us, what historians do, and helpful and unhelpful ways to relate our faith to the study of history.

It seems to me a sad consequence of our “post-truth” age is our lack of trust in nearly everything. Sadly, this includes for many the study of history, which some will claim is just shaped by agendas across the political spectrum.

John Fea, in a book meant as an introductory text for students, as well as for more general audiences, both admits that history reflects a process of constant revision as new sources emerge and yet that because of the disciplined processes (including the 5 C’s of historical study) academic historians use, it is possible to attain approximations to the truth that give us reasonable confidence in what happened in the past and why. While we never attain to absolute certainty, this does not mean that we cannot learn from historians to our profit.

He contends that the study of the past may inspire us, sometimes offer an escape from modern life, and at other times help us understand who we are and how we got here. We are in constant dialogue with the past whether we admit it or not. At the same time historians teach us to use the past without misappropriating it. First, we must understand the past on its own terms, as an “other,” rather than through the eyes of our particular present. This involves empathy and humility, which he illustrates with the example of an evangelical scholar studying at a Latter Day Saints school, who only made progress in understanding their history when he recognized that whatever he thought, LDS adherents believed the teachings they received and acted in accord with them.

Fea tackles the question of providence as it relates to historical study. While he affirms providence, he contends that this is the province of theologians, and that historians are doing something besides history when they attempt to read God’s providence into historical events. He does not outright deny the possibility of writing providential history and notes examples of those who have attempted such writings. He believes this must be done with great humility, recognizing our inherent limitations in knowing the plans of God.

Fea does believe there are Christian resources we may bring to bear in the study of the past: our understanding of the imago dei, the reality of human sin, the relevance of the incarnation to the study of a physical past and the use of our minds, and the use of moral reflection upon both the good and the bad we encounter in our study, not to preach, but to see.

The study of history is important to cultivating a civil, democratic society. Careful work at understanding combined with humility and empathy are not only skills necessary in the study of history. They are the skills necessary for reaching across the divides in our national discourse. If there is any hope of healing our discords, these practices are crucial. History may also be transformative. It is a form of public engagement, of loving our neighbors in the past. For the Christian, it may be a spiritual discipline calling forth prayer, self-denial, hospitality, charity, and humility as we study the “other” in the past.

One of the objections to studying history is the problem of getting a job with that major. Fea admits the challenge but seeks to open our eyes to the range of occupations that draw upon the skills learned by those who study history. He describes a student who subsequently worked in a children’s hospital in Malawi. She learned to listen well, write well, and tell good stories. She learned empathy walking in the shoes of the dead, and learned how to step out of her own approach to the world. Fea goes on to list famous people who studied history and shares examples of some of the things he sees his former students and others doing: writing, marketing and digital analytics, business, sales, television sports, filmmaking, medicine, ministry, criminal justice, and real estate.

In an epilogue, Fea discusses the importance of doing good history for the church, and the public engagement of those who have studied history. He describes his own public engagements around his book Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? in which he challenges many aspects of this notion. Those engagements have led to fruitful conversations, stretched his own thinking, and made him reconsider how he pursues his calling as an academic theologian to not only advance knowledge in his discipline, but serve the wider Christian community.

This is such a good introduction that I would commend it not only for students but all thoughtful Christians. In helping us understand the work of historians, Fea gives us tools to evaluate historical claims and narratives rather than defaulting to pervasive skepticism or just accepting the opinions of our tribe. More than this, Fea show us what kind of person we must become to study history well and that these virtues equip us well for life in society. Finally, he gestures toward ways we bring our faith to bear in the study of history to elucidate rather than distort what we are seeing as we listen to the past through sifting various sources. All of this seems vital and useful as we seek to understand the times, both past and present, and live with wisdom in our time.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Haiti: The Aftershocks of History

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Haiti: The Aftershocks of History, Laurent Dubois. New York: Picador, 2013.

Summary: A history of Haiti, from colonial rule under France up to the earthquake of 2010.

If you are following world news you will have noticed the descent of Haiti into gang violence and a dissolution of its government with no president since the assassination of President Moise in 2021 and the resignation of acting Prime Minister of Ariel Henry in March 2024. Numerous citizens have been kidnapped, many have fled the country and the country is facing critical levels of food insecurity. With that in view, I picked up this history of the country to see if I might gain some understanding of the current events. Laurent Dubois narrates the history of the country from the colonial period under France up until 2010, although the period after the Duvaliers, father and son, is only briefly covered.

It is a history to make one weep. The country is the only country to gain independence through the revolt of a slave people, in this case against France. Slaves on the profitable sugar plantations rose under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture in a fight running from 1791 to 1804 for independence. Toussaint died as a prisoner of war during an attempt by the French to recapture the former colony. The French were finally defeated in 1804 under a coalition led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines who proclaimed himself emperor, re-established the plantation system rather than the small farms people wanted, and then died.

One element of this story is the instability, authoritarian character and corruption of leaders that goes back to the nation’s origins. Over its history, the country has experienced over 30 coups. Leaders re-wrote constitutions several time to protect their power, in one instance, for life. There was a reliance upon the military, or in the case of the Duvalier dynasty of 30 years, the employment of a private militia, the Tonton Macoutes to ruthlessly stifle opposition.

Another is the pattern of foreign interference throughout the country’s history, beginning with the colonial rule of France. After independence, France held the country in thrall through an onerous indemnity, that took the best part of a century to liquidate, setting up a destructive pattern of borrowing and debt that held a stranglehold on the country. For a period of time, the country’s treasury was a French bank!

The United States did not recognize Haiti for over fifty years, frightened by the idea of a successful slave revolt. Then with the expansion of U.S. Naval power Haiti first became attractive as a site for a coaling station. Later, business interests were interested in what could be extracted from the country. Internal order brought an invasion of U.S. Marines in 1915 to restore order, build roads and infrastructure, and promote agricultural reforms.

It was a high-handed paternalistic effort, with few bothering to learn the language and culture. When resistance was encountered, villages were destroyed and atrocities occurred for which there has never been a reckoning. Our Marines were only withdrawn in the 1930’s but our countries’ interests continue to be intertwined. In the Duvalier era, for example, Nelson Rockefeller can be seen in chummy photos with “Papa Doc” Duvalier. Dubois extends this paternalistic approach to many of the NGOs, aid and mission organizations working in the country, that often competed with local economies, supplanting local trades, draining resources, and often repeating the military’s mistake of not learning French or Creole, nor the indigenous culture.

Dubois presents a picture of a country in which the people often outshine the leaders, pressing to be free from plantation economies and foreign interests, and for government reforms. Sadly, the pattern of people rising to leadership, only to follow the corrupt, authoritarian models of their predecessors, is repeated again and again.

Finally, we see the natural devastation of the country, from monocultures that exhaust the soil, hillside erosions and the loss of topsoils, and deforestation, culminating in the devastating earthquake of 2010 (and another, after publication, in 2020). What is grievous is that this was a country once rich in natural resources that is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.

Amid all the devastation, Dubois still holds out hope that the people who rose from slavery can rise to build a new Haiti. I found myself far less certain, wondering how the habits of good civil government, the rule of law, ethical business practice and sustainable agriculture can be established and developed. Given the current descent into gang violence and anarchy, I wonder if we are watching a nation in the throes of self-destruction, one that could precipitate a terrible genocide. Is it not time for the international community to act to prevent great loss of life, provide critical aid, and to offer the breathing space to restore civil order? But only Haiti can do the rest.

Review: Istanbul

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Istanbul, Thomas F. Madden. New York: Viking, 2016.

Summary: The history of this great city at the meeting place of Europe and Asia from the Byantine Empire beginning in 667 BC through the modern Istanbul up to 2016.

Istanbul, located on the Bosporus Strait connecting Europe and Asia, and possessing in its Golden Horn a natural harbor, was a strategic city and crossroad of the world for centuries. Thomas F. Madden, a medieval and renaissance history professor captures in 360 pages the history of this great city (in fact, the name, Istanbul means “the city”).

He traces its beginnings in 667 BC when Greek settlers, including it founder, Byzas, from Megara recognized its natural advantages both for trade and defense and settled there, naming it Byzantium after its founder. He traces the transitions from Persian to Greek to Roman rule and the rise of the city under Constantine, where it became New Rome, the capitol of the Roman Empire. He follows the long history as, first barbarians from Europe, and then Muslims from the East erode the boundaries of empire. We see the city embroiled in the schism of the Christian East and West, with the Hagia Sophia the powerful symbol of the Eastern church.

While the city, now Constantinople, faces numerous attacks and is forced into alliances with Venice and Genoa, it does not fall for over a thousand yearsd due to its protected harbor and massive walls and natural barriers in approaching the city. Then finally, in 1453 it falls to the Ottomans becoming the centerpiece of the empire of Suleiman the Great. Madden chronicles the long decline under a succession of sultans until the end of the Ottoman empire following World War I and the rise of Turkish nationalism under Kamal in the 1920’s and the rise of the Erdogan regime and the transformation of Istanbul into a modern city, even as the seat of government moves to Ankara.

The history seemed to me one in which this great city struggled with complacency about its greatness. Despite encroaching powers, the city seemed invulnerable. Madden gives us a story where the internal weaknesses of the city aided its enemies. Yet Madden also portrays the magnificence of the city–its temples, mosques, palaces, hippodrome, and walls and harbor. In a compactly rendered history, he helps us understand why the city was both great and strategic for centuries, and even now, and what contributed to its defeats, and the transitions of power it has undergone.

Review: Ramesses II, Egypt’s Ultimate Pharaoh

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Ramesses II, Egypt’s Ultimate Pharoah, Peter J. Brand. Columbus, GA: Lockwood Press, 2023.

Summary: Drawing heavily on archaeology, this lavishly illustrated work describes the life, historical and cultural context, and physical record of this arguably greatest of Egypt’s Pharaohs.

This is an impressive work about an impressive figure in human history. Peter J. Brand is an Egyptologist whose study focuses on the imperial age (ca. 1550–1100 BCE), during which Ramesses II ruled. He is also the “director of the Karnak Hypostyle Hall Project, which is recording, conserving, and interpreting hundreds of scenes and hieroglyphic texts carved on the walls and columns of the Great Hypostyle Hall” (from book website). In Ramesses II, Egypt’s Ultimate Pharoah, he has given us a lavishly illustrated and extensively documented account of the life of Ramesses II, who ruled longer than any other pharaoh at 67 years [some believe Pepi II in the Sixth Dynasty ascended to rule at age six for 94 years] and left more monuments to his rule than any other. The book is printed on high quality paper rendering the many full-color images of monuments, temples, and renderings of ancient paintings and inscriptions that serve as documentation of Ramesses II’s reign.

The book begins by setting the rule of the Ramessides within a chronology of the successive kingdoms of Egypt and tells the story of his family including his father, Sety 1 who ruled for just ten years, but long enough to train his son and establish him as Crown Prince. He ascended to rule in his early twenties, and immediately occupied himself with building monuments and producing heirs. A major event in his career is covered extensively by Brand, the Battle of Kadesh against the rival Hittite Kingdom, in 1274 BC. It was a near disaster, with Ramesses II nearly defeated after being ambushed. Accounts emphasize personal heroism in repelling the attack and the eventual “victory” of Ramesses after reinforcements arrive, although Kadesh remained in Hittite hands. Brand reveals an the impressive public relations effort it took to turn this near disaster into a glorious victory. The victory is disputable but Ramesses II’s courage is not. Later wars in the first two decades protect Egypt’s territories but don’t change the balance of power.

It was perhaps the realization of this that led to negotiations with the Hittites that led to the Silver Treaty in the third decade of Ramesses II’s rule. It didn’t turn the two kings into friends although Brand shares the diplomatic exchanges calling each other brothers and the snide ways each sought to assert his own greatness, even after the peace. Perhaps as extensive were the negotiations for Ramesses to marry not one, but eventually two Hittite princesses, always the way of sealing accords.

Two marks of Ramesses II’s success were his children and his Jubilees. Altogether, Ramesses sired at least 45 sons and more than fifty daughters with his various wives. For a godlike figure to have so many children was a good sign for the fertility of the nations crops, and indeed, Egypt of these years was the grainary of the Middle East. Brand gives us brief biographies of the successive heirs to the throne, three of whom pre-deceased Ramesses, We also learn of his five daughter wives.

The Jubilees both celebrated the length of his reign and were cermonies of renewal The first was held at year 30 of his reign, with twelve more Seds held at intervals of three years. Many Pharaohs never made it to the first. These were the occasion of building more monuments including the Temple at Abu Simbel in southern Egypt, the object of an extensive rescue effort when the construction of the Aswan High Dan threatened it with inundation.

Brand’s account concludes with briefer coverage of the later and twilight years, Ramesses death, and his successors, and how he has lived on including his treatment in literature and in Hollywood. There is even a fascinating account of a trip his mummy took to Paris for preservation treatments, requiring a passport and royal honors upon arrival.

And what of Israel? Most of the discussion of Israel comes in discussion of the Hollywood accounts. Otherwise, the only places it comes up in the text postdate Ramesses rule–one to Solomon’s marriage alliance with Egypt, and one to an inscription on the Stela of Merenptah, Ramesses II’s son, from 1210 BCE, listing them as an ethnic group in Canaan. Given the absence of archaeological evidence, Brand remains silent about Israel, treating them as insignificant to Ramesses II’s reign. Of course, this hinges on the dating of the exodus, which biblical scholars date between c. 1400 and 1280 BC, the latter date falling within Ramesses II’s reign and the more widely accepted.

Peter J. Brand has given us an up-to-date and illuminating account in this work, the first since Kenneth Kitchen’s Pharaoh Triumphant forty years ago. It reveals both the culture and the man behind the legends of this great ruler of Egypt at the zenith of Egypt’s power. We stand in wonder at the works portrayed in images that celebrate this Pharaoh three millenia later. While he made much of his “victory” at Kadesh, one cannot help wonder if his greater victory was the decades of peace and stability resulting from the Silver Treaty, that allowed the time and resources to build so many monuments. Brand’s work helps us appreciate one of the greatest rulers in human history, often hidden in the mists of time and legend.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: The Herods

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The Herods: Murder, Politics, and the Art of Succession. Bruce Chilton. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2021.

Summary: A history of this dynasty, tracing its rise from Antipater, the rule of Herod the Great, and his descendants who struggled to recover control over the territories he ruled amid Roman power and rising Jewish discontent.

Any reader of the New Testament recognizes that one or another of the Herods plays a significant part in the birth of Jesus, the ministry and crucifixion of Jesus, and the beginnings of the Christian movement, and the trial of and appeal by Paul to Rome. What is often not considered is the rise of this family from Idumea amid the power struggles of the Jews to maintain independence amid, first the Seleucids and then the Roman power that came to assert control over the lands that once constituted ancient Israel.

Bruce Chilton traces the history of this family and their shrewdness in maintaining Jewish support and pleasing their Roman masters. It begins with Antipater, who modestly never claimed the title “king” of Idumea but allied with Hyrcanus II as high priest of the Jerusalem temple and leader of Judea and allying himself with Pompey against the Seleucids, securing both Hyrcanus in Jerusalem and securing Roman favor for his own family.

Herod, known as “The Great,” was his son. He married Mariamne, the granddaughter of Hyrcanus, gaining legitimacy with the Maccabees, and works first with Mark Antony and then Octavian, securing kingship over Jerusalem, Samaria, Galilee, and Idumea. Chilton traces his ruthlessness, executing first Mariamne’s brother, then Mariamne, and her sons but leaving his kingship in disarray at his death.

Chilton situates the birth of Jesus and the massacre of the innocents during the brief reign of Herod’s son Archelaus over Judea. while Philip ruled in Gaulanitis and Antipas in Galilee and Samaria. Antipas was the shrewdest, stealing his brother Philip’s wife Herodias and working throughout his reign to regain control of Judea and Jerusalem, only to lose it all to his nephew, Agrippa I, who had cultivated Caligula, who succeeded Tiberius, who had favored Antipas. Antipas was the one Jesus called “the fox” and Chilton has some interesting insights into gospel passages alluding to Antipas, who concurred in the execution of Jesus, as well as the beheading of John.

Agrippa I recovered the realm of Herod the great, persecuted restive minorities, including the followers of Jesus, and, as recorded in Acts, died an early and grisly death just days after being proclaimed as a god. He was succeeded by Agrippa II over parts of Agrippa I’s realm under tight control of Rome, aided by his sister Berenike, perhaps the more ambitious of the two. But affairs among the Jews were spiraling into open rebellion that they could not stop, resulting in brutal Roman suppression and the fall of Jerusalem. It was Agrippa II and Berenike who consult with Felix and hear Paul’s defense and appeal to Rome.

Chilton offers a narrative that underscores the shrewdness and ambition and ruthlessness, when necessary, of the Herods. He also shows the significant roles played by women in this dynasty: Mariamne, Herodias, Salome, and Berenike among them. We learn of other competent, but lesser lights, like Philip, who appears to have led well in Gaulanitis, and Phasael, Herod the Great’s more restrained older brother who administered Jerusalem until Herod took control.

While Chilton provides both a timeline and a Dramatis personae of important figures, it would have been helpful to provide a family tree or genealogy to make clear the relations among the various figures, and the offspring of multiple marriages. It is also evident that Chilton credits other sources like Josephus above the New Testament writers at points of conflict.

That said, Chilton’s account of this dynasty enriches our understanding of the figures who intersect with the New Testament narratives and played a vital role in second Temple Israel during the decisive century before the fall of the temple.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: The Children of Ash and Elm

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Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings, Neil Price. New York: Basic Books, 2020.

Summary: A history based in archaeological research of the rise of the Vikings, their ways and beliefs, and their development as a trading, raiding, and invading power.

The story is that the gods, as they were creating, found two pieces of wood, out of which they fashioned the first man and first woman. The man was of Ash, the woman of Elm, and from these the people that became known to us as the “Vikings” sprang. Or so the Norse legends say.

Beginning with this story, Neil Price renders a history of the people known to us as Vikings. It is a story of a people who emerge from the fjords of Norway and the fastnesses of Sweden, from a collection of locally powerful lords of halls to invade and settle as far as Uzbekistan, Kabul, and Baghdad in the east and Iceland, Greenland, and the eastern shores of North America to the west. They contributed to the founding of Russia and their blood runs through William the Conqueror.

Price draws deeply on archaeological research to reconstruct the rise of these peoples in a time of volcanically-induced extended winter. The first part of this work traces their roots amid a Europe reconstituting itself after the fall of the Roman empire and the spread of Christianity, including to isolated monasteries in England that fell to early raids. Price uses archaeology to reconstruct their life, their beliefs (the Norse gods were a violent and promiscuous bunch) their burial customs (a most fascinating part of the book, including the boat burials, the rites and sacrifices, and what they were interred with), their social organization, including the employment of slaves, and their gender and sexuality.

The second part of the book traces the rise of the Vikings as a maritime culture from trading to raiding (“why trade for it when we can just take it.”) to their full scale invasions. What drives all of this is growing economic power and the needs to sustain and expand it. Price is unsparing in his accounts of the violence of these raids and invasions, and especially the consequences for women.

The third part of the book then builds upon this expansion to trace the extent of their dispersion throughout northern and eastern Europe, Russia, Constantinople and the trade routes to the east. We also learn of their dispersion from Scandinavian countries to Iceland and the attempts to settle in Greenland and North America (Vinland). Price traces the wars in England, the back and forth struggles of alternating Anglo-Saxon and Viking kings until the death of Knut in 1035 and the invasion of William, who as mentioned, was a Viking descendent.

In addition to this sweeping history, Price offers us a glimpse of the avalanche of data coming from archaeological work, from excavations, to artifacts, to DNA samples. We learn of the excavation of a warrior burial site that the warrior was a woman, from DNA evidence. Price offers evidence of fluidity in both gender roles and sexuality which might be explored further in terms of whether contemporary constructs are being read into the record, or whether the record bears out the existence of gender and sexual expression that parallel contemporary experience.

The work helps the reader enter into the worldview of these people, their maritime and military prowess, the sheer breadth of their advances and influences, and, in the end, their assimilation into Christendom. We see both the glories of the hall and the ugliness of their violence and some of their rites. The work offers maps that should be referenced to track the movements of the Vikings and a variety of illustrations of sites and artifacts referenced in the text. The references also offer extensive additional readings, as well as references for each chapter in the text.

All of this comes in a highly readable account, seasoned with Price’s wit from time to time. While there may be matters for continued scholarly debate in Price’s account, he offers an account that separates myth from fact in our understanding of these people–for example, there were no horned helmets but rather head pieces of armor and mail! This is a “go to” resource for those interested in the current research on the Vikings and their history and ways.