Category: Goodreads Reviews

author: Victoria Clark
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2009/02/08
date added: 2009/02/09
shelves: history, non-fiction, politics, religion, sociology
review:
Book is divided into two parts: the history of Christian Zionism from the Reformation in England to 1948, and a survey of modern American Christian Zionism.

For me, the first part was full of new information, weird twists of history, strange characters (a Venn diagram of this book & Eating the Sun shows Joseph Priestly as the one person in the union!) over the history of both Britain & the US. The second half has some new, but much that’s familiar to anyone who’s been following this part of foreign policy over the last 10 years.

It feels like what it is, too: a foreigner’s attempt to understand something deeply weird and totally American. (alas) She tries to have a gentle touch, but the underlying tone is OMGWTFBBQ crazy people! Not that I don’t sympathize, of course, and maybe I’m projecting a bit. Because yes, OMG teh crazy. I really really really hope that we get to an actually rational foreign policy in re: the Middle East sometime soon!

author: Langston Hughes
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1959
rating: 4
read at: 2008/11/10
date added: 2009/02/05
shelves: history, own, poetry
review:
I know it’s probably corny to go back to this right after Obama’s election, but I needed something really different from Rukeyser, and I actually don’t read enough guy poets! So far, enjoying his use of language, the shifting dictions and rhythms. (Also, interesting to find stars & notes from when I read this in college.)

author: Scott McClellan
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.06
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2009/01/15
date added: 2009/02/05
shelves: autobiography, history, non-fiction, politics
review:
I read this book because of The Big Sort: I wanted to open-mindedly read something from a very different viewpoint from my own.

I found McClellan’s writing voice engaging and friendly, but I constantly wondered how much dissembling he was doing throughout. What did he really know? He reads as being furious at Karl Rove, because Rove (according to McClellan) lied to him…is that really so? It wouldn’t surprise me, but neither would the opposite.

For me, the book focused around 3 events or phases: McClellan’s early engagement in politics, as the son of the conservative Democrat mayor of Austin; the Valerie Plame affair, and Hurricane Katrina. Plame he treats as a marker for all the lying and hedging before the Iraq war. (Did he really always think it was a bad idea?) Katrina he treats as a public relations disaster, which echoes Bush’s last press conference.

Some of the details have faded after several weeks, but I can definitely say that it’s worth a read just to get a view from the other side that is relatively thoughtful about the years just past.

(Also, I kept reading the title in my head as What the F*** Happened?)