Steve Goddard's History Wire

Out in Paperback / North of the DMZ

North of the DMZ -- Essays on Daily Life in North Korea by Andrei Lankov, McFarland Publishing '07 (www.McFarlandpub.com, order line: 800-253-2187), $39.95, 346 pages, ISBN #0786428392. Index, further reading, no bibliography, b&w images sprinkled through text.

For the more than six decades in which the Kim dynasty has ruled North Korea, the world has read of the manipulation, brutality and tight social control that has prevailed there. But, as Andre Lankov, historian at Australian National University writes, "Some citizens of Kim Jong Il's regime manage to transcend his tyranny in their daily existence."

As Lankov describes it, "Many features of this world are unique and even bizarre. But they have been created by the citizens to reflect their own ideas and values, in sharp contrast to the world forced upon them by a totalitarian system."

Lankov is a senior lecturer at Austrialian National University.

Book Alert / Yankee for Life

Yankee for Life -- My 40-year Journey in Pinstripes by Bobby Murcer with Glen Waggoner, foreward by Yogi Berra, introduction by Derek Jeter, Harper '08, $24.95, 304 pages, ISBN #0061473413.

Quite apart from talent and career stats, baseball has its own ranking of good guys and bad guys. Given the outpouring of emotion in the aftermath of Bobby Murcer's death earlier this summer, it's clear that on the personality scale at least, the longtime New York Yankee outfielder is a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame.

Just as Mickey Mantle bore the burden of replacing Joltin' Joe Dimaggio in 1951, so did many fans in 1966 look for Murcer to be the next Mantle. Even though he entered The Show as a shortstop, Murcer later evolved, like Mantle, into a centerfielder.

But Murcer's distinguished career with the Proud Pinstripes is only one of three reasons that justify writing this memoir. For Murcer won the admiration of a whole new generation of fans as a Yankee broadcaster. But his world threatened to come crashing down on Christmas Eve, 2006, when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, a condition he soon learned was terminal.

During his final illness, Murcer comported himself as an All Star. In reading Murcer's writing, one needs to keep in mind that he knew he was doomed:

"So now I may not know what lies ahead, but I'm just trying my best to live and love every single hour of every single day, with the words of one of my most lovable, caring and insightful friends (Yogi Berra) ringing in my ears: 'It ain't over till it's over.'"

Book Alert / Making Mountains

Making Mountains -- New York City and the Catskills by David Stradling, Foreward by William Cronon, UWash. Press '08, $35, 321 pages, ISBN #0295987472. Index, bibliographical essay, source notes, grouping of b&w glossy images.

University of Cincinnati historian David Stradling thinks that the fact that the Catskill Mountains have been compared to the Swiss Alps is, at once, laughable and understandable. Laughable because the towering Alps are nearly four times as high as the Catskills. Understandable because the Catskills are within 100 miles of one of the most iconic cities of the world and its weekend and vacation home.

It's rare that History Wire encounters a university press book that is simultaneously enlightening and accessibly (even entertainingly) written. Making Mountains will appeal to Gothamites who venture north on weekends or vacations and to those ruralians who want to better understand how New York City has influenced their region's development.

Stradling is adept at explaining the corrosive effect of 19th century urbanization and immigration on New York City, leading to an impulse by residents to flee the city, either on weekends or permanently, an impulse accommodated midcentury by the advent of railroads. Settled as farmland, the Catskill region soon found itself transitioning into the home of resorts and its landscapes the subject of paintings by what came to be known as the Hudson River School, prime among their artists being Thomas Cole and Frederic Church.

In time, as the Big Apple evolved, so did the Catskills. Vacation homes began to replace hotels of the Borscht Belt. Yet through it all, the more urban New York City became, the greater its insistence that wilderness be preserved for their leisure use. Some historians of urban rural evolution talk of cities swallowing up the economy and culture of the hinterlands. Refreshingly, Stradling realizes the interplay isn't that simple or domineering and employs a much more complex and balanced analysis.

Out in Paperback / The Mafia And Other Outlaw Stories

The Mafia and Other Outlaw Stories from Italian Life and Literature, Translations and Introduction by Robin Pickering-Iazzi, UToronto Press, $24.95, 180 pages, ISBN #0802095615. Selected bibliography, about the authors.

Particularly in the wake of Mario Puzo's Godfather series more than three decades ago, Americans can't seem to get enough of Mafia lore (witness the popularity of HBO's Sopranos).

Now University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor of languages Robin Pickering-Iazzi has added to the stock by translating from the Italian a number of stories that have never before appeared in English. The collection includes short stories by such writers as Giovanni Verga, Grazia Deledda, Anna Maria Ortese, Livia DeStefani and Silvana la Spina. The stories date from the 1880s to the 1990s, demonstrating a variety of ways Italians have borne witness to the Mafia and crime in various historical contexts.

Book Alert / The Anti-Intellectual Presidency

The Anti-Intellectual Presidency -- The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric from George Washington to George W. Bush by Elvin T. Lim, Oxford UP '08, $24.95, 178 pages, ISBN #019534264X. Index, no bibliography, source notes, 6 appendices, unillustrated.

Who knows whether the publisher realizes the irony inherent in its publication of Elvin T. Lim's new book. The young author, having happily found a major university press to publish what we assume to be his doctoral dissertation, has written a prodigously researched, woodenly written book that never uses two words where six will do. Par for the course for a standard, university press issue.

But it's the quadrennial presidential election season, if you haven't noticed, so in the interest of boosting sales, Oxford UP throws on a typical colorful trade cover, showing a headless president preparing to exhort an audience. So who's dumbing down the audience? Presidents who simplify addresses for the masses or Oxford UP in trying to lure general readers to buy an unashamedly academic tract?

All that said, let's acknowledge that Wesleyan University Prof. of Gov. Lim went to the trouble of interviewing 42 former speechwriters for presidents from Eisenhower to Bush 43. Lim's chief worry about the process is that presidents' insistence on simplification of their addresses will end up distorting their meaning. And while he calls for presidents to realize that many listeners or readers are capable of a more sophisticated approach, the reality is that campaign speeches seek to engage everyone from the lowest common denominator upwards. As the late Gov. George Wallace put it, albeit inelegantly, "I put it down where the goats can get it." Ain't democracy great?

Out in Paperback / So Simple Victory

No Simple Victory -- World War II in Europe, 1939-1945 by Norman Davies, Penguin '08 paperback, $17, 544 pages, ISBN #B001555DTW. Index, further reading, source notes, two groupings of black and white glossy images.

For two generations, conventional wisdom has taught that good triumphed over evil in World War II, in the form of an Allied victory over Adolf Hitler. But as the depradations of Joseph Stalin's Red Army have come to the fore, historian Norman Davies, writes, the world understands now that much of Europe simply "exchanged one form of totalitarian oppression for another."

Because the rest of the Allies were forever bound historically to the Soviet Union, he argues, the outcome of the war has tarnished the reputation of the West. Davies, an Eastern European specialist, analyzes five primary factors that support his thesis -- geographical limits, military parameters, the ideological framework, the political contest and the moral landscape.

Book Alert / What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, Knopf '08, $21, 180 pages, ISBN #0307269191.

Writing a novel and running a marathon have three requirements in common, writes Haruki Murakami in his conversational new memoir: a modicum of talent, plenty of focus and endurance. While no one entirely lacking in talent can complete either task successfully, he argues, extreme concentration and stamina can help compensate for modest natural endowment.

Murakami, author of some 15 novels (most notably The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle), ran a successful bar with his wife in Japan until he attended a baseball game there one sunny afternoon (Japan is probably the only country more crazed about baseball than America) and experienced an epiphany: he was capable of writing a novel. One might think this revelation might have come after months of contemplation or after taking academic courses in writing. Not so, says the author. He had never written nor thought of writing -- he simply, suddenly, knew he could.

And so he began. In six months, he had produced a slim, 200 page book that soon won a major Japanese literary prize, and the rest is history. Along the way, he began running to stay fit (sedentary writers get a lot less exercise than busy bartenders). Before long, he found himself able to run a 26.2 mile maraton and has run one a year for a generation now. In obsessive-compulsive fashion, he pushed the envelope to finish a 61 mile ultramarathon and, now in his late 50s, triathlons, which combine biking, swimming and running. Murakami writes poignantly of watching his hard training pay off with faster times, only to watch his speed decline as it inevitably must, as he aged.

Having published several books myself and run three marathons, the author's book resonated strongly with me. But he writes about both passions in such an accessible fashion that the general reader will soon feel fully engaged.

Book Alert / The Founders' Second Amendment

The Founders' Second Amendment -- Origins of the Right to Bear Arms by Stephen P. Halbrook, $28.95, 425 pages, ISBN #1566637929. Index, source notes, no bibliography or illustrations.

It's right there in the Bill of Rights -- Americans have a right to bear arms. But as constitutional debate has evolved over more than two centuries, the breadth of that right is understood in widely divergent ways.

As author Stephen P. Halbrook writes, the 1960s brought a revisionist argument that the "right" to be arms existed only "in militia service." But about 20 years ago, says Halbrook, "a handful of scholars began producing an altogether persuasive analysis that changed thinking on the issue, so that today, even in canonical textbooks, bearing arms is acknowledged as an individual right."

The author buttresses his arguments with Founding Fathers's own words as contained in their correspondence, debates, resolutions and newspapers of the day. He investigates the period from 1768 to 1826, from the last years of British rule and the American Revolution to the adoption of the Constitution and Bill of Rights and the passing of the Founders's generation, ending with the death of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on the same day, July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Halbrook is a research fellow at The Independent Institute in Oakland, CA and has a J.D. from Georgetown University Law School and a PhD in social philosophy from Florida State University. He practices law in Fairfax, VA.

Out in Paperback / New York Calling

New York Calling -- From Blackout to Bloomberg, edited by Marshall Berman and Brian Berger, Reaktion '07 paperback, 368 pages, ISBN #1861893388. Photo key, bibliography, contributors, chronology, 225 b&w glossy images sprinkled through text.

"FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD," screamed the 1975 New York Daily News headline. Gotham was on the financial ropes, and few seemed committed to saving it. But then a series of events and circumstances happened that helped polish the Big Apple to a high sheen, to the satisfaction of those who can still afford to live there.

Editors Marshall Berman and Brian Berger have enlisted dozens of writers and photographers to recall the funkier, poorer, in some respects sleazier city of three decades ago. And through their commentary runs the underlying question, "...is this fresh-scrubbed, affluent city really an improvement on its grittier -- and more affordable -- predecessor?"

A sampling: "John Strausbaugh explains how Uptown has taken over Downtown, as Tom Robbins examines the mayors and would-be mayors who have presided over the transformation. Margaret Morton chronicles the homeless, while Robert Atkins offers a personal view of  the city's gay culture and the devastating impact of AIDS. Anthony Haden-Guest and John Yau offer insiders' views of the New York art world, while Brandon Stosuy and Allen Lowe recount their discoveries of the local rock and jazz scenes. Armond White and Leonard Greene approach African-American culture and civil rights from perspectives often marginalized in so-called polite conversation."

Berman teaches political science at City College of New York, and Berger is a poet, journalist and photographer.

Out in Paperback / Histories of the Immediate Present

Histories of the Immediate Present --  Inventing Architectural Modernism by Anthony Vidler, MIT Press '08, $22.95, 264 pages, ISBN #0262720515.

"Architecture, at least since the beginning of the twentieth century, has suspended historical references in favor of universalized abstraction," argues Anthony Vidler, Architecture School Dean at The Cooper Union, in this paperback. To flesh out his premise, Vidler examines the historical approaches of architectural historians: Emil Kaufmann, Colin Rowe, Reyner Banham, and Manfredo Tafuri, and the specific versions of modernism advanced by their historical narratives.

Vidler's narrative seeks to demonstrate  that "the modernism conceived by Kaufmann was, like the late Enlightenment projects he revered, one of pure geometrical forms and elemental composition, that of Rowe saw mannerist ambiguity and complexity in contemporary design; Banham's modernism took its cue from the aspirations of the futurists; and the 'Renaissance modernism' of Tafuri found its source in the division between the technical experimentation of Brunelleschi and the cultural nostalgia of Alberti."

Vidler, who also teaches at The Cooper Union is the author of Warped Space and The Architectural Uncanny, both published by MIT Press.