Book Reviews

I still remember the first time a friend alerted me to the existence of Hamilton the musical. “You should check out this soundtrack. It’s right up your alley.” “What, is it a podcast?” I asked. Friends are always recommending podcasts to me. This is how my friendship with Alexander Hamilton started.

When this pandemic hit Ohio starting in March, I had realized that I was grossly undedicated as a history scholar for not having seen Hamilton. Not only is it a musical based on history (HELLO!), but it was history-making, too. George Washington played by a Black man? Hamilton played by a man from Puerto Rico? What? I was hoping that there might be a version released on YouTube, much like Benedict Cumberbatch’s Frankenstein and the special showing of Phantom. I did find a bootlegged version and I watched the whole thing. Even with no clear facial features, I fell in love. Hard. But, alas, no way to watch.

Then the announcement came out that Disney+ would be releasing “Hamilfilm.” My chance had come at last. Now…how to prepare? It being a quarantine-style pandemic, I did what any naturally crazy person would do. I decided to read the book that inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to create the musical, Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton.

Confessions

OK, so, I didn’t READ the book, per se. I listened to the book via one of my other great loves, Audible. All 35 hours of it. There are a LOT of details in this book, my friends. If you want to know every single product that Hamilton may have seen in his clerk days in the West Indies, this IS the book for you. Still, I think I absorbed it as well as if I had done the reading myself.

My other confession is that I pretty much bawled through the last two chapters. Spoiler: the hero of the story dies.

Conclusions and Musings

Somehow, I had never learned about all of the amazing things Alexander Hamilton did. My only real knowledge of him was from the HBO John Adams series, where he is portrayed as rather sniveling compared to Adams and the broody Jefferson. The series presents Hamilton as a man who pretty much only cares about pretty uniforms and writing mean things about Adams in various newspapers. Now, Hamilton did like himself a pretty uniform, but that’s not the point. From defending the Constitution to creating the first National Bank, Alexander Hamilton may actually have done more to make this country what it is today then Washington. I know, it seems like heresy, but Chernow makes a good case for it.

So why don’t we learn more about Hamilton? Why is it always Washington/Franklin/Madison/Jefferson/Adams? Well, here is another good case Chernow makes. Hamilton even during his own times was often dismissed because he was born in the West Indies. Even though he came to the US as a young man. Even though from almost the time he touched feet to earth he fought for American independence. Even though he did all of the things I mentioned above. Even though all of that, he still was not “one of us.” Add to that his illegitimate birth and you have a bifurcated rationale for dismissal that he was never able to overcome. Even after everything he did, when he was close to 50 years old, he had to deal with people coming up to him and saying, “Oh…President Adams is always calling you the bastard.”

Talk about a lack of support. I think it may have been this underdog sensibility that most inspired Miranda. “Thanks for everything you’ve done for us but um, if it’s cool we’re going to kind of write you out of history because you’re a foreign bastard. Bye!”

Now here is where I disagree with Chernow. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Chernow repeatedly disavows the idea that Hamilton went to his duel with Burr as a suicidal mission. Even though we have Hamilton’s written word that he was going to throw away his shot, Chernow insists that Hamilton was too ebullient in his last days to contemplate suicide. I am not convinced, and it’s for the reason I mentioned above. Many people who should attain greatness but who are denied because of some meaningless facet of their lives cannot handle the injustice. Hamilton’s life was a steady (and I mean steady) trial of defending his honor, either on account of his lineage or on account of his foreign standing, or sometimes both. I think he got exhausted. At 49 I think it was becoming clear to him that he was never going to be given the nod that was given to his rivals. His finances were a mess, ironically.

I hypothesize that Hamilton thought, “Look, very few people like me, but if Burr kills me, even fewer people will like him, and his political days will be over. I can take him down with me. My family will get sympathy from far and wide, which will give them economical support too. And I will finally get some peace.”

I rewatched the HBO Adams series as I was finishing up this book, and while Chernow is most certainly biased in favor of his subject, it is quite interesting to see how so much in the series sweeps over what REALLY happened with Hamilton. Now, of course, I understand that the series is historical fiction (no, really, I do). However…it seems to lend credibility to the idea that Hamilton is still an outsider. Posthumously, he continues to fight for his place in American history.

Excitement

So, now, I am a day away from being able to finally watch Hamilfilm, and I have a historical context to boot. If you are a fan of the musical and if you even kind of like history, I think you should at least check out Chernow’s work. It is long and at times laborious, but you also get to see a fully realized tale of Alexander Hamilton, complete with music in your head.

Let em know what you think of it if you read it, or if you have read it.

I’ve been pondering how exactly to review this book because, honestly, I am still pondering whether I enjoyed it or not. Part of the problem is that this book was written to be current, but it was published in 2007. That doesn’t seem like an eternity ago, per se, but a lot has changed in 13 years, obviously! Given the time that has passed, it’s hard to know if all of the experiences narrated in the book are really meaningful at this point, or if things have gotten better or worse.

But let’s back up a little. What is this book meant to convey? The story is really a trip for the author to see if he can get back his love for Lincoln, or to figure out why he lost it. He was a total Lincoln nut when he was a kid, and his family went to Springfield and Kentucky and all of the key Lincoln landmarks. But then around college the author encountered people who told him that Lincoln wasn’t really worth liking that much. Meanwhile, the southern view of Lincoln started to get more attention. “Hey, this guy okayed the destruction of our property and our way of life. What gives?”

So, Ferguson starts traveling to different Lincolnesque places and sites to see if he can unravel the man behind the legend, and along the way get his Lincoln nuttiness back.

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

I have mentioned that this book was written close to two decades ago, but the first chapter, which is about a big fight that erupted over putting a Lincoln statue at the site of the Tredegar Iron Works, turned out to be quite timely indeed. As I read the history of how Monument Avenue was put together, some of those very statues were being pulled down by BLM protestors. The author attended a pro-Lincoln convention and an anti-Lincoln convention in Richmond and found that both groups had their talking points, but no one seemed entirely, authentically enthused.

A Sprinkle of Hypocrisy

Ferguson travels all over the place in this book. He goes to a business workshop in Pennsylvania to see how these two gurus use Lincoln’s 19th century sensibilities to help 21st century business pros. He goes to Santa Claus, Indiana, where there is a mixture of Lincolns and Santa Clauses. He goes to the Lincoln museum in Chicago that he used to love as a kid and he talks about how Disney has been doing a lot of behind the scenes work to help kids get interested in history.

Wherever the author goes though, he seems to have a deprecating thing to say about the Lincoln lovers he encounters. People who love Lincoln seem childish and worth deriding. That’s all well and good. Making money off of a 19th-century icon can garner differing opinions. But there’s one little problem with the constant mockery. The author has written and published a book all about Lincoln. To me at least, the constant poking at everyone he encounters gets old fast. You’re making money off of those folks and what they do, soooo…maybe tone it down a little.

Lincoln’s Footsteps

The last two chapters were my favorites because the author takes his family on a Lincoln pilgrimage, following Lincoln backwards through his life story. They start in Springfield, head over to New Salem, go through the wilds of Indiana (now near Decatur), then they make their way into Kentucky, where they visit the temple housing the alleged Lincoln cabin along with Sinking Spring Farm.

Even here though, the book is darned depressing. Every single site gets criticized. The Lincoln home in Springfield is no longer interactive. There is a mat that marks the path you have to take. The neighborhood that once surrounded the home is gone, and to the author, Springfield seemed like another dying Midwest town. In Decatur the place that marks where the Lincolns lived is barely visible. Etc etc.

My mom and I had the great fortune of visiting Springfield a few years after this book was published. Now, you have to understand that Lincoln is a man I admire greatly despite his many imperfections, and you also have to understand that when I see amazing historical things, I cry. Ergo, I cried through most of my time in Springfield and my mom tried to distance herself from me as much as was seemly. It’s embarrassing traveling with a bawling 30-something, apparently. But I did not see all that much to complain about. Sure, the ranger didn’t know that Lincoln was born on February 12, but nobody is perfect.

It’s true that history is not being preserved here in the US. Mary Lincoln’s childhood home was a car garage for awhile before it was rescued. The Paul Revere home in Boston has a few slabs of original wall left. But you still know you’re standing where these people stood, and with a little imagination, you can transport yourself if you really want to. That’s a big if, I guess.

In short, there were some interesting and funny little snippets in this book, but overall, I think the mission got a little lost, so the reading experience was not entirely enjoyable.

If you’ve read it, let me know what you think!

If you are running your own company or if you have been charged with running the digital assets of your employer, you have probably, in desperation, sought knowledge in “social media books.” Inevitably, you ran into the story of “United Breaks Guitars” and Comcast. The problem, though, is that your company probably is not as big as United or Comcast. You probably do not attract the same levels of viral negativity if something goes wrong, and you probably do not attract the same levels of viral praise (hey, Ellen DeGeneres, did you hear that…) if something goes right. These social media books may have offered some interesting tidbits, but you may have felt they didn’t really apply to you. How can you have silos between sales and marketing if YOU are sales and marketing in one single package?

Seek no further. I have the Holy Grail of marketing and business development for you. It’s The Ultimate Field Guide to Digital Program Management (not an affiliate link), authored by Daniel Newman and Olivier Blanchard.

This is not a “sit on your butt and read” book

Much like John Jantsch’s Referral Engine (not an affiliate link), this book is not a book you want to sit down and read in front of the fire on a cold winter’s day. In fact, reading this book should not be a solitary affair. Here is my recommendation.

Form a book club at work, even if it’s just you and your one partner. Read a few pages the night before, make notes, and get together the next day to discuss and work towards some actionable goals. That’s the kind of book this is. You will want to start thinking about what the authors talk about as it relates specifically to your company right from the star. For example, what are your business objectives? The authors ask you to consider this question, and if you realize with a start that you don’t have a good answer, you will want to stop reading and start brainstorming right away.

The book takes you from the stages of defining your business objectives to building tactics to help reach those objectives. Per the name, many of the proposed tactics reside in the digital world – Facebook, Twitter, video development, etc. However, and this is where the major difference is between this book and “social media books,” this is not just a “how to get Chris Brogan to follow you” study (nothing against Chris Brogan, of course). This is a “How to use as many different tactics and channels as possible to acquire customers, retain customers, and grow your business.

B2B Marketers, Take Heart

Another thing you may have noticed in pursuing “social media books” is that most of them are geared towards the consumer world. The ones that claim to incorporate B2B examples may have used companies like IBM or Citrix. These aren’t exactly “mom and pop” shops, and if you are, say, a medical device manufacturer, these examples are not going to guide you much. The Field Guide, however, covers the spectrum from oncology departments to Starbucks (really!). The information and guidance presented is fairly universal, but I applaud the authors in giving a nod to the types of companies that many other social media experts have sort of overlooked in the past.

Just one criticism

I unequivocally suggest you invest in this book. My only criticism is one which unfortunately must be commonly voiced in the industry. There are more proofreading errors than I usually like to see in a published book. I am a stickler for proofreading and content perfection in professionally published works. These errors do not get in the way of the content, but they are noticeable.

Full disclosure: The authors sent me this book to review. However, that did not sway me from offering an honest review. In my opinion, this book is a must for anyone striving to develop business and a strong customer base today.

What do you think of when you hear the name Swat Valley? If you are like me, you might conjure images of violence and drone attacks or, perhaps, the search for Osama Bin Laden.

What do you think of when you hear the name Pakistan? Perhaps it’s a similar litany of images. It’s the country where Bin Laden was found. It’s a shadowy place that we don’t really understand, it seems.

When I decided to read Malala Yousafzai, I figured I would read about her struggle for education, her battle back from being shot in the head, and her calling out of the Taliban. Indeed, those facets are in there. What I did not expect, however, was to realize how completely ignorant I am about all things Pakistani.

Malala describes the Swat as if it was a Garden of Eden. Not perfect, of course. She talks about the constant blood battles between families, the consistent frailty of the leadership, and children so poor they were going through garbage trying to find things to sell. The overriding image, however, is beauty. The snowy mountains, the amazing diversity of fruit trees, the flat roofs on which children could play, and the socializing her mother did with the other women of their village.

Some Hard Truths

As an American, reading I am Malala is morally challenging. For me, I realized how much I had been influenced by the media in terms of understanding Pakistan. On a broader scale, however, you learn about how the CIA distributed text books that framed everything in war terms. “If you kill x number of the enemy, how many are left out of the total?” The attack on Bin Laden is also covered harshly by Malala. She points out that the Pakistani government and the Pakistani people were not informed about the action. This made Pakistan feel that the US did not trust them, which in turn built more mistrust.

The Personal Struggle

More than anything, I recommend reading this book because Malala so beautifully brings home to the reader the struggle she, her family, and almost everyone she knew faced for years as the Taliban slowly started to infiltrate every part of their society. She describes her father’s tears after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the family’s increasing fear as people close to them were killed by the Taliban, and ultimately, of course, her own shooting.

For us, in the world outside of Malala’s existence, she was shot, we heard about her, and then she became famous. But in time between her shooting and her speaking at the UN she went through excruciating pain, both physical and emotional. Her family was not able to join her at the hospital in Birmingham for about two weeks due to bureaucratic confusion. She had nightmares that her father had been shot and that was why he wasn’t there. She had nightmares that her family wouldn’t be able to pay the medical bills so they were staying away for shame. She talks about seeing herself in the mirror for the first time, the left side of her face sagging and most of her hair gone. Her description of finally reuniting with her family moved me to tears.

A Bright Beacon

It is hard, very hard, to believe that this young woman just turned 18. She has already been an activist for over five years, at least. Today’s world gives us much to ponder that is ghastly, negative, barren of hope, and shameful. Against that background, Malala is a modern day hero – the kind we long for and dream about. Read her story. Do not be afraid to learn. Do not be afraid to feel. I couldn’t possibly recommend this book more.

 

To be honest, when I heard that a new Harper Lee novel was coming out, I was not euphoric. I of course read To Kill A Mockingbird as a child and loved it, and who could not love the movie? But to me, at least. To Kill A Mockingbird is now such an icon that the idea of Harper Lee writing <another> novel just seemed weird. I figured I would read it eventually, but I was not frothing at the mouth.

Then all of the spoilers and reviews started coming out, and overwhelmingly the news seemed bad. The resounding cry seemed to be, “How could she do that to Atticus?” I tried to avoid the spoilers and read these things through the spaces in my fingers that were covering my eyes. I decided I had better speed things up and read the book myself so I could formulate my own opinion and then see what all of the hubub was about.

Generally, there seem to be two sticky wickets about the book, as it turns out. The first is the provenance of the book. Did Lee really write this before To Kill A Mockingbird? As a New Yorker article pointed out, that doesn’t make much sense unless she had a really really good idea of how she was going to present Atticus. I read the book assuming that it was meant to be a sequel, and approaching it that way, it worked very well. But I suppose if you re in the publishing business, you want to know how an author and publisher created such a splash when the basic facts, like when the book was written, are quite hazy.

The other issue is, of course, the presentation of Atticus, perhaps one of the most beloved male characters of the 20th century. When you watch Gregory Peck play Atticus, you have that sensation that you wish this guy could be your dad and the dad to all of your friends. He is a hero, warm and strong, smart and funny, imposing and gentle. For American readers, one might argue that the character of Atticus Finch is a bit on the sacred side.

I don’t want to spoil the book for you but let’s just say that Lee brings Atticus down to earth in Go Set A Watchman as he is seen through the eyes of Scout. It’s uncomfortable because unless you are extremely fortunate, all of us have watched our idols get torn down at one point or another. We all have that person who seems flawless in our eyes, and realizing that they are just another human, just like us, is like realizing that you just built a mansion right over a sinkhole. Everything you have relied on must now be questioned, and indeed, that is what Scout experiences.

I think Lee’s handling of this transition is a bit rough. Lee uses the character of Uncle Jack to explain the psychological ramifications of what Scout has gone through, and to me it seemed a bit clumsy. However, the power of the tale remained strong.

Reading Go Set A Watchman this summer against the backdrop of all of the racial tensions that has reared its ugly head was an interesting experience. Nowhere in the book does Lee mention the Confederate flag, and yet the bigotry that we have been dealing with in the US appears against the quaint background of a fairly isolated and charming Southern town. People who you thought were just normal (whatever that means) good people turn out to have views about race that are ignorant, antiquated, racist, bigoted, and otherwise ugly. But you know what? That is how life is.

I have heard a lot of stories lately about people saying things to African American friends of mine that you would not believe, including virtually hedging on using the phrase “You people.” These people seem decent, otherwise, but these little nibbles at their laminated exterior reveal an underbelly of race hatred that most people haven’t begun to accept within themselves yet.

As for the reading experience itself, it is hard to separate the writing from Lee’s gestalt. You give her a lot of leeway because you know she is an amazing writer. After all, she wrote To Kill A Mockingbird. However, if try to separate the book from the legend, as it were, I find that it was not a book that would really stick with me. The character maneuverings are interesting because we all know Scout and Atticus (which is another point the New Yorker review made). But in and of itself, I thought it was rather clunky. The flashbacks seemed like a “hammer into the head” way of contrasting the new present with the nostalgically held past. I wanted to say, “I get it. She’s nostalgic but is facing a new and darker reality now.”

I also found the ending rather abrupt and unsatisfactory. I won’t spoil it for you, but if you’ve read it, or once you’ve read it, let me know what you think.

Overall, I guess I would recommend reading this book if you are into literature and are curious what all of the noise is about like I was. But as a book itself, I did not find it as wonderful as I had hoped.

Let’s hear from you now.