Below is a summary of what I recently found interesting and very helpful in a group of 14 books spanning an eclectic range of historical topics. Each of them contains wonderful food for thought. Other than one (Open Veins of Latin America) – they each were written very recently (most within the last five to six years); and cut against the grain of what I had been taught. In most cases they have significantly broadened what I know about their specific topics.
A Resistance History of the United States – by Tad Stoermer
In this work, Tad Soermer asserts that “Every significant expansion of rights in American history came from resistance forcing authority to answer” (page 299). In this wonderful book, Stoermer present 9 principles that illustrate a pattern of effective resistance that has resulted in change in the United States. He illustrates these 9 principles with vivid examples from our history using both familiar and unfamiliar stories (and unfamiliar aspects of the familiar) to drive home his points. He does this by clearly describing the actual working of power in our society. Stoermer maintains that we must “Follow evidence toward uncomfortable conclusions. When evidence shows that the Constitution protected slavery by design, nationalist historiography treats that as a tragic flaw in an otherwise sound system. Resistance history treats it as definitive: A constitutional order built on slavery was illegitimate…Claiming neutrality on those questions does not make you rigorous. It makes you incapable of explaining what happened because you won’t grapple with why it mattered” (page 9). With similar strong statements, Stoermer wades into the streams of contested historical waters and doesn’t hold back throughout. That aspect alone makes this book a refreshing read.
America Ame’rica: A New History of the New World – By Greg Gandin; Central America’s Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration – by Aviva Chomsky; and – Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent – by Eduardo Galeano
These 3 books have served to provide me with the context that I’ve needed to dive more deeply into Liberation Theology (both the works that I’ve read in the past 20 years and the works that I hope to read in the near future – works by the likes of Leonardo Boff, Jon Sobrino, Oscar Romero, Gustavo Gutierrez, etc.).
The first, by Greg Gandin, presents a historical survey of the Americas that centers on the perspective of the southern hemisphere. He indicates that he has written this work “to explore the New World’s long history of ideological and ethical contestation” (page xxiii). He builds towards describing the contributions of Latin America to the world order following the Second World War, and how those contributions have been largely ignored in recent years to the detriment of all concerned. By tracing interactions between the leaders in the northern and southern portions of the western hemisphere over the past 500 years, Gandin shows that Latin America functioned relative to the United States as “a persistent opposition to intervention and conquest, and its unwavering demand for recognition of absolute national sovereignty, [which] obliged Washington to learn how to discipline itself, to control its energies, letting its power flow more efficiently and evenly” (page 617). He concludes that where “Wilson imagined a world without war, FDR imagined a world without fear or want. Today’s political class imagines nothing…” (page 620). Instead, the United States functions like a “bull in a china shop, making matters considerably worse” (page 627).
In the second work, by Aviva Chomsky, Central America’s Forgotten History, the author centers her focus on more of the 20th and 21st Century. Though her focus is on that more recent period, she nevertheless ties the events in her description of Central American history to their much earlier context back to the Spanish conquest of the southern hemisphere. She maintains that even those “who decry the abusive treatment of immigrants, remain blissfully oblivious to the histories migrants carry” (page 2). These histories are important, as are all histories because “what we tell ourselves about the past…inform what we believe about the present and how we act in the present” (page 3). In the latter half of the 20th century, anti-communist fervor drove much of the United States foreign policy and actions. Chomsky describes how this perspective tainted much of the interaction between the U.S. and Central America. She traces this phenomenon through each of the various countries and describes the similarities between and as well as differences in the stories of each county and their interactions with the Unites States. For the most part, political and trade relations were intertwined beginning in the early part of the 20th century. Though the policies differed, the results were often similar, with the strength of the U.S. military in one way or another protecting the interests of U.S. businesses (pages 34 and 191). Even with the advent of a policy of free trade in the latter half of the 20th century, that free movement only extended to capital and goods, not people (page 191). She concludes by stating that “The violence and poverty that afflicts Central America today is a direct result of colonial and neocolonial development policies and cultures of violence and the forgetting needed to implement and justify them” (page 247).
The third book, by Eduardo Galeano sketches the five centuries of taking of the resources of Latin America by U.S. and European powers. Through describing the varied economic and social systems surrounding the extraction of both minerals and agricultural produce, Galeano traces the impoverishment of the peoples of Latin America over time. He paints a detailed picture of this exploitation by organizing his presentation around the natural resources (veins) that have been bled dry over time. With devastating precision, he captures the multiple ways in which the more powerful countries of the western world have used their economic and military strength to plunder the resources of Latin America while keeping Latin America under control.
The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America – by Andres Resendez
This work provides a helpful addition to the three previous books on Central and South American history described above. In this book, Resendez recounts the forgotten history of slavery perpetrated upon indigenous populations in the Americas. He does this by concentrating his presentation on areas in the Americas of “intense slaving…the Caribbean…central and northern Mexica, and…the American Southwest” (page 10). He uses the term “other slavery in the double sense that it targeted Native Americans rather than Africans and that it involved a range of captivity and coercion” (page 10). He makes the important point that the primary groups in the Americas who were enslaved do not fit into a neat historical package which often conceives of Africans as having been enslaved and trafficked to the Americas, and native Americans “either died off or were dispossessed and confined to reservations” (page 9). Instead, a variety of forms of slavery were perpetrated upon native Americans over a very long period of time, right up to the early years of the 20th century.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration – and – Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents – both by Isabel Wilkerson
In this first work, Isabel Wilkerson presents a sweeping narrative description of the great migration of African Americans from the south to northern cities over the bulk of the 20th century (primarily 1915 – 1970). By interviewing an enormous number of individuals who participated in this great movement of people and then concentrating on the stories of a select few for a deeper dive into their experiences she presents an intimate portrait of what it was like to engage in this great movement (6 million people fleeing the Jim Crow south). In this description, she shows with searing details how Jim Crow segregation included nearly anything that could be racially separated.
The second book, Caste, grew out of her first, and was a result of her conclusion that racism was not the most “sufficient word” to describe what characterizes “an artificial, and often arbitrary and random human grading and ranking of a human society.” This fact has wide implications over an overwhelming range of factors in a person’s life (affecting nearly everything in some way or other). In examining the roots of the caste system in the United States she explores other examples of caste in both India and Germany to draw parallels and distinctions to what we experience in the U.S. She describes the interconnections between how Germany used the laws and thinking associated with the Jim Crow south to seed their program of eugenics and racial oppression in the Third Reich. She describes the multiple aspects of the high costs associated with maintaining our current caste system (from our completely dysfunctional health care system to other aspects of other quality of life issues). Finally, she traces the current disruptions in our society due to our changing demographic profile and the fissures in our social fabric caused by the backlash against this perceived change in the social order.
Israel: What Went Wrong – by Omer Bartov
As the author states “This book explores the tragic transformation of Zionism, a movement that sought to emancipate European Jewry from oppression and persecution, into a state ideology of ethnonationalism” (page 3). He traces this movement from the founding of modern Israel up to the present events surrounding the War in Gaza and the troubles in the West Bank. He asserts that reversing the tide of hatred and destruction can be helped by understanding “how we got here in the first place, and perhaps how we might even clamber out of the abyss” (page 26). He centers much of his arguments around the problems that have risen in modern Israel because of the lack of a constitution based on the ideals and principles of Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Ultimately, Bartov comes to the conclusion that “Only by launching a process of truth and reconciliation with the Palestinians, which must constitute an important part of whichever political arrangement is made, will the nation be able to face up to the horrors that have unfolded since October 7” (page 218).
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation – by Kristen Kobes Du Mez.
Much has been said and written about this wonderful and insightful book, published in 2020 during the summer before the election. Du Mez surveys the corrupting of Evangelical Christianity by the idols of masculine power. She shows how this gravitation toward a rugged, individualistic, and “militant masculinity” was in line with their culture and beliefs. This in turn led them to naturally fall in line to support someone like Donald Trump. Though on the surface, it may appear that Trump would not be a fit with Evangelicals. In fact, she shows that the historical patterns she uncovered presents a tight affinity with someone like Trump. She contends that…“Despite evangelicals’ frequent claims that the bible is the source of their social and political commitments, evangelicalism must be seen as a cultural and political movement rather than a community defined chiefly by its theology. Evangelical views on any given issue are facets of this larger cultural identity, and no number of Bible verses will dislodge the greatest truths at the heart of it” (page 298).
The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth – and – Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry – both by Beth Allison Barr.
These two books provide a fascinating look into the development of the subjugation of women over time in the church. In the first, Barr takes her readers through the sordid history of patriarchy while making the strong point that there is really no difference between pagan patriarchy and Christian patriarchy. Both serve to stifle and restrict women’s functioning within the church as well as society at large. Through both a wide sweeping survey of Evangelical history and a description of her personal experiences within the conservative church world (particularly her two most traumatic experiences: a brush with the sick and abusive world of Bill Gothard in her early years, and the firing of her husband and the loss of their church community over the issue of women’s ordination) – Barr paints a vivid picture of the conservative evangelical church today while delivering a call for needed change.
The second book delves more deeply into a subset of the issues which Barr touched on in her first book, but with an added, fascinating look into power dynamics associated with the role of the pastor’s wife. She states that “Unlike other authoritative roles in church history, the role of pastor’s wife is not based on leadership skills, ecclesiastical office, or spiritual gifting. It is a role based on human relationship – marriage.” (page xvii). Through a fascinating tour through history, she shows that “Beneath the license of a bishop and the trappings of a marriage ceremony, both the priest’s whore and the pastor’s wife are defined by their dependent relationship to a man.” (page 85). She moves from this very interesting historical picture, through to the present with an examination of the expectation that “the pastor’s wife should help further the ministry of her husband through her presence, support, and activity in the church as well as her domestic management and hospitality within the home…[the] two for one…” (page 92). She shows that something has shifted in more recent times. In the face of the more restrictive reactions of conservative factions within evangelicalism, she offers hope that “it doesn’t have to be this way…” (page 193).
Over the past 30 years I’ve read a great deal, both in terms of theology and history on the general topic of women in authoritative leadership in the church. When reading both of Barr’s books, I was pleasantly surprised at the new ground she covers on this general topic as well as the historical context she provides to better understand the pressure points of power working to maintain the status quo.
Born Again Queer: A History of Evangelic Gay Activism and the Making of Anti-gay Christianity – by William Stell
In this work, Stell takes us through the extremely depressing history of the struggle of Gay activists within the evangelical movement to persuade their peers within to embrace a more inclusive perspective toward their gay brothers and sisters. Stell contends that the historical record is far more nuanced than previously thought. He shows that “evangelical positions on homosexuality in the 1970s and 1980s were contested and shifting…” (page 5). One of the most helpful aspects of Stell’s historical survey of evangelical responses to homosexuality centers on his analysis of the rhetorical strategies of the participants. In addition, he contends that “…again, as was and is common in evangelical discourse – the realities of multivalence and ambiguity in biblical hermeneutics went unacknowledged -…The history of evangelicalism is a history of pretending that the bible is clearer and more coherent than it is. The upshot of this pretending is then contending that the Bible is clearly, coherently on your side” (pages 43 and 125).
Stell painstakingly takes his readers through the history of the back-and-forth arguments within evangelicalism, and presents little known stories about the interactions between major players in the discourse. These stories shed much needed light on how the reaction grew and calcified into a rigid response against full, supportive inclusion of gay Christians in the church.
What I found most interesting was his deep dive into the relationship between those advocating for full inclusion of women in church leadership, and those advocating for full inclusion of their gay brothers and sisters. The sad story of how policial choices were made at the expense of LGBTQ Christians is truly heartbreaking. Unfortunately, as Stell says, “whatever the reasons behind them, the history of evangelical gay activism remains hidden from those who most need it…” (page 275).
Esther’s Army: The Christian Women Who Power the American Right – by Katie Gaddini
In this wonderfully detailed and sensitive work, Gaddini describes many different examples of conservative religious women who have brought their energy and insights into propelling their followers to strongly support Donald Trump and the political Right. Through an in-depth ethnographic analysis, she presents the leaders of this disparate movement using their own words. While sympathetically (empathetically?) engaging them on their terms, she highlights what drives them to support the positions they hold on a range of topics that energize their political engagement. One of the more interesting findings in her analysis is that “some of these voters disavow feminism yet borrow from feminist rhetoric and strategy to make political claims” (page 3). She shows that “Across continents, the tentacles of the Right twist and tighten, bound not by borders but by shared grievances, common enemies, and biblical convictions.” Page (158). The picture she presents includes a “range of right-wing women in America [which contradicts] the simplistic, one-dimensional version offered by the Left” (page 159).
In Covid’s Wake: How our Politics Failed Us – by Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee
This book provides a reflection on a range of issues associated with the events surrounding the Covid pandemic. Most of the reflections focus on the United States. But, the authors also examine the wider international context while comparing responses to the virus from around the world. The authors home in on questions surrounding why legislatures were “so often sidelined in favor of executives long after the initial weeks of emergency” (page 4). They show how the “Covid ‘wartime’ response quickly led to a willingness to disregard social costs and competing interests…” (page 7). They contend that “Slogans like ‘follow the science’ covered over contestable value judgements, large uncertainties, and the need for tough choices balancing costs and benefits and distributing them fairly” (page 9). In fact, “The challenge for understanding what happened in 2020 is in grappling with the decision of many experts to disregard their own pre-Covid pandemic response plans in favor of an untested effort to contain a respiratory virus – something that those earlier plans accepted as impossible.” (page 21).
They conclude that we “needed a more honest politics of crisis policy-making – a politics more respectful of the profound differences among citizens, and their varying circumstances, interests, and needs” (page 5). They contend that “Members of Congress must play a vital role in representing the interests and perspectives of ordinary people in checking and balancing the views of experts” (page 26)…”experts must stay in their lane” (page 294).
In the end, the authors grapple with the troubling problem of how fragile democratic and scientific norms are in our society when they are tested (page 297). The tendency of political and scientific elites to attempt social controls in the face of a crisis by controlling information and its interpretation was exposed. In the end they conclude “The partisan divide is deep and abiding. But every divide has two sides, and neither side ever had a monopoly on the truth about Covid” (page 298).
