Three of the best books I've read this year are history / historical fiction set across the breadth of the 20th century. They are hugely different from each other, but all resonate with me on where we are now. In chronological order as they are set (which happens to be the reverse of my reading order):
The Hired Girl, by Laura Amy Schiltz
A young girl in the early days of the 20th century is determined to improve herself. I was impressed by her strength of character and determination in the face of great obstacles. As the book opens, she is in such dreadful circumstances that I wasn't sure I was going to be able to persist. But things brighten up, as she takes action. An unusual element of this book are her struggles with faith, as she figures out what her Catholic faith means to her, and she struggles to understand the Jewish family whose house she works in and whose family members interact with her. It is overall an optimistic book, leaving me feeling refreshed for knowing there is goodness in this world. Fans of Little Women will love this.
I stumbled upon this book. The author has a new book out with a favorable review in the paper. When I went to see if the library had the new book, there was a year-long waiting list. As I often do, I checked to see what else this author had written that might be available sooner, and ended up with this. (Note, I listened to it, didn't read it.)
We probably all know this much: Prime Minister Chamberlain went to Munich to meet with Hitler, sold out Czechoslovakia with his explicit policy of appeasement, and he came home to England three days later proclaiming he had ensured "peace in our time". War broke out less than a year later.
This fictional story is entirely faithful to the known facts, who was in the room when, who said or wrote what. But it's told from the point of view of two fictional young men, one English and one German, who are minor functionaries for their respective governments, and who have a complicated intertwined backstory. They are present as all the big decisions are thought through and finalized. It gave me new insights as to why Chamberlain did what he did. I still think it was an infamous act. But the strong motivation to avoid war at all costs has its attractions and it is presented with context. But the scenes with Hitler, irrational and frightening, gave me chills. Please save us from crazy dictators!
I have read several books by Doris Goodwin before, biographies and memoirs. At the beginning of her career, she was a White House intern on Lyndon Johnson's staff. After he left the White House, she worked for Johnson, organizing his papers at his ranch in Texas. In all of this, she just missed crossing paths with her future husband, Dick Goodwin, ten years her senior and predecessor at the White House. Dick Goodwin was one of John Kennedy's earliest staffers, one of his principal speechwriters, and became a confidant of Jackie Kennedy. After the assassination, he stayed on at the Johnson White House for a time, and coined the term the Great Society. His opposition to the Vietnam War put him at odds with Johnson, and he became one of Robert Kennedy's earliest supporters, and was present when he was shot.
In this book, Doris G. chronicles how she and her husband went through his boxes and boxes of papers and memorabilia from that time, recreating in detail many pivotal moments where Dick G. was present. Further, she follows up on many of the those moments, going beyond the personal history to bring us up to date on what happened since, what was the lasting impact of those times.
In these discouraging and cynical times, it was eerie to transport myself back to the time when it seemed the world was changing so fast for the better. It did me good to be reminded (or made aware) of one of the most productive and positive times for our government. In the space of two years, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the foundational legislation for the Great Society: Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, federal aid to education, the War on Poverty, federal minimum wage, urban renewal (OK, that one maybe not so great). Per Wikipedia: The Johnson Administration submitted 87 bills to Congress, and Johnson signed 84, or 96%, arguably the most successful legislative agenda in US congressional history. Sadly for the country, the world, and Johnson himself, the Vietnam War choked off funding and focus on implementation of this agenda, but many of these programs are still with us today.
But even the story of Vietnam resonates with messages of inspiration for today. Eugene McCarthy ran an upstart challenge to the Johnson re-election campaign, and succeeded in making Johnson withdraw, but he still lost. There were twists and turns - Robert Kennedy entered the race and divided the challengers, was killed, and McCarthy took the banner back. But by the time of the Chicago convention, conventional wisdom and a centrist Democrat, Hubert Humphrey, was the weak challenger to what has become the mostly-Republican government that we have known as adults. But Dick Goodwin was there at many of these crucial inflection points, lending an immediacy to the telling of events that kept me enthralled throughout this book.