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Sounds interesting Rick. Since all I know of the episode is John Wayne I'll be interested Rio hear your thoughts

Jonny wrote: "Sounds interesting Rick. Since all I know of the episode is John Wayne I'll be interested Rio hear your thoughts"

I have a DVD of that classic old movie. I have a funny feeling this book isn't going to be like the movie :)

"Cholera; The Victorian Plague": history repeats every so often in Sunderland, it would appear:

Following the post mortems of Rottenburgh and Sproat the younger, a meeting of the local medical board in Sunderland was convened at 1.00 pm on Tuesday, 1 November 1831. At the time of the meeting, Clanny reported that of the five people who had recently died of cholera, four had succumbed at great speed, and the fifth was nearing the point of death. Chairing the meeting, Clanny asked the gentlemen present to raise their hands if they believed ‘the continental cholera�� was among them��. All raised their hands.
Soon afterwards, another meeting was held at which it was resolved that:

‘�� medical gentlemen, under whose observation cases of cholera have fallen, draw up a full report of them, and place them, by the forenoon of the 2d instant in the hands of Dr. Clanny, to be transmitted by him to the Board of Health in London. This resolution was carried into effect by�� [Dr Clanny], and the town of Sunderland was immediately placed under quarantine.��

Yet, later in November there were reports that despite the quarantine, life in Sunderland continued as normal, and as the Bishop of Durham complained to the Secretary of the Sunderland Board of Health: ‘I have again received complaints that carriers and other public conveyances are suffered to pass unrestricted to other parts of the county.��

I was one of those not trusted able to work from home during the time of the indeterminate virus of unknown origin (as the kids have christened it) and Sunderland was not in the slightest a ghost town at that point!

"Exodus from the Alamo" - The author mentioned the Battle of Medina which was one of the bloodiest battles fought in Texas:

The Battle of Medina:


The Search for the Battle of Medina

I've started this book over my morning coffee; "Diary of an Invasion" by Andrey Kurkov.

Diary of an Invasion by Andrey Kurkov

I have made a start on this book; "Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914" by John Robert McNeill.

Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914 by John Robert McNeill

That's a bit different Rick, let us know how you get on.

I'm partway through Shelby Foote's The Civil War, Vol. 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville; it's really readable and informative (even if it had taken me nearly three weeks to get through 400 pages); a bit light on the causes of the war, but otherwise excellent.

"Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914" - From the chapter; 'Deadly Fevers, Deadly Doctors':

"In the Carolina coastlands, part of the Greater Caribbean, clergymen newly sent out to minister to the locals complained of the horrific health risks they faced. Military personnel from Europe dreaded duty in the West Indies, and on occasion mutinied when informed of Caribbean destinations. Two British sailors in 1755 opted for 1,000 lashes rather than risk a West Indian cruise. Officers routinely refused West Indies duty."

Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914 by John Robert McNeill

"Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914" - From the chapter; 'Deadly Fevers, Deadly Doctors' - from a footnote in this chapter:

"Duncan (1931:20) quotes an American doctor, James Tilton, who noted that in the Continental Army during the American Revolution surgeons died at higher rates than officers because serving continually in hospitals was more dangerous than fighting the occasional battle."

"Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914" - From the chapter; 'Deadly Fevers, Deadly Doctors':

"In addition to the cures of medical science, soldiers and sailors endured folk remedies. None existed in Europe against yellow fever, but for malaria, or 'ague' in the English vernacular, there were several because the disease was a common one in warm months in much of Europe. These remedies included, for example, consuming spiders and cobwebs, drinking one's own urine, and tying one's hair to a tree and yanking it out, theoretically leaving both hair and ague on the tree. More common but no more helpful except as pain relievers were alcohol, opium, and cannabis. Unhelpful as these measures were, they probably did less harm than those preferred by doctors."

Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914 by John Robert McNeill

"Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914" - Oliver Cromwell's campaign to seize Jamaica:

"By 1660, when the English hold on the island was secure and the army's health finally sound, only some 2,200 troops remained of the roughly 10,000 committed to the Jamaica campaign. A few hundred were killed in action. Others deserted and a few, mainly officers, managed to get sent back to England. Probably 6,000 to 8,000 died of disease. Soldiers who had survived every infection known to England fell to Jamaica's 'flux and feavors'."

England's Jamaica Campaign:

"Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914" - French efforts to set up a colony in Kourou, Guyana, in 1763 ended in disaster:

"Somewhere between 10,400 and 10,900 European settlers came to Kourou in 1764-1765. Together with military personnel, the total number of migrants came to at least 12,000, and some sources prefer 14,000 or more. About 1,200 civilians survived Kourou and returned to France, including Chanvalon. A few others washed up on Martinique, St. Domingue, and elsewhere. About 11,000 Europeans died in Kourou and its environs, mainly between June 1764 and April 1765. Presumably, some Amerindians and Africans died as well, although the French sources do not mention them, and they were few in number to begin with at Kourou. Among Europeans, the death rate came to 85 or 90 percent. Thus ended the single most abysmal failure, in terms of total lives lost, in the annals of American colonization."

French settlement at Kourou:

"Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914" - From the chapter; 'Yellow Fever Rampant and British Ambition Repulsed':

"The danger from yellow fever persisted, if not so acutely, after the deadly 1690s. Several naval expeditions during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713) suffered catastrophic mortality - sometimes from yellow fever, and sometimes not. The worst luck belonged to Vice-Admiral Francis Hosier, with whom this book began. During a crisis in Anglo-Spanish relations he was sent to patrol Spanish Caribbean coasts in 1726 (a year of another El Niño). After visits to a few West Indian ports, his crews contracted yellow fever, which raged aboard his ships for months. He never commanded more than 3,300 men at a time, but because of replacements dragged off the shire of Jamaica, in all the expedition lost over 4,000 of 4,750 men who served (over 84%), including Hosier himself who died aboard ship cruising off Cartagena. The gruesome episode became legendary among British mariners, the stuff of mournful ballads, helping the West Indies to acquire the reputation as a place where men went to die. A Spanish fleet sent - quite unnecessarily, as it turned out - to hamper Hosier in 1730 lost 2,2000 men to yellow fever."

Vice-Admiral Francis Hosier:

"Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914" - From the chapter; 'Yellow Fever Rampant and British Ambition Repulsed':

"With its sizable transient population, especially when the galeones stopped in, Cartagena was a crossroads of contagion of almost every sort. Infections easily found new hosts, and newcomers and residents alike often encountered unfamiliar diseases. Nearby Portobelo, usually the next stop for the galleons, earned the sobriquet 'sepultura de Espanoles' (graveyard of Spaniards) by regularly killing a third to a half of the galleons' crews."

Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914 by John Robert McNeill

"Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914" - The Spanish defense at Cartagena was headed by a seasoned warrior:

"As war approached in 1739, Cartagena prepared for attack. Blas Lezo y Olavarrieta (1689-1741), a Basque who began his career at age twelve, commanded the meager naval forces. Lezo lost his left leg in combat at fifteen, and lost his left eye and right arm in battles before his twenty-fifth birthday. Undeterred, he rose rapidly in the Spanish navy, spending most of his career in the Mediterranean. In 1737, he took the assignment to defend Cartagena, where he would fight his twenty-second and final battle."

Blas de Lezo y Olavarrieta:

"Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914" - The British forces continued to lose men after the campaign to seize Cartagena from Spain:

"Yellow fever continued to take its toll on the British fleet after it returned to Jamaica. Another 1,100 soldiers died in the next three weeks, and by early June 1741 only 3,000 of Cathcart's original 9,000 soldiers remained fit for service; by the end of the month, only 2,100."

The Battle of Cartagena:

"Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914" - The reckoning in dead, 1740-1742:

"Of the 10,000 British soldiers sent to the West Indies in the years 1740-1742, about 74 percent had died by October 1742. Around six percent died in combat. Of the original cohort that sailed with Cathcart, 90 percent died. The North Americans fared slightly better. Of some 4,200 who served, 65 percent died in the West Indies, about 3 percent of them in action. If one takes into account the North Americans' lower casualties in combat and the much shorter trip to the West Indies and correspondingly fewer deaths en route, it seems the Americans died just as fast as did British soldiers - after all, they came from Virginia and points north, and had no yellow fever immunities. Altogether, about 10,000 of 14,000 soldiers perished in trying to win Cartagena and Santiago de Cuba for Britain, and no doubt a few more died trying to get home."

Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914 by John Robert McNeill

I am going to start reading this latest biography on Abraham Lincoln; "And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle" by on Meacham.


And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham

"The Elgin Marbles" - During the Venetian siege of Athens during September 1687:

"A defector had told the Venetians that the Turks were holding their women and children, as well as their gunpowder, in the Parthenon mosque, but the shelling of the Acropolis did not stop. Just after midnight on the morning of the 26th, Antonio Mutoni, the Count of San Felice - later described as 'a fool' - launched the artillery that fired the shell that hit the Parthenon. The Parthenon exploded, and a fire within raged for two days. The Parthenon's marble architecture was structurally weak from the Late Antique fire, and the building exploded."

The Destruction of the Parthenon:

"And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle" - From Lincoln's second inauguration speech in the Prologue:

"Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish."

And;

Lincoln turned to the perils of self-righteousness and self-certitude, North and South. "Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God" he said, "and each invokes His aid against the other." Then the president rendered a moral verdict: "It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces: but let us judge not that we be not judged."

"And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle" - More of Lincoln's speech from the Prologue:

"Yet" Lincoln said "if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether'."

Plus my favourite bit:

"With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham

"And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle" - Lincoln's relationship with his father:

The son felt superior to his father and apparently did not try to disguise it. At supper one day, William Herndon reported, "The elder Lincoln, true to the custom of the day, returned tanks for the blessing. The boy, realizing the scant proportions of the meal, looked up into his father's face and irreverently observed, 'Dad, I call these' - meaning the potatoes - 'mighty poor blessings'." 😂😂😂

"And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle" - Some of Lincoln's early reading:

"Addison offered advice for a political creature, suggesting that one's words mattered - a point Lincoln heeded all his life. The wise man, Addison observed, is one who 'knows how to pick and cull his thoughts for conversation, by supressing some, and communicating others; whereas [the foolish man] lets them all indifferently fly out.' Citing the ancients, Addison added that 'a man should live with his enemy in such a manner as might leave him room to become his friend ... [I]t is the discreet man, not the witty, nor the learned, nor the brave, who guides the conversation, and gives measures to society'."

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham

"And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle" - Lincoln's sense of humour:

"Still, life in Springfield was 'rather a dull business' for Lincoln. He liked an old joke about a minister who visited to preach on 'The Second Coming of the Lord.' As Lincoln remarked, 'It is my private opinion that, if the Lord has been in Springfield once, he will never come the second time'." 😂😂😂

"And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle" - I loved this story about Lincoln on the campaign trail:

"Back at home, Lincoln prepared for the 1858 challenge to Senator Douglas. As he traveled around the state, the story is told, a woman on horseback once approached Lincoln appraisingly on the road.

'Well, for the land's sake, you are the homeliest man I ever saw,' she said.

'Yes, ma'am, but I cannot help that.'

'No, I suppose not,' she replied, 'but you might stay at home.'

That was something he could not do." 😂😂😂

"And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle" - Some of Lincoln's thinking on slavery:

"Lincoln's thinking and that of the emerging Republicans were largely congruent. Equality, Lincoln wrote in a fragment on slavery found in his papers, had been 'made so plain by our good Father in Heaven, that all feel and understand it, even down to brutes and creeping insects. The ant, who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest, will furiously defend the fruit of his labor ... So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself'."

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham

"And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle" - I really liked this account:

"On the evening of Friday, March 25, 1864, the president was at work in his study. Carpenter was again with him, and Lincoln looked up from his papers. Young Tad was dispatched for a copy of Shakespeare, from which the president read for a while. He then recalled a poem—“a great favorite”—that he knew by heart: “Mortality,�� by William Knox, a contemporary of Sir Walter Scott’s. The poem is a bleak meditation on the inevitability of death:

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne,
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn,
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

Here was the depressive Lincoln, staring into the darkness, contemplating the inherent tragedy of the world, lamenting the limitations of life. He remembered, too, a line of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.’s, from the poem “The Last Leaf��:

The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.

“For pure pathos, in my judgment,�� Lincoln said, “there is nothing finer than those six lines in the English language!��"

I have finished reading two biographical books about Ivan the Terrible. Some autocrats liked their unlimited power but Ivan IV took it a step further, he prefer an absolute, unlimited, arbitrary power. The freedom to punish even without reason (and in his many cases, imaginary reasons due to his paranoia).

Ivan the Terrible by Robert Payne and Nikita Romanoff mainly covered Ivan's psychological development as he descended into his own paranoia and manic episodes.
Nikita Romanoff, one of the authors of the above biography was a member of the Romanov royal family and migrated to the US. Curiously enough, his son (Fedor Romanoff) committed suicide at the age of 32. Nothing is known about them at all as they were very private.
My review of Ivan the Terrible by Robert Payne and Nikita Romanoff

Ivan the Terrible by Isabel de Madariaga is more about Ivan IV's policies and its impact on Muscovy.
My review of Ivan the Terrible by Isabel de Madariaga

I've started reading this new release on the Spanish Armada. It is a beautifully presented book of over 700 pages. It has extensive illustrations throughout, many in colour, and the publisher has used good quality paper. It's a very nice book to hold and read.

Armada: The Spanish Enterprise and England’s Deliverance in 1588 by Colin Martin

"Armada: The Spanish Enterprise and England’s Deliverance in 1588" - The authors also provided some details on the battle of Smerwick in Ireland that ended in a massacre of the defenders by English forces:

Waugh in Abyssinia

Waugh in Abyssinia - published in 1938 it provides a historic account of the second Italian-Abyssinian war. He seems to support Italian imperialism and gives a cynical view of the native population

Eve wrote: "Waugh in Abyssinia

Waugh in Abyssinia - published in 1938 it provides a historic account of the second Italian-Abyssinian war. He seems to support Italian imperialism and gives a cyn..."

Something a bit different! Let us know what you think of the book once you have finished.

Currently reading

The author masterfully captures King's struggles, doubts, and personal experiences, painting a vivid picture of a man who was far more than his public persona.

I'm currently reading this book; "Firepower: How Weapons Shaped Warfare" by Paul Lockhart.

Firepower: How Weapons Shaped Warfare by Paul Lockhart

I've just completed Katja Hoyer's "Beyond the Wall," a book that aims to provide a fresh perspective on the history of the GDR. It seems that the book has stirred quite a debate in Germany, presenting a somewhat one-sided account of daily life in the GDR. Surprisingly, it portrays life as rather comfortable, even in the presence of the ever-watchful Stasi.

I find myself aligning with the verdict expressed in the German newspapers, as the book does appear to have a noticeable bias.

Beyond the Wall

A few days ago, I started reading this new book on the Yom Kippur War; "Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East" by Uri Kaufman.

Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East by Uri Kaufman

With the recent events in Israel, I have started reading this book; "1948: The First Arab-Israeli War" by Benny Morris.


1948: The First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris

I'm going to start reading this book which was a gift from my daughter when she returned home from a recent European holiday. She picked this up at Livraria Lello in Porto - "The world's most beautiful bookshop".

Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home by Alexander Wolff

Nice gift.

nice gift indeed

I'm keen to visit the bookshop she purchased the book from. Luckily, I'm visiting Portugal late next year :)

Are you going to visit the Lines of Torres Vedras?

I am really impressed by Rick's passion for non fiction history books. He is truly a genuine reader.

Betsy wrote: "Are you going to visit the Lines of Torres Vedras?"

I don't think my wife would appreciate the detour, but I hope to visit Salamanca.

Dipanjan wrote: "I am really impressed by Rick's passion for non fiction history books. He is truly a genuine reader."

Thank you :)

I have just finished


I have started reading

Dipanjan wrote: "I have just finished


I have started reading

[bookcover:Hitler's ..."

Let us all know how you go with "Hitler's Grey Wolves: U-Boats in the Indian Ocean". I have an unread copy as well :)

"Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home" - The author provided some quotes from his grandfather, Kurt, one of the subjects in this book:

Kurt writing about the idea of a memoir:

"What one can write is not interesting, and what is interesting one cannot write."

"He lavished as much attention on sentences he wrote as on those he published. Even his insults came well packaged; bad writing wasn't 'dross' or 'crap' but something much worse: it 'reduces the value of paper by printing on it'."

"Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home" - More on the author's grandfather, Kurt and his books:

"With the 100,000 gold marks he inherited upon his mother's death, a sum that would be worth more than $1 million today, he had begun to buy up first editions and incunabula, books produced during the fifteenth century shortly after the invention of the printing press. He would eventually count some twelve thousand volumes in his collection."

Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home by Alexander Wolff

"Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home" - Still with Kurt and his love of books:

"In 1908, at twenty-one, he set aside work on a PhD in literature to take an editorial position there with Insel Verlag. 'I love books, especially beautiful books, and as an adolescent and student collected them even as I knew it to be an unproductive pursuit,' he would recall. 'But I knew I had to find a profession in books. What was left? You become a publisher'."

Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home by Alexander Wolff