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A Concise History of Sweden (Book #12)

A Concise History of Sweden (Book #12)

Book #12: A Concise History of Sweden by Alf Åberg

1. How much did I like the book?

I really liked this one. It’s short, and concise (as advertised), and it gave me a great overview of what Sweden’s history looks like. By short, I mean 104 pages. I’ve met a lot of people who seem to have serious problems with concise or brief histories. They’ll say something like, “So much happened in that…

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Recent Acquisitions June 2019

Recent Acquisitions June 2019

So there’s a great bookstore in Utah I hadn’t been to.

It’s called Marissa’s Books, and it’s in Murray. It’s way better than the Barnes & Noble there, making it better than any given B&N, because they’re all the same. Used, indie bookstores always have the best selection, and I hit the jackpot.

The Soul of Iran by Afshin Molavi

The Fatal Shore: The epic of Australia’s founding by Robert Hughes

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The Scottish Nation (Book #11)

The Scottish Nation (Book #11)

Book #11: The Scottish Nation by T.M. Devine

1. How much did I like the book?

The book itself wasn’t awful, but that doesn’t mean I would go ahead and recommend it unless you have some burning interest in the minutiae of the history of Scotland. The writing isn’t great and the overall organization and structure of the book was indeed bad. Each “part” of the book covers a period of history (say,…

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A History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos (Book #10)

A History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos (Book #10)

Book #10: A History of the Philippines – From Indios Bravos to Filipinos by Luis Francia

1. How much did I like the book?

3/5, just judging by how much I subjectively liked it. It was pretty good, very informative, drug on in a few parts. I’m very glad I read it, and I will actively recommend it to anyone who’s interested in Filipino history, with the caveat that it was more informative than…

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What should I read next?

What should I read next? http://poll.fm/5zmjm

I’m ten books into my challenge, having just finished up the Philippines.

The hardest thing I’m facing now, is deciding what book to read next. I have about 15 countries already, just sitting on my shelves, waiting to be read, but I’m struggling to pick one.

Help me out and vote in this poll! If I’ve made it right, you get three picks, so don’t be shy and choose what look like your favorites.

If…

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New Acquisitions June 2018

I already picked up the first volume of Moberg’s History of the Swedish People at Pioneer Book a while ago. I caved and ordered volume 2 on Amazon.

I think that’s it for my challenge books, but I did pick up another been the other day. It’s a bilingual collection of essays about Japanese culture, from language to work ethic.

“Japan as I see it”

Happy reading everyone!

p.s. I just finished…

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Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Book #9)

Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Book #9)

Book #9: Pakistan – Between Mosque and Military by Husain Haqqani

1. How much did I like the book?

The book was okay. I’d give it a 6/10. I likely wouldn’t have read it at all had it not been for this challenge, nor would I have finished it except for this challenge. The book zooms in on the political theater of a nation that has only existed for 70 years, so most of the content was unfamiliar.…

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Acquisitions

Just picked up some new books at Pioneer Book yesterday.

I’ve had the Penguin History of the World on my list for a while now, and when one came through at work, I picked it up pretty quick.

I want to see how they package a history of the entire world, especially compared to the textbooks I read which were designed to prepare the reader for a specific test.

This one looked good too. It looks at…

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South: The Endurance Expedition (Book #8)

This was one of the better books I've ever read, and one of only a handful that has actually moved me to tears.

Book #8: South: The Endurance Expedition by Ernest Shackleton

1. How much did I like the book?

This was one of the better books I’ve ever read, and one of only a handful that has actually moved me to tears. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Shackleton isn’t a great author. He does little to contribute to classic literature, and his narrative voice makes Antarctic exploration sound rather dull, if…

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I've been reading history books exclusively for almost an entire year now. I'm taking a brief break, because I'm stuck halfway through a military history of Pakistan.

I just read Neil Gaiman's Nose Mythology.

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Germany: A New History (Book #7)

Hagen Schulze has put together a well-written and very informative overview of all of German history. It gets to the heart of some of the biggest identity problems Germany has had to face in the past hundred years.

Book #7: A People’s History of the United States by Hagen Schulze

1. How much did I like the book?

This was a well written book. It was decidedly for a German audience, and I really appreciated that. There were plenty of things I didn’t understand, and that was okay, because I’m not German. The translation was written well, and the book was not set in lofty, inaccessible academic vocabulary. I…

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Elijah Abel: The Life and Times of a Black Priesthood Holder

An incredibly well-researched book, Elijah Abel was a very enjoyable read.

One of the still-controversial topics in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints (or Mormon Church) is that of blacks and the priesthood. Mormons believe that priesthood authority to preach, baptize, bless, ordain, etc. resides only in those whom God has chosen, and to whom that authority has been legitimately passed on. African Americans, and then later anyone with African…

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Where the heck have I been?

Since the end of June last year, I’ve been pretty consistently unemployed. I left my job at Pioneer Book in pursuit of a history teaching certification, alternative license, and job. That fell through in maybe 2 months. I decided to utilize the Spanish degree I already had to pursue an alternative license to teach Spanish, especially since I already had most of the certifications I needed. I…

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Book #6: Showa: A History of Japan by Shigeru Mizuki Four volumes: 1926-1939, 1939-1944, 1944-1953, and 1953-1989

1. How much did I like the book?

I would unhesitatingly give this series 5/5 stars. Mizuki outlines the history of Japan’s Showa Era (1926-1989) across 4 volumes and somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 pages of manga, or Japanese-style comics. He walks the reader through the events of almost every single year, laying out Japan’s role in the world and at home. Half history, half autobiography, Mizuki’s Showa weaves his own personal experiences into well-documented history. We get to see the reconstruction after WWI through the memories of a child who lived through it, and then we follow that same person through all of his involvement and survival of WWII. Showa does a masterful job of showing us how the dropping of the atomic bombs at the close of WWII affected Mizuki as a soldier, his family as civilians, the Japanese government, and the populace at large. The manga format makes Mizuki’s delivery very casual and accessible. Entirely illustrated, Showa shows Japan’s history instead of telling it. Mizuki also helps us through by having impressively distinct art styles; national history is realistic, often photorealistic, and his personal history is a goofy exaggeration that matches the style that he is famous for in his other classic manga.

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2. Why did I choose this book?

I saw the first volume at my local library while I was looking for more volumes of One Punch Man to read. I picked up the first volume of Showa simply because it looked interesting. At the time, I had been combing through the shelves of the Japanese history section of the BYU library and consulting with professors of Japanese history, trying to find a volume written by a Nihon-jin (Japanese person) that encompassed the vast history of Japan. I could not find a history that spanned more than one empirical era at a time. By the time I had run into that roadblock, I had finished 2 of the 4 Showa volumes and had decided that this was going to count for my Japanese history.

Mizuki grew in the art profession, really making a name for himself making kamishibai, which roughly translates to “paper play” or “picture story show”. Performers would pull up one illustration in a frame and use it like a powerpoint for storytelling. They would reference the art and whatever was going on in the picture as they told their story. Then they would pull the front-most page out, exposing the second picture still in the frame, and continue telling the story. The profession of creating the pictures for the kamishibai died out, but was replaced by comic books or manga. Mizuki was heavily involved in this transition, and was instrumental in making manga a successful industry in Japan. Nowadays, Japan is widely known for their multi-billion-dollar manga publishing industry. All of that information combines to make Showa a very Japanese book. Written and illustrated by an author who was instrumental in creating a new genre based on traditional cultural influences, the series was an incredibly authentic piece of Japanese culture.

Speaking of cultural authenticity, Showa was not designed for a foreign audience, rather a Japanese audience. Popular Japanese manga characters lead us through history in the same way that Donald Duck might explain American history to us (as one endnote puts it). Many of the events on the global scene that are depicted in this series have little to do with the western world at large, focusing on China, India, the Philippines, etc.

In short, I chose Showa because although it lacked the broad overview I was hoping to find, Mizuki’s storytelling and his artful weaving of personal and national historical narratives are absolutely beautiful. I was also blown away by how very Japanese this history was, with very little (obvious) influence from outside cultures.

3. What are some things that stuck out in comparison/contrast to my own country?

Japan’s version of World War II is obviously going to be different from the American version I learned in high school, college, and American-made textbooks. Some of the clearest immediate differences I noted were that Japan felt a little betrayed that they saw world powers (the UK, the USA, Western Europe) using various forms of empire to extend their influence throughout the globe— Japan decided to do this in the Atlantic, and they were immediately told to cease and desist. In fact, Pearl Harbor wasn’t the unprovoked attack we (Americans) make it out to be. The US had levied an embargo against Japan for claiming Pacific Islands as part of their empire, blocking shipments of coal, oil, and steel into Japan. This would leave Japan defenseless during the Pacific War that was breaking out at the same time as the European conflicts of WWII. In order to be able to defend their country, they made a small strike against the chief aggressors, namely the United States military base on an island that was barely a part of the USA at all. Another curious thing about WWII that I hadn’t known: Japan had plans to expand their empire to the American west coast. Had they won Midway, they would have landed planes in California.

Up until the aftermath of WWII, the Japanese held their emperor as a divine being. The United States didn’t believe that or agree with anyone else believing that, so the US military forced the emperor to go through the whole country and announce that he wasn’t divine and that the emperors never had been. I think that was uncalled for. I mean, how do we know that none of their emperors have ever been divinely appointed by a heavenly being?

Contemporary histories about things going on in other countries didn’t tend to talk about the United States and the UK. Instead, Mizuki’s global current events usually dealt with India, China, Korea, the Philippines, Russia, etc. like I mentioned above. Of course it makes sense that a country on the other side of the globe would talk about what’s going on on the other side of the globe. It just struck me as something I hadn’t really thought about before.

“There is no individual, only the country” is the overarching theme of how Japan looks at war, especially World War II. Soldiers were expected to give their lives for Japan, as would likely be expected in any country, but it gets a little extreme in WWII Japan. Some squadrons were sent on literal suicide missions. They were told beforehand that they were not expected to come back at all, some cutting off a finger or toe so family could have at least a bone to bury. Many soldiers were executed for retreating. It should be clear that they were not killed for going AWOL, deserting posts, or treason. They were shot for running away from gunfire instead of running into it. This is very foreign in Western culture, where we place a lot of value and emphasis on individual worth, and I do want to emphasize that it’s not a good or bad thing that Japan held this thought process during war. It’s just a thing they did that is different from how we did things.

4. What are some things I had absolutely no idea about? Things that are completely foreign to me?

Religious observance is different in Japan than we typically see it in European and American settings. A handful of the resources I’ve used to study world religions paint Japanese religion as more of a tradition than a religious belief. Japan may lack the structure and hierarchy of Catholicism or the various branches of Christianity, but that doesn’t make them any less religious. Mizuki outlines various religious experiences that he has during and after WWII. At one point, he is wandering in the jungles of the Pacific islands and stops because there is an infinitely tall and long slimy wall in front of him. He recognizes this wall as a yokai or spirit, and decides to sleep there. He wakes up the next morning on the edge of a cliff, a few feet from falling to his death. This is just one of many personal experiences that Mizuki chooses to share. One of the pictures I shared above is another example that resonates with Christianity a little more than the slimy wall spirit: As Mizuki is being pursued by enemy soldiers, his parents wake up in Japan after having a vision of him being in trouble. They run into the streets to shout prayers to heaven on his behalf, and he is miraculously saved by what most Christians would call the “hand of Providence”. In short, the Japanese are quite a religious people, at least many of them are—their religion just looks very different from what lots of us are used to in the West.

Mizuki talks often about yokai or spirits that he encounters. His most successful manga is about adventures with yokai, and it looks sometimes like he came up with the whole concept, but apparently it wasn’t a Mizuki invention. References to yokai keep popping up in other books and shows from and about Japan, sometimes religiously, sometimes mythically. Compared to the spirits we think of in Western Christianity (usually angels or invisible forces that guide us, sometimes voices in our minds), yokai often take on a physical form that we would consider monstrous. Giant rats with one glowing green eye, infinite slimy walls, sewer smoke that transports you to another dimension.

Japan is a fairly small nation, roughly the size of California, and the ethnically Japanese make up 98.5% of the population. Given the concentration and uniformity of the population, trends, fads, information, and gossip spread faster than a wildfire. This makes it hard to keep secrets!

I’ve mentioned a few times that this series covers the Showa Era of Japanese history. Every time a new emperor takes the throne, they begin a new era in Japan, and begin enumerating years from 1 again. So instead of 1988, they say Showa 63. 1882 was the 15th year of the Meiji Era, and the year was called Meiji 15. 2018 is Heisei 30!

5. Is this book important? Why (not)?

YES.

Shigeru Mizuki’s Showa history series is an important piece of culturally authentic history of Japan. It’s a view into the public and private life of one of the most transformative eras in the history of the country. The format is accessible and memorable. Showa changed the way I see Japan, and tells the often-untold story of Japan in World War II. Everyone should take a chance to read this history.

Get vol. 1 from Drawn and Quarterly!

I would unhesitatingly give this series 5/5 stars. Book #6: Showa: A History of Japan by Shigeru Mizuki Four volumes: 1926-1939, 1939-1944, 1944-1953, and 1953-1989…

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Ernest Shackleton made me cry

I can count on one hand the books that have made me cry or get misty-eyed, and Ernest Shackleton's South is one of those few.

You can ask my wife, I’m not the crying type. I can watch Mulan or Lilo & Stitch without wiping my eyes at all. Plus, there’s something about print material that distances me even further from itself. I can count on one hand the books that have made me cry or get misty-eyed, and Ernest Shackleton’s South is one of those few.

There I am, sitting in the library. I’m holed up in a study cubicle,…

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How to say "I don't know"

I've found that one of the most important things to learn in this whole journey to read my way around the world is how to admit that I don't know something.

I’ve found that one of the most important things to learn in this whole journey to read my way around the world is how to admit that I don’t know something.

I saw a friend post on Facebook that their New Years resolution was to stop acting like they know everything. Now, this can come across in straightforward arrogance, but most of us are guilty of the lesser versions of this misdeed—nodding…

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A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that" -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

“Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that” -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Where Do We Go from Here? 1967

A Call to Conscience is a collection of speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Spanning from 1955 to 1968, various of Dr. King’s most important or most influential speeches are included in the book with introductions from various civil rights leaders and individuals whose careers…