What are we reading?

[Gusington]

If you were to go back and do it all again, would you train to become a USMC pilot?

[Jarhead0331]

If you were to go back and do it all again, would you train to become a USMC pilot?

It has been my lifelong dream to be a pilot. I honestly don't think I have what it takes.

[Gusington]

Didn't know that. New JH trivia.

[Ubercat]

If you were to go back and do it all again, would you train to become a USMC pilot?

It has been my lifelong dream to be a pilot. I honestly don't think I have what it takes.

Nothing wrong with being an amateur pilot. If I can do it, you certainly could. You made it through USMC boot camp and law school. I doubt I would have managed to get through marine boot. I'm lucky to have made it through USN boot on time without being held back!

I'm proud to have earned my PPL (under the stern gaze of my best friend/instructor). I quit my training partway through my instrument rating when I realized that I didn't think I had what it takes to go pro with it and couldn't justify going further into debt if I wasn't making it a career like Tom did.

I haven't flown in almost 20 years but I'll always have those memories.

[Jarhead0331]

If you were to go back and do it all again, would you train to become a USMC pilot?

It has been my lifelong dream to be a pilot. I honestly don't think I have what it takes.

Nothing wrong with being an amateur pilot. If I can do it, you certainly could. You made it through USMC boot camp and law school. I doubt I would have managed to get through marine boot. I'm lucky to have made it through USN boot on time without being held back!

I'm proud to have earned my PPL (under the stern gaze of my best friend/instructor). I quit my training partway through my instrument rating when I realized that I didn't think I had what it takes to go pro with it and couldn't justify going further into debt if I wasn't making it a career like Tom did.

I haven't flown in almost 20 years but I'll always have those memories.

I mean that I don't think I have what it takes to be a fighter pilot. Getting my PPL would be a walk in the park...an expensive one, but certainly a challenge I could manage.

[Martok]

How many books are there total in the series?

At first 3 books.  I think 2 prequels and 2 sequels were added later.  So 7 books for the Foundation Series.

Correct. 

I personally enjoy all 7 books, but they are undeniably of varying quality.  Regardless, there's no question that the original trilogy is a must-read (as Metaldog pointed out). 

If you were to go back and do it all again, would you train to become a USMC pilot?

It has been my lifelong dream to be a pilot. I honestly don't think I have what it takes.

???

[Gusington]

Just started A Box of Sand: The Italo-Ottoman War 1911-1912 - The First Land, Sea and Air War by Charles Stephenson.

[airboy]

I'll admit to heresy - the entire plot of Foundation is dumb.

Unexpected events are forever occurring.  Don't believe me - take the easiest thing possible to predict: sports.  We have invariant rules, known players and coaches, huge amounts of data - yet how many predictions from the beginning of the season are correct at the end of the season?

Go into something more complicated: interest rates, birth rate, economic activity, wars & insurgencies, plagues, etc....  and the predictions are even more off.

The idea that a group could predict future history and crisis points even a decade out is nuts.  Just one simple example - I know of nobody who predicted that the US would become a net oil exporter in 1990, nobody.  Yet it happened and it shook up an awful lot of stuff.  The fact that it occurred under the hyper stupid regulatory regime of the Obama administration is even weirder.

Then Asimov put the Mule character in a further disrupted the story. 

Yes, I realize it is fiction.  Yes, I know lots of people love it.  And yes, I enjoyed the first book.  But even as a plot premise in a fiction book it was laugh out loud funny.

Don't let this stop you from reading it.  If you enjoyed it, I'm happy for you.  But it is based on an utterly wild concept that many believe "is just over the horizon."

[MetalDog]

Part of reading fiction is a suspension of what you know to be true.  The joy, for me, of reading fantasy and sci fi is connecting to my inner child.  Who marveled at feats of magic, heroism, and science.  It's for that that I keep reading.  There is comfort in believing that there is someone to tell them what to do in times of crisis.  Seldon appears in videos.  Another guy might have a book of instructions.  You don't have to believe the guy in the video any more than the guy who had the book written.  But, if they bring you comfort, then, by all means, go to it.

[Ubercat]

Obama was President in 1990?   :-"

[Jarhead0331]

Obama was President in 1990?   :-"

I think he means nobody in 1990 would have predicted something that occurred during the Obama presidency.

[ArizonaTank]

I finished Ron Chernow's "Grant" and I very much enjoyed it.

https://www.amazon.com/Grant-Ron-Chernow/dp/0143110632/ref=sr_1_1?crid=11L08AWDVPPO9&dchild=1&keywords=chernow+books&qid=1593452364&sprefix=chernow+%2Caps%2C197&sr=8-1

It is primarily a biography, and therefore less of a military history. However, all of Grants major battles were covered in detail.

The book makes a very good case promoting Grant's usually underappreciated military genius. Grant's strength lay in logistics and army management. In the Overland Campaign, US Grant commanded five Federal armies, from Virginia to the Red River in Louisiana. Using the telegraph Grant was very involved with the daily dispositions, logistics and activities of each of his armies. Grant (with assistance from Sherman) was the architect of the grand strategy to use those armies to strangle and cut up the South. This contrasts with Lee who only commanded one army, mostly operating out of Virginia.

An example of Grant's logistical wizardry was his end run around Lee, pulling out of Cold Harbor and moving to Petersburg. Grant managed to outmaneuver Lee by moving 100,000 men out of Cold Harbor, then building a 2,100 foot pontoon bridge over the James River in 8 hours, getting his army across without being detected, and then attacking Petersburg before Lee could react. Subsequently Grant established his headquarters at City Point, Virginia, on the James River and used it as a base of supply. This river port would become the third busiest port in the United States for the rest of the war.

The book dispels the myth that Grant was just "lucky" or that he had so many resources he could not possibly fail. After all, six Union generals, who had the same resources, failed before him.

The book cheers Grant for his initiatives with Voting Rights, Civil Rights and the crushing of the first iteration of the Klan. But it does not spare him his mistakes and faults. The infamous "General Order No. 11" is the most prominent example (during the Vicksburg Campaign, Grant, bedeviled by dishonest contractors, did a terrible thing and directed his wrath at the Jewish community. He issued a directive to remove Jewish families from the occupied territory in Kentucky and Tennessee. Lincoln rescinded the order before much damage was done.) But Grant learned from his mistakes, and in this case, as President he did more than any other President up to that point to support the Jewish community. 

Grant also had a trusting nature, and as a result, he was very slow to recognize dishonesty among those he knew. The result were several large scandals during his presidency. Afterwards he himself lost all of his wealth in a ponzi scheme.

Some interesting things I learned from the book.

-After the war, Grant became good friends with John Mosby, the Confederate guerilla cavalry leader. Mosby supported unifying the nation, and he actively campaigned for Grant's second term.

-Immediately after the War, Grant wanted to send 60,000 men under Phil Sheridan into Mexico, to oust the French and the Emperor Maximillian.  Grant was a strong believer in the Monroe doctrine and wanted Europeans out of Mexico. However, Grant could not get the Secretaries of State and War to agree with him on military action. Still Grant continued to push for an invasion until Maximillian was captured and executed.

-Grant did more than any other 19th century President to advance Civil and Voting rights. He used all of his Federal power to ensure free voting in the South. He signed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 giving equal access to transportation and commercial and public facilities. It was unfortunately struck down by the Supreme Court in 1883.

-The US almost went to war with Britain in the early 1870s over reparations for British support of the CSS Alabama, a commerce raider that was finally sunk by the USS Kearsage in June, 1864. Grant suggested the use of arbitration to solve the dispute and he was widely hailed as a peacemaker after that.

-After his presidency, Grant took a two-year world tour. Visiting Europe, Egypt, India, Thailand, Hong Kong, China and Japan among many other places. He even conducted some unofficial diplomacy; mediating a territory dispute between Japan and China.

-Grant had an on-again, off-again relationship with Sherman in the post war years. Sherman was not nearly as progressive as Grant and did not agree with Grant's efforts to promote voting and civil rights.

-In 1880, Grant came very close to being nominated by the Republicans for a third term as President.

[airboy]

My reading on Grant's campaigns was that he was a very good strategic general and a so-so tactical general.  Your observations on Grant's logistical skills support that view. 

Grant could learn - but sometimes at a terrible price in casualties.  But he accurately observed that the South could not be strong everywhere, and by keeping Lee tied up and engaged the war could be won at Sea and in the West. 

Grant also agreed with total war and waged economic destruction in the South (mostly through Sherman) and in the Shenandoah Valley (mostly by Sheridan).  The wanton destruction of civilian property broke the Confederacy's ability to wage war.  But that destruction, the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, and the vengeance by the post-war Congresses beggared the South until after WW1.

[MetalDog]

I ask this as a serious question, Airboy, what kind of punishment would have been acceptable for rebels?  Again, in all seriousness, I get that on some level, the South was making war to be able to live the life they chose, but, the victors write the history books and the winners impose the penalties.  So, destruction of civil property, by act of war or by design, the enfranchisement of an unjustly enslaved people, and the vengeful laws set by the victors, were...what?  Too harsh?  Unjust?  I am interested in hearing the direction you are coming from.

[airboy]

I ask this as a serious question, Airboy, what kind of punishment would have been acceptable for rebels?  Again, in all seriousness, I get that on some level, the South was making war to be able to live the life they chose, but, the victors write the history books and the winners impose the penalties.  So, destruction of civil property, by act of war or by design, the enfranchisement of an unjustly enslaved people, and the vengeful laws set by the victors, were...what?  Too harsh?  Unjust?  I am interested in hearing the direction you are coming from.

Metaldog - there were two reconstructions. 

The US Congress decided that no former rebellious State could rejoin the Union without passing the 13th Amendment passed by the remaining States during the war.  Every formerly rebellious State passed the 13th amendment. 

Then there was an election and many former Senators, Representatives, and officials in the former Confederacy were elected to Congress.

Lincoln was dead and the Congress decided on vengeance.  They refused to sit the duly elected senators and representatives from the South. 

They passed the 14th Amendment which stripped voting rights of most white southerners.  Specifically:
"Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State."

They also bankrupted every single Southern State, bank and pretty much everyone else with this part of the 14th Amendment:
"But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void. "

The critical part here is no State debts can be paid by any former State of the Confederacy.  Claims for the loss of slaves was not asked for by the former Confederate States - they knew they were under military occupation.

During "radical reconstruction" the North decreed that the rail cost for all steel shipments must be measured from Pittsburg, PA (bankrupting the Southern Steel Industry) and a host of other things to beggar the South.

If you look at the Statistical Abstract of the United States, or look at the Census decade to decade, the North bankrupted the South through various means to the point it did not recover until after WW1 where it was in 1860.

This part of the US Constitution, and economic history are right there if you want to look for them.  They are never taught in school anymore because it is unpopular and lacks "political correctness."

During the War, the North decided to wage total war against the South in a manner not seen in Western Civilization before.  Property destruction was done as a matter of policy.  This is pretty much what war evolved to when Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the USSR engaged in WW2.  This was different from living off the land like Napoleonic War Era armies did.  The North destroyed the means of production, housing, roads, bridges, etc.... 

After the North decided to engage in wholesale economic war against the South after the surrender while also disenfranchising pretty much every white person in the South from voting - the terror started.  As a policy decision, this was not what Lincoln wanted and it was frankly stupid and set up the bitterness in the South after the war.

We could have probably healed quickly as a nation if the North had not passed the economic revenge laws associated with the 14th Amendment and healed much faster.  In the first election after the war blacks voted, as did whites in the South.  But the North was enraged to see former confederates in Congress, stripped them from their seats, passed the 14th Amendment, and waged economic war for 30 years.  This was stupid and destructive.

I can accept the total war that Grant and Sherman did to win.  It was questionable if Lincoln would be reelected and if the war would continue.  They did what they thought was necessary to win a very long war.

However, it was pure vengeance with a healthy dose of stupid that led to the economic revenge carried out in parts of the 14th amendment.

US Citizens rarely, if ever read the Constitution.  US Citizens are almost all ignorant of economic history.  This reply may need to go to R&P because it is true but very unpopular.

I think the greatest tragedy in US history was Lincoln's Assassination.  He wanted to end slavery (eventually - the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves only in areas not controlled by the Union military).  He then wanted the States to rejoin the union with a minimum of strife and bitterness.  He was murdered and the radicals in the North decided to wage vengeance.  Did not end well at the end of WW1 at Versailles and it also did not end well in the USA for radical reconstruction.

Everything I mention above is easily found - except Lincoln's plan for the post-war.  I read a four volume work on Lincoln in High School and it included a lot of his papers for his future plans.