It’s time to get away from the financial markets which are in the doldrums anyway and get down to more serious reading of history.
I am currently reading a book entitled “A Good Year to Die” by Charles M. Robinson which is a history of the Great Sioux War on the Great Plains of North America. It was in one of my bookshelves but I don’t recall reading it before. It’s a detailed and no doubt accurate history of the inevitable victory of the U.S. Army over the Indians after the treachery of broken treaties and simple misunderstandings. The way of life of the Indians was bound to be incompatible with the influx of European settlers and miners to the area so it can be seen as a tragedy brought on my circumstance.
But as in any war, mistakes abounded on both sides and the U.S. Army certainly did not have unbounded success. The death of Colonel Custer at the Little Big Horn was one disaster brought on by over-confidence.
As the author of the book points out, the Sioux War was one of the best documented of any war as there were numerous newspaper correspondents with the troops who were not censored. In addition both staff and ordinary soldiers could keep diaries and publish them.
Another very good book which highlights the cultural differences between the whites and Indians is called “Crazy Horse and Custer” by Stephen Ambrose. A comparative biography of both leaders. I would recommend most of the books by that American historian. His biographies of Nixon and Eisenhower are good general reading for those interested in US politics and history.
One of the projects I am commencing on for the summer is to tidy up all my web “Favorites” (aka Bookmarks). After 25 years of using the web I have many hundreds of saved bookmarks. About a quarter are no longer functional as the producers have either gone out of business or have changed their page addresses. The rest are categorised but not very well so need a lot of tidying up. It should take me most of the summer I reckon at the current rate of progress.
There is clearly a major turnover of web sites although I recall seeing a project to archive them so as to preserve history. I hope some of my writing will be preserved for posterity but I fear the only certainty is my published books which are deposited at the British Library as all books have to be.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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