Arts & culture – Page 5 – Yet Another Unitarian Universalist

Revolutionary War stories

A post in honor of Memorial Day.

The American Revolution began 250 years ago, as of April 19 this year. This significant anniversary is a good time to reflect on the sacrifices that were made by Revolutionary War-era soldiers and sailors.

And it turns out that we don’t know as much as we think we know about the soldiers and sailors of the American Revolution. We don’t have very good records of exactly which soldiers and sailors died during the Revolutionary War; there simply weren’t full and accurate records of military service,(1) and we don’t even have accurate figures for how many military deaths there were in the Revolution.(2) Yet by digging in to the historical record, historians have been able to recover some remarkable stories that had been forgotten or mis-remembered.

I went looking for stories about people from Cohasset who served in the American Revolution. (My interest was partially selfish — since First Parish, where I serve, was the only church in town during the Revolution, then if I found a Cohasset resident who served in the Revolutionary War, they would have been part of First Parish.) I found two super interesting stories that had been partially forgotten or obscured — but thanks to the efforts of twenty-first century historians, we have now recovered many lost details.

Persis Tower Lincoln, Revolutionary War Heroine

Victor Bigelow, town historian and author of A Narrative History of Cohasset (1898), tells the story of Persis Tower Lincoln. During the occupation of Boston, which lasted from spring of 1775 into 1776, Persis was married to Allen Lincoln, a seaman; Persis was then 16 years old, and Allen was 20; John Browne, minister of First Parish, officiated at their wedding. Allen then left Persis for military service. While he was away, Persis sailed a small boat across Massachusetts Bay to Gloucester to get supplies through the British blockade, so we remember her as a heroine of the American Revolution. Meanwhile — so the traditional story goes — Allen’s ship was captured by the British, and according to local tradition he was taken to Dartmoor prison in England where he died.(3)

Persis’s story appears to be true. Unfortunately, Allen’s story has been remembered incorrectly. Dartmoor Prison wasn’t completed until 1809, so he couldn’t have been imprisoned there during the Revolution. Then too, Allen and Persis had daughter together, and their daughter Sally was born in 1778.(4) Finally, military records show that Allen Lincoln of Cohasset served in the Continental Army after his purported death, in 1776, 1777, and again in 1778.(5)

A more accurate history of Allen Lincoln appears to be something like this: After serving in the military for several months in both 1776 and 1777, Allen re-enlisted in the Continental Navy with the rank of Seaman. Then on March 17, 1778 he was taken prisoner by the British; he was captured about a month after his daughter Sally was born, and was initially imprisoned at Rhode Island.(6) Subsequently, he was apparently taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he died in 1778.(7) It’s not surprising that he died while he was a prisoner of war; the mortality rate was notoriously high among prisoners of war held by the British, and more Revolutionary War soldiers and sailors died in prison camps than died in battle. Allen died at age 22, leaving behind an 18 year old wife and an infant daughter whom he probably only saw for the first few weeks of her life.

Allen Lincoln’s story is worth remembering on its own merits. But it’s also a reminder of how much has been forgotten or mis-remembered about the sailors and soldiers who died during military service in the Revolution. Indeed, historians aren’t even sure how many prisoners of war died while being held captive by the British; it may have been as many 19,000 men.(8) At a local level, it seems that we’re not even sure of how many people from First Parish served in the Revolution. It should be simple to generate such an honor roll of military service — First Parish was the only church in Cohasset, everyone in town belonged to the church, so all we’d need is a list of Cohasset residents who served. However, the only such list I found lists almost certainly includes men from other towns who were recruited by Cohasset to help fill the town’s quota.(9) Given the incomplete records that remain, we may never know exactly how many people from Cohasset served in American Revolution — nor how many of those soldiers and sailors gave their lives in military service.

Yet even though the historical record has gotten a bit muddled over the past two and a half centuries, what’s remarkable is how much we still remember. We still remember Allen Lincoln and Persis Tower, and we still tell their stories when we talk about the history of First Parish. Even if some of the details of the story have been confused or forgotten, we still remember this young couple from First Parish who can be counted among the heroes and heroines of the American Revolution.

Part two: the story of Briton Nichols.

Notes

(1) Historian mark Edward Lender states that “…most combat was local and took place without major British or Continental forces on the scene”; in other words, many soldiers served in militia units. Lender, Citizen Soldiers or Regulars? The Revolutionary Militia Reconsidered,” in Jim Piecuch, ed., Seven Myths of American Revolution (Hackett Publishing, 2003) p. 59. Militia units did not necessarily keep accurate records, and even where good records were kept they may not have survived or may be hidden in local archives.

(2) According to historian Howard Peckham, who carefully reviewed military records kept by the original thirteen colonies, 5,992 soldiers were killed in military engagements, and 832 sailors were killed in naval engagements, for a total of 6,824 battle casualties. In addition, Peckham estimated that 10,00 soldiers died in camp from diseases such as dysentery, and 8,500 soldier and sailors died in British prisoner-of-war camps. Thus, Peckham estimated the total number of probable deaths in service at over 25,000. Source: Howard Peckham, The Toll of Independence : Engagements & Battle Casualties of the American Revolution (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1974), “Summations and Implications.” However, other historians feel that Peckham underestimated the number of deaths among prisoners of war, see e.g., Edwin G. Burrows, Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners during the Revolutionary War (Basic Books, 2008), p. 317 n. 12; Burrows places the total number of prisoners of war who died at 19,000, giving a total death toll that is closer to 35,000. (Burrows cites the total number of Americans who took up arms during the war as 200,000.)

(3) Victor Bigelow, Narrative History of Cohasset (1898), p. 290. The marriage record showing that John Browne officiated at the wedding may be found here: Entry for Allen Lincoln and Persis Tower, 23 Nov 1775, “Massachusetts, State Vital Records, 1638-1927,” archived on FamilySearch website https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FHQY-G2B accessed 23 May 2025.

(4) According to the Massachusetts State Census of 1855, Sally was born in 1778; so this was not a matter of a christening that was delayed for three years. According to Cohasset Vital Records, she was christened on 18 Oct. 1778.

(5) A search for military records for Allen Lincoln on genealogy website FamilySearch.org turned up two records for military service of Allen or Allyn Lincoln from Cohasset: First, as one of the soldiers who mustered at Hull on June 14, 1776, to serve in the military: Entry for Allyn Lincoln, 14 Jun 1776, “Massachusetts, Revolutionary War, Index Cards to Muster Rolls, 1775-1783″, FamilySearch.org website https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2RC-LHBT accessed 22 May 2025. Second, as serving in “the Northern Dept.” in 1777: Entry for Allen Lincoln, 24 Aug 1777, “Massachusetts, Revolutionary War, Index Cards to Muster Rolls, 1775-1783,” FamilySearch.org website https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2RC-9CH6 accessed 22 May 2025.

(6) Entry for Allyn Lyncoln, 17 Mar 1778, “Massachusetts, Revolutionary War, Index Cards to Muster Rolls, 1775-1783,” FamilySearch.org website https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2RC-2NLM accessed 22 May 2025.

(7) The FamilySearch.org entry for Allen Lincoln lists his date of death as 1778, and place of death as Halifax, Nova Scotia, unfortunately with no documentation. See person entry for “Allen Lincoln” FamilySearch.org website https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/LCZP-2JH accessed 22 May 2025.

(8) See e.g. Edwin G. Burrows, Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners during the Revolutionary War (Basic Books, 2008), p. 317 n. 12.

What’s the biggest problem of this political moment?

Back in 2018, I wrote about some of the challenges the Baby Boomers face — including financial challenges. We hear over and over again how the Boomers are inheriting a ton of money from their parents, so of course all Boomers must be financially secure. Well, not exactly true…

There’s an article in today’s Boston Globe titled “Mass. officials are scrambling to stem the wave of older adults losing their homes.” In the article, reporter Kay Lazar reports on “an ominous wave of older adults who are losing their homes or just scraping by.” Lazar cites some depressing statistics:

“Adults 50 and older are the fastest-growing age group experiencing homelessness, comprising nearly half of the country’s homeless population, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. Federal data show a 17 percent jump in the number of Massachusetts adults ages 55 and older counted as homeless from 2023 to 2024, the most recent numbers available. Nationally, that increase was 6 percent.”

This reminds me of a book by Elizabeth White titled 55, Underemployed, and Faking Normal: Your Guide to a Better ~~Retirement~~ Life. White’s book, published a decade ago, showed that many 55 year olds simply didn’t have enough money to retire — and that included people like White herself, a highly educated woman who at age 55 found herself working low-paying jobs because that’s all she could get.

White’s book is still in print — because it’s still relevant. White wrote: “This is why the budget battles on Capitol Hill — which until recently only threatened to cut social security and other social-insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid — are so ludicrous. What we’re really talking about is dooming millions and millions of women to misery and destitution.” And here we are, ten years later, hearing exactly the same claptrap from political leaders, including from our elderly (78 years old) president. Yes indeedy. I’m so glad we live in a Christian nation where our leaders devoutly follow the teachings of Jesus: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Matt. 19:21, NIV) I’m just so glad we have good Christian leaders who read their Bibles and decide to cut aid to poor elders so they can doom millions and millions of women to poverty and destitution.

OK, that’s enough sarcasm for now.

My real point is that the current culture wars are actually being fought over whether we help poor people move on up out of poverty, or whether we push more people into poverty. Rev. William Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign make the point that there are 140 million Americans who are functionally living in poverty. Nor do I see either major political party facing up to the magnitude of this issue. Actually, I don’t see Unitarian Universalists at the national level facing up to the magnitude of poverty in this country.

Back to the Boston Globe article for some insight into just how bad the problem is:

“‘I am finding more seniors living in their cars,’ said Sheri Miller-Bedau, a city health inspector in Attleboro. ‘We are in Massachusetts. We have great schools. We are supposed to be leading edge. How is this happening?’ She said local shelters were so full this past winter that even older adults living in their cars were not considered an emergency and were told they had at least a six-month wait.”

And to drive the point home, here’s another quote from the Globe article:

“[Julian] Cyr [D, Provincetown], whose district — Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket — is home to the state’s oldest population, said it’s becoming increasingly common to see seniors living in their cars. ‘It’s a housing crisis on steroids,’ he said. ‘When I stop at a park or restroom [on the Cape], I will often see a car, a sedan packed to the gills, and there is an older person, usually an older woman, who is living in the car.'”

And it just might be that the biggest problem of this political moment is not fascism, or racism, or sexism, or homophobia, or immigration, or global climate change — the biggest problem of this political moment just might be poverty.

Which religious groups support Trump?

One hundred days into Donnie Trump’s second reign — er, second term — which religious groups approve of him most?

No surprise — Trump continues to have high approval ratings among White evangelicals. In a recent poll, Pew Research found that 72% of White evangelicals approve of King Donnie — er, President Trump.

Here are the approval ratings for other religious groups in the Pew poll:

72% — White Protestant Christian, evangelical
51% — White Protestant Christian, not evangelical
51% — White Catholic Christian
40% — All US adults
26% — Hispanic Catholic Christian
26% — Religiously unaffiliated
10% — Black Protestant Christian

I was a bit surprised that these approval ratings are very similar to Trump’s first term. In their report, Pew Research says: “Both among the U.S. public as a whole and among major religious groups, Trump’s current approval ratings are on par with what they were around the same time in his first term (April 2017).”

Not surprisingly, White Evangelicals support Trump’s extensive use of executive orders — 53% of them feel that Trump is doing about the right amount by executive order. Only 27% of White evangelicals think Trump is doing too much by executive order, 15% are unsure, and 5% feel he’s doing too little by executive order.

I’d be jumping to conclusions if, based on this one survey, I said that White evangelicals are OK with a president who’s seems to be trying to operate like a king. But I’m keeping that in mind as a possibility.

Read the report here.

Indoors Morris

It was raining today, so the Morris dancers at the New England Folk Festival had to do their thing indoors, in the dreary “Trade Center” next to the hotel. The danced in the middle of the cacophony and distraction of vendors and lunch tables and kid-friendly activities (hula hoops, anyone?). They danced under harsh LED lights instead of real sunlight.

Four Morris dancers lined up to finish a dance. — Ring ‘o Bells Morris NYC flourish their hankies at the end of a dance.

It didn’t matter. Ritual dance is ritual dance wherever you do it. It makes you feel that’s there’s something way older than you are. When a Morris side waves their hankies or hits their sticks together, no matter where it is, it can still give me goosebumps.

Morris dancers with sticks raised. — Renegade Morris about to hit each other’s sticks.

Yes, it would have been better outdoors. But even in a noisy corner of an unattractive trade center, it was worth watching.

Jump Billy

In November, British singer-songwriter Angeline Morrison released a new song titled “Jump Billy.” I got interested in the song because it tells the story of someone born in America who left during the American Revolution. If you dive into local history, you’re constantly running up against stories of the Tories who left America during the Revolution. But you rarely hear the rest of the story — where they went, and how they fared.

Here’s a link to Morrison’s studio recording of “Jump Billy” — which she has made freely available on an educational webpage about the life of William Waters.

So why did Morrison write this song? She has long loved the traditional music of the British Isles. As the daughter of a Black Jamaican woman and a White man from the Outer Hebrides, she began to search for traditional songs about Black people like her. By some estimates, circa 1800 there were 20,000 Black people living in London alone — but where were the songs about them?

Morrison did record one traditional English song, “The Brown Girl,” which she imagined might actually be a song about a woman with brown skin (as opposed to a mere poetic description). Then, in the tradition of generations of folk musicians, she decided to write her own songs in the idiom of traditional music, featuring non-White Britishers. In 2022, after having written a number of new songs, she released an album of those songs.

(A side note: if Morrison were working in the U.S. today, she would be accused of violating the recent presidential executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Don’t get me started on how that executive order tells lies about history.)

She is still mining this vein of material, and in her latest song is about the Black sailor William “Billy” Waters. I don’t know if Morrison saw the new book by Mary L. Shannon, Billy Waters is Dancing: Or, How a Black Sailor Found Fame in Regency Britain (Yale University Press, 2024) or if she did her own research (or both). In any case, Morrison’s song tells the same basic story that’s told in the book, which goes something like this:

William Waters was born in New York City (probably) around 1775. His family (probably) left New York when the British troops evacuated in 1783; little Billy would have been about eight years old. In 1811, he signed on as an able seaman in the British Royal Navy. Since he signed on as an able seaman, not an ordinary seaman, he (probably) had had previous experience as a sailor. Little else is known about his early life.

In 1812, the captain’s log reports that Waters fell from the from the main spar, broke both legs, and had to have one leg amputated. Waters was invalided out of the Navy with an inadequate pension, as was all too typical at the time. To earn enough money to live on, he turned to busking. He gained fame as a frequent performer outside London’s fashionable Adelphi Theatre. As many buskers did at the time, he adopted a distinctive dress: for Waters, this included his naval coat and a tricorn hat decorated with showy feathers. In his act, he not only sang and played fiddle, but he also danced with great dexterity; this last was considered remarkable due to his wooden leg.

Drawing of a street scene showing a man with a wooden leg dancing and playing fiddle. — Billy Waters, a one legged busker, in a crowded London street. Coloured aquatint, 1822.
Image courtesy: Wellcome Trust Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 .

Waters married and had two children. In spite of his fame, he and his family lived in St. Giles rookery, notorious as one of the worst slums in London. He died in 1823, aged approx. 60. At the time of his death, he was living in the St. Giles workhouse, an institution for indigent people. Presumably, by that time he was no longer able to earn his living busking. So much for his fame —sic transit gloria mundi.

As an able seaman, Waters would have had as good a life as could be expected for a working class man — and he could live in freedom, whereas slavery persisted in New York until well after his death. After he had his leg amputated, the Royal Navy didn’t treat him especially well. Yet in spite of his disability, he was able to earn enough money to allow him to provide for a family.

— And this is just one story telling how the American Revolution played out in the lives of ordinary people. We hear over and over again stories of how the Revolution affected prominent people like John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. I like to hear those old stories about those wealthy and prominent people who remained in America. But I also want to hear how the Revolution affected ordinary people, including the ones who left America. It’s hearing all those stories that makes history come alive for me.

(N.B.: Morrison’s song is so new, I couldn’t find lyrics to it anywhere online. I’ll post my own transcription of the lyrics after the jump.)

Majority of potential deportees are Christian

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), World Relief, and the Center for the Study of Global Christianity have released a report about the impact of the Trump administration’s proposed deportations on American Christian communities. I found the report, titled “One Part of the Body: The Potential Impact of Deportations on American Christian Families” available online on the USCCB website (link to the PDF).

According to their report, the majority of people subject to deportation are Christian. You can go to the actual report to read their methodology, but to give you a quickie summary, here’s a screen shot of a relevant pie chart taken from the report:

Graphic titled "The Overwhelming Majority of Immigrants at Risk of Deportation Are Christians." — Screenshot of part of page 15 from the online report by NAE, USCCB, et al.

An article about this report by Religion News Service (RNS) points out that U.S. vice-president J.D. Vance is Catholic. According to RNS, Vance does not agree with previous statements by Catholic bishops that deportations pose any problems. But the real question is how many American Christians will see this as a problem. RNS interviewed Anthea Butler, a professor of religious studies and an astute commentator on American religion. Butler thinks this report could serve to alert Catholic leaders to a major problem facing them, saying, “For Catholic parishes, for Catholic ministries, this is a disaster.” According to the report, 18% of U.S. Catholics are at risk of deportation, implying that perhaps one in five U.S. Catholics are either at risk of being deported, or at risk of of having a family member being deported.

Looking at the religious affiliations of people seeking asylum in the United States, the report concludes that more than three quarters of asylum seekers are are Christians. Of those Christians, 58% are Catholics.

Graphic titled "People Seeking Asylum." — Screenshot of part of page 17 from the online report by NAE, USCCB, et al.

Will reports like this sway the current administration? I doubt it. More importantly, will reports like this sway the majority of the electorate who elected the Trump administration? Well, reports like this are designed by members of the professional-managerial class to affect others in the professional-managerial class — so perhaps this report will influence some Trump voters who are both Christians and who belong to the managerial-professional class.

But honestly — I don’t see reports like this having an effect on voters who don’t belong to the professional-managerial class. Instead, if you really want to influence a broad range of people, you tell stories. So maybe this report will have some impact if it convinces story-tellers to tell about Catholics and Evangelicals, people leading good and moral lives, who got deported.

Making history (up)

The current presidential administration has been making history.

I don’t mean making history the way that phrase is typically used. I mean the Trump administration has been making history up, by erasing facts that don’t meet the administration’s standards for political correctness. The erasures have taken place in several formats, including on federal websites, in federal training materials, etc. The American Historical Assoc. and the Organization of American Historians have issued a “Statement Condemning Federal Censorship of American History”; I’ll include the full statement below.

A few of the changes have been stopped by public protests, such as removing the Tuskegee Airmen from Air Force training videos. The Air Force removed the Tuskegee Airmen from the videos because they intepreted Trump’s executive orders against DEI as applying to any mention of the history of a Black combat unit. Given the wording of the executive order, I feel the Air Force made a reasonable interpretation of the order, i.e., the fault lies not with the Air Force but with the executive order.

Other changes to American history remain in place. For example, as of right now the home page of the Stonewall National Monument doesn’t contain the word “transgender,” and the the acronym “LGBTQ” has been replaced by the acronym “LGB.” (The Internet Archive Wayback Machine shows that the acronym “LGBT” was used prior to the Trump administration executive orders; see e.g. this archived webpage from 2022.) Since trans people were integral to the Stonewall riots, the simple removal of the “T” from “LGBTQ” does in fact represent a major rewriting of history by the federal government. The Trump administration may not like transgender people, but like them or not, they were most definitely a part of the history of the Stonewall riots.

I see several things going on here. First, while the Trump administration and their allies denounce “cancel culture,” this looks like cancel culture to me. Second, while the Trump administration and allies denounce censorship, this looks like censorship to me. And finally, as I said at the beginning of this post, this is political correctness — which the Trump administration and their allies have also denounced.

No surprises here. The Trumpites are not the first politicians to spin stories that have little relationship to facts, but which help to bolster their agendas. But it seems like a good idea to document the amazingly vast extent to which the Trump administration is just — making stuff up.

(Thanks to…)

Practical politics

In his History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell provides historical context that helps us understand why philosophers tackled certain problems at different times in history. In much of the Middle Ages, there was no philosophy. So Russell describes the battles between various polities, and the struggles between the Roman Catholic Church and secular authorities, which helped set the stage for the blossoming of scholastic philosophy in the thirteenth century.

In 1154, Hadrian IV became Pope. Hadrian soon became embroiled in a struggle with Frederick Barbarossa, who had become king of Germany in 1152, and wanted the Pope to crown him Holy Roman Emperor. According to Russell, however, Hadrian IV and Barbarossa were able to find common cause when the city of Rome sought to become an independent city. A poulist faction in Rome wanted an elected body of lawmakers, and they wanted the right to choose their own emperor. The Romans brought in one Arnold of Brescia, a man known for his saintliness. Russell doesn’t make it entirely clear what Rome hoped to get from Arnold, but I suppose they wanted moral credibility.

Unfortunately for Rome, Arnold was a heretic. Russell describes his “very grave” heresy thus: “he maintained that ‘clerks who have estates, bishops who hold fiefs, monks who possess property, cannot be saved’” [i.e., cannot be saved from damnation in the Christian scheme of the afterlife]. Arnold maintained that clerics should abjure material things and devote themselves solely to spiritual matters. However, Arnold’s biggest heresy was that he was supported Roman independence. This enraged Barbarossa. Hadrian IV became equally enraged when there was a riot in Rome in which a Roman Catholic cardinal was killed.

This happened during Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter which was the most holy week of the year for the residents of Rome. Hadrian banned the Romans from joining in the Easter rites, unless they got rid of Arnold. The Romans submitted to Hadrian, and expelled Arnold from Rome. Arnold went into hiding, was discovered by Barbarossa’s soldiers, executed, his body burned, and the ashes disposed of in a river. Literally nothing of Arnold remained around which resistance could be organized.

Once Arnold of Brescia was disposed of, Hadrian and Barbarossa could resume their political battle without further distraction. Russell comments:

“The honest man being disposed of, the practical politicians were free to resume their quarrel.”

This is a useful lesson for our own time. Since at least the time of Newt Gingrich, it feels like the honest people have slowly been forced out of politics by the “practical politicians” who seem mostly interested in their personal grabs for power.

Noted with comment

I’ve been rereading Dave Van Ronk’s memoir The Mayor of MacDougal Street (2006). Van Ronk was a musician best remembered for his fingerstyle guitar and his interpretations of blues music, although he thought of himself as more of as a jazz musician manque. He was one of the core musicians of the 1960s Folk Revival, though he never hit it big like his friend Bobby Dylan. Van Ronk was also a serious leftist. He started out as an anarchist, joined the IWW, and wound up as a Troskyite. In his memoir, he reflected on the politics of the 1960s:

“I was encouraged by a lot of the changes that were happening in the 1960s, but as an orthodox leftist I was also a very strong critic of the student movement and the New Left. Of course, I agreed with a lot of their stances — I was strongly pro-civil rights and strongly antiwar — but most of those people were not really radicals, just a bunch of very pissed-off liberals. They had no grounding, and indeed no interest, in theory, and their disdain for studying history and learning economics infuriated me. The core problem with the New Left was that it wasn’t an ideology, it was a mood — and if you are susceptible to one mood, you are susceptible to another. They wanted the world to change, but essentially it was a petty bourgeois movement that had no connection with what was really going on. The working class at least has some power — if the working class folds it arms, the machinery stops — and as for the ruling class, its power is obvious. But what power does the middle class have? They have the power to talk: yak, yak, yak. To interpret, reinterpret, and re-re-reinterpret. And that is the history of the New Left in a nutshell.”

Interestingly, I feel the current Republican party actually does have a serious theoretical grounding. I disagree violently with the Republican party’s economic policies, but you have to admit that they are firmly grounded in Milton Friedman’s economic theories. Even if today’s Republicans have drifted away from Friedman in some respects, still a great deal of their agenda — doing away with Social Security, privatizing the National Park System, getting rid of the Post Office, etc. — comes straight out of his work.

Who on the American left offers any theoretical grounding to compete with Friedmanism? If Dave Van Ronk were still alive he’d no doubt advocate for Trotskyism, although to my mind that’s a non-starter in 2025 America. Personally, I’d vote for William J. Barber’s Poor People’s Campaign. However, I suspect Barber’s Christian affiliation is a dealbreaker for many of today’s pissed-off liberals; plus it has proved difficult to get pissed-off liberals to focus on poverty as a central issue.

Reading list: more on Asian history

Brief notices of other histories of East Asian and Southeast Asian countries that I’ve been reading

Tuttle Publishing’s “Brief History of…” series

Tuttle Publishing says that its core mission is “to publish best-in-class books informing the English-speaking world about the countries and peoples of Asia.” Founded in Rutland, Vermont, back in 1832, they now have offices in Vermont, Tokyo, and Singapore. Their “Brief History” series provides popular one-volume histories of various countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Current titles in this series cover the following countries: China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea (including North and South Korea), Singapore and Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. An although Bali is part of Indonesia, there’s also a separate book on Bali in this series.

I’ve read all these titles except the ones on Bali and Japan. I can affirm that each book I’ve read gives exactly what they promise: a brief introduction to the history of each country. Each one is competently written and entertaining, and each one generally relies on secondary (and tertiary) sources rather than primary sources. If you want something more than a Wikipedia article, but something less than a dry scholarly history, these are the perfect books to read. While the quality of the books is consistently high, I’ll offer brief comments on the relative strengths of each volume. Then I’ll discuss two other books published by Tuttle that offer more in-depth accounts of two polities.

Nine books on Asian history arranged in a grid.