A Journey Through History

A Journey through History will be discussing The Wager: a tale of shipwreck, mutiny, and murder DB 113965 when we next meet on 11/7/23. When we met on 10/3/23, our November book was announced as Peril by Bob Woodward but on further review, we discovered we had already discussed this book at our 2/1/22 meeting.

NLS annotation:

The Wager: a tale of shipwreck, mutiny, and murder DB 113965

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes. But then … six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes – they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death—for whomever the court found guilty could hang. The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann’s recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O’Brian, his portrayal of the castaways’ desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann’s work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller

Autobiography by William Thomas Hamilton one of the legendary Mountain Men who explored and settled the Louisiana Purchase which he published in 1905. He began his exploits in 1842as a fur trapper and later Army Scout assisted by his extraordinary skills in Indian sign language.

My sixty years on the plains: trapping, trading, and Indian fighting DB20468

Hamilton, W. T, (William Thomas); Sieber, E. T. Reading time: 4 hours, 44 minutes.

U.S. History

Straightforward account of the author’s experiences as a mountaineer. First published in 1905. Classics of the Old West.

Miss Del Rio novel DB111757

It is a largely true book selected by David Faucheux, our Historic fiction editor. It is the dramatic and vividly described life as told by her best friend including their life and flight from revolutionary Mexico in 1910 and Miss Del Rio’s rise to movie stardom.

Our August book was written by two prominent Historians, One Russian and the other American, who took advantage of the demise of the Soviet Union and thaw in the Cold War to access KGB AND OTHER Soviet and American files in 1990 to find out what truly happened. While it cleared up a number of issues some were rather frightening such as how close we came to a nuclear war. Also, it revealed JFK’s repeated private attempts to reach a détente with Khrushchev before the Missile Crisis..

AUTHOR: Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali

The first and only successful slave revolution in the Americas began in 1791 when thousands of brutally exploited slaves rose up against their masters on one of the most profitable colonies in the Atlantic world. Their success was devastating not only to their former masters but to colonial powers including the United States. We’ll discuss this in the next meeting of A Journey through History on 6/6/23 with the book Avengers of the New World: the story of the Haitian Revolution DB60295. The NLS annotation follows:

Avengers of the New World: the story of the Haitian Revolution DB60295

World History and Affairs

Professor analyzes the 1791-1803 revolution in the French Caribbean country of Haiti. Traces the history of Hispaniola and describes how slaves from Africa under Toussaint Louverture defeated France, Britain, and Spain and achieved emancipation at great economic and human cost. Violence. 2004.

We will review Captain James Cook by Richard Hough (DB41944). It chronicles the life of James Cook, born 1728, who began working with his father as a day laborer at age eight, rose from lowest rank in the merchant marine, then to the Royal Navy to become the most celebrated explorer of his time. His three final trips mapping one third of the world and discovery of the cause of scurvy were the foundation of the British Empire.

On April 4, David Faucheux will present his historic fiction, Switchboard Soldiers, a novel, by Jennifer Chiaverini (DB109619)

NLS ANOTATION:

For those interested in a nonfiction account of this unique aspect of World War I, you may also wish to check out The Hello Girls: America’s first women soldiers DBC06268.

The Face Maker: A Visionary Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I

by Lindsey Fitzharris, DB108939. Approximate reading Time: 8 hours, 20 minutes

This is a Memoir with a happy ending. how a ten year old Chinese peasant boy living at a starvation level in a Mao Commune became a international Ballet star after recruitment into and undergoing rigorous training at Mao’s wife’s National Ballet school. While visiting Houston Texas he defected from China after finding “my first love” angering Chinese officials resulting in His imprisonment in the Chinese consulate in Houston Texas. He was released after the intervention by vice-president and Mrs. Bush.

Read the book for a happy but realistic ending.

Mao’s Last Dancer

Li Con Xin

Db 60921

Fifteen hours and twenty minutes

Read by Gordon Gould

During the busy Winter Holidays don’t forget our book to review on January

Our reading suggestion for January (FALLING IDOLS: TWELVE STATUES THAT

“memories in stone .” The author selects historically significant personages