New Books in History

Out of the carnage of World War II comes an unforgettable tale about defying the odds and finding hope in the most harrowing of circumstances.

Wheels of Courage: How Paralyzed Veterans from World War II Invented Wheelchair Sports, Fought for Disability Rights, and Inspired a Nation (Center Street, 2020) tells the stirring story of the soldiers, sailors, and marines who were paralyzed on the battlefield during World War II-at the Battle of the Bulge, on the island of Okinawa, inside Japanese POW camps-only to return to a world unused to dealing with their traumatic injuries. Doctors considered paraplegics to be "dead-enders" and "no-hopers," with the life expectancy of about a year. Societal stigma was so ingrained that playing sports was considered out-of-bounds for so-called "crippled bodies."

But servicemen like Johnny Winterholler, a standout athlete from Wyoming before he was captured on Corregidor, and Stan Den Adel, shot in the back just days before the peace treaty ending the war was signed, refused to waste away in their hospital beds. Thanks to medical advances and the dedication of innovative physicians and rehabilitation coaches, they asserted their right to a life without limitations. The paralyzed veterans formed the first wheelchair basketball teams, and soon the Rolling Devils, the Flying Wheels, and the Gizz Kids were barnstorming the nation and filling arenas with cheering, incredulous fans. The wounded-warriors-turned-playmakers were joined by their British counterparts, led by the indomitable Dr. Ludwig Guttmann. Together, they triggered the birth of the Paralympic Games and opened the gymnasium doors to those with other disabilities, including survivors of the polio epidemic in the 1950s.

Much as Jackie Robinson's breakthrough into the major leagues served as an opening salvo in the civil rights movement, these athletes helped jump-start a global movement about human adaptability. Their unlikely heroics on the court showed the world that it is ability, not disability, that matters most. Off the court, their push for equal rights led to dramatic changes in how civilized societies treat individuals with disabilities: from kneeling buses and curb cutouts to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Their saga is yet another lasting legacy of the Greatest Generation, one that has been long overlooked.

Drawing on the veterans' own words, stories, and memories about this pioneering era, David Davis has crafted a narrative of survival, resilience, and triumph for sports fans and athletes, history buffs and military veterans, and people with and without disabilities.

Paul Knepper was born and raised in New York and currently resides in Austin. His first book, The Knicks of the Nineties: Ewing, Oakley, Starks and the Brawlers Who Almost Won It All is available on Amazon and other sites. You can reach Paul at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @paulieknep.

 

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When he appeared before the British House of Commons in the wake of the Stamp Act crisis, Benjamin Franklin reminded his audience that the American colonies were governed ‘at the expense only of a little pen, ink, and paper; they were led by a thread’. As the British sought to come to grips with an expanded American empire in territories ceded by France at the end of the Seven Years War, they were also confronted with an even larger and more complex imperial domain in Asia, one that was fashioned out of a centralised pattern of Mughal rule.

In The Formation of the Colonial State in India: Scribes, Paper and Taxes, 1760-1860 (Routledge, 2017), Hayden Bellenoit digs beneath imperial formation on a macro level and looks at the fiscal management of empire. He shows that it rested on a ‘paper foundation’: the British colonial state in India was defined as much by bureaucratic processes as it was by military power, ruled not but soldiers but by scribes. Not only does he shed new light on the foundation of British power in Asia, but the book opens up striking comparisons with the relatively weak imperial state in North America, and also reveals the origins of the bureaucratic colonial state that emerged in sub-Saharan Africa.

Hayden Bellenoit is Associate Professor of History at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Charles Prior is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Hull (UK), who has written on the politics of religion in early modern Britain, and whose work has recently expanded to the intersection of colonial, indigenous, and imperial politics in early America.

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Has history worked out the way so many have hoped? What did “progress” used to look like and who could possibly have been against it? What areas of human life and political realms does the term “progress” encompass? As Sarah Palin famously asked in 2010, “How's that hopey-changey stuff working out for ya?”

It turns out that some major, influential thinkers were not wild about the idea of progress—or at least not the version of it served up to them by the left. It is the counterarguments about the supposed bounties of progress that Matthew W. Slaboch examines in his book, A Road to Nowhere: The Idea of Progress and Its Critics (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017). He does this by profiling and discussing in depth the ideas and key writings of such figures as Arthur Schopenhauer, Oswald Spengler, Leo Tolstoy, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Henry Adams and Christopher Lasch among others.

Nothing much changes about change—there are always those who embrace it and minimize the massive societal damage done in its name and those who loathe it and fear it and who brush aside the possible social betterment that change can bring.

In a time when we are deluged with lectures by the left about “being on the wrong side of history” and exhortations to “be the change,” Slaboch enables us to consider anew the views of notable philosophers, historians, novelists and others who were not enamored of the latest shiny ideological objects peddled by intellectuals and activists on the left.

This is a thoughtful, scholarly study appealing as well to general readers.

Give a listen.

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When he appeared before the British House of Commons in the wake of the Stamp Act crisis, Benjamin Franklin reminded his audience that the American colonies were governed ‘at the expense only of a little pen, ink, and paper; they were led by a thread’. As the British sought to come to grips with an expanded American empire in territories ceded by France at the end of the Seven Years War, they were also confronted with an even larger and more complex imperial domain in Asia, one that was fashioned out of a centralised pattern of Mughal rule.

In The Formation of the Colonial State in India: Scribes, Paper and Taxes, 1760-1860 (Routledge, 2017), Hayden Bellenoit digs beneath imperial formation on a macro level and looks at the fiscal management of empire. He shows that it rested on a ‘paper foundation’: the British colonial state in India was defined as much by bureaucratic processes as it was by military power, ruled not but soldiers but by scribes. Not only does he shed new light on the foundation of British power in Asia, but the book opens up striking comparisons with the relatively weak imperial state in North America, and also reveals the origins of the bureaucratic colonial state that emerged in sub-Saharan Africa.

Hayden Bellenoit is Associate Professor of History at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Charles Prior is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Hull (UK), who has written on the politics of religion in early modern Britain, and whose work has recently expanded to the intersection of colonial, indigenous, and imperial politics in early America.

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Has history worked out the way so many have hoped? What did “progress” used to look like and who could possibly have been against it? What areas of human life and political realms does the term “progress” encompass? As Sarah Palin famously asked in 2010, “How's that hopey-changey stuff working out for ya?”

It turns out that some major, influential thinkers were not wild about the idea of progress—or at least not the version of it served up to them by the left. It is the counterarguments about the supposed bounties of progress that Matthew W. Slaboch examines in his book, A Road to Nowhere: The Idea of Progress and Its Critics (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017). He does this by profiling and discussing in depth the ideas and key writings of such figures as Arthur Schopenhauer, Oswald Spengler, Leo Tolstoy, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Henry Adams and Christopher Lasch among others.

Nothing much changes about change—there are always those who embrace it and minimize the massive societal damage done in its name and those who loathe it and fear it and who brush aside the possible social betterment that change can bring.

In a time when we are deluged with lectures by the left about “being on the wrong side of history” and exhortations to “be the change,” Slaboch enables us to consider anew the views of notable philosophers, historians, novelists and others who were not enamored of the latest shiny ideological objects peddled by intellectuals and activists on the left.

This is a thoughtful, scholarly study appealing as well to general readers.

Give a listen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Out of the carnage of World War II comes an unforgettable tale about defying the odds and finding hope in the most harrowing of circumstances.

Wheels of Courage: How Paralyzed Veterans from World War II Invented Wheelchair Sports, Fought for Disability Rights, and Inspired a Nation (Center Street, 2020) tells the stirring story of the soldiers, sailors, and marines who were paralyzed on the battlefield during World War II-at the Battle of the Bulge, on the island of Okinawa, inside Japanese POW camps-only to return to a world unused to dealing with their traumatic injuries. Doctors considered paraplegics to be "dead-enders" and "no-hopers," with the life expectancy of about a year. Societal stigma was so ingrained that playing sports was considered out-of-bounds for so-called "crippled bodies."

But servicemen like Johnny Winterholler, a standout athlete from Wyoming before he was captured on Corregidor, and Stan Den Adel, shot in the back just days before the peace treaty ending the war was signed, refused to waste away in their hospital beds. Thanks to medical advances and the dedication of innovative physicians and rehabilitation coaches, they asserted their right to a life without limitations. The paralyzed veterans formed the first wheelchair basketball teams, and soon the Rolling Devils, the Flying Wheels, and the Gizz Kids were barnstorming the nation and filling arenas with cheering, incredulous fans. The wounded-warriors-turned-playmakers were joined by their British counterparts, led by the indomitable Dr. Ludwig Guttmann. Together, they triggered the birth of the Paralympic Games and opened the gymnasium doors to those with other disabilities, including survivors of the polio epidemic in the 1950s.

Much as Jackie Robinson's breakthrough into the major leagues served as an opening salvo in the civil rights movement, these athletes helped jump-start a global movement about human adaptability. Their unlikely heroics on the court showed the world that it is ability, not disability, that matters most. Off the court, their push for equal rights led to dramatic changes in how civilized societies treat individuals with disabilities: from kneeling buses and curb cutouts to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Their saga is yet another lasting legacy of the Greatest Generation, one that has been long overlooked.

Drawing on the veterans' own words, stories, and memories about this pioneering era, David Davis has crafted a narrative of survival, resilience, and triumph for sports fans and athletes, history buffs and military veterans, and people with and without disabilities.

Paul Knepper was born and raised in New York and currently resides in Austin. His first book, The Knicks of the Nineties: Ewing, Oakley, Starks and the Brawlers Who Almost Won It All is available on Amazon and other sites. You can reach Paul at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @paulieknep.

 

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Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

After reading How Dead Languages Work (Oxford University Press 2020), Coulter George hopes you might decide to learn a bit of ancient Greek or Sanskrit, or maybe dabble in a bit of Old Germanic. But even if readers of his book aren’t converted into polyglots, they will walk away with an introduction to the (in)famous Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is responsible for the inaccurate meme claiming that Inuits understand snow more deeply than other cultures because their language has one hundred (one thousand?) words for it. George criticizes this hypothesis, but through his six chapters, uses examples of ancient languages to argue that a subtler form of that hypothesis is apt: languages aren’t fungible, and the properties of different languages are interwoven with their literary traditions. The book takes readers through Greek, Latin, Old English and the Germanic Languages, Sanskrit, Old Irish and the Celtic Languages, and Hebrew, introducing their phonology, morphology, lexicons, grammar, and excerpting passages from texts such as the Illiad, Beowulf, and the Rig Veda, to illustrate how the flavor of a language is always lost a little in translation.

Malcolm Keating is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Yale-NUS College. His research focuses on Indian philosophy of language and epistemology in Sanskrit. He is the author of Language, Meaning, and Use in Indian Philosophy (Bloomsbury Press, 2019) and host of the podcast Sutras (and stuff).

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Warren Hoffman’s The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical, 2nd edition (Rutgers UP, 2020) explores the ways that race and racism have shaped the American musical from Show Boat to Hamilton. Perhaps surprisingly, Hoffman’s analysis isn’t limited to shows with characters of color like West Side Story; he writes about how the assumption of whiteness shapes apparently race-free musicals like The Music Man and Oklahoma! His book also includes a fascinating discussion of how diverse casting has created both opportunity and controversy, from an all-black Hello, Dolly! to Book of Mormon. This is a book equally valuable to theatre scholars and to fans of the Broadway musical who want to engage more critically with this rich and multi-faceted art form.

Andy Boyd is a playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of the playwriting MFA program at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Arizona School for the Arts. His plays have been produced, developed, or presented at IRT, Pipeline Theatre Company, The Gingold Group, Dixon Place, Roundabout Theatre, Epic Theatre Company, Out Loud Theatre, Naked Theatre Company, Contemporary Theatre of Rhode Island, and The Trunk Space. He is currently working on a series of 50 plays about the 50 U.S. states. His website is AndyJBoyd.com, and he can be reached at [email protected].

 

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Dónal Hassett’s Mobilizing Memory: The Great War and the Language of Politics in Colonial Algeria, 1918-1939 (Oxford UP, 2019) is at once a history of colonialism and of the “Great War”. Considering the ways that the conflict from 1914-1918 shaped the colonial politics of the “interwar” years in the Algerian context, the book looks at how segments of Algerian society with differing interests, including European settlers and indigenous Algerians, responded to the war, trading in its effects and meanings while seeking forms of political change. According to Hassett, a “wartime moral economy of sacrifice” became an essential referent for differing political groups in the years after 1918. While European veterans and others insisted on the distinctiveness of their own contributions and rights with respect to the majority of Algerians, indigenous Algerians also made claims against the colonial state on the basis of their service to the nation and empire.

The book explores the experiences and political aims of key constituencies throughout Algerian society, including: socialists and trade unionists; European and Algerian veterans; and even the Algerian widows and orphans who petitioned for pensions and forms of recognition based on their families’ sacrifices during the war. Hassett also attends to the complexities of a political spectrum that included movements on the extreme Right, Algerian political groups seeking reform such as the rights of French citizenship with a colonial framework, and Algerian nationalists who, understanding the participation of Algerians in the Great War as a betrayal, rejected colonial domination outright. Contributing to broader scholarly conversations about the nature of colonial Algerian society and the impact of the First World War, Mobilizing Memory makes it clear that we cannot understand properly the histories of either of these historical phenomena without considering their imbrication with one another.

Roxanne Panchasi is an Associate Professor of History at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada who specializes in twentieth and twenty-first century France and its empire. She is the author of Future Tense: The Culture of Anticipation in France Between the Wars (2009). Her current research focuses on the history of French nuclear weapons and testing since 1945. Her most recent article, ‘“No Hiroshima in Africa”: The Algerian War and the Question of French Nuclear Tests in the Sahara’ appeared in the Spring 2019 issue of History of the Present. She lives and reads in Vancouver, Canada and hopes all listeners are keeping healthy and safe at this difficult time in our world. If you have a recent title to suggest for the podcast, please send her an email ([email protected]).

 

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In Tornado God: American Religion and Violent Weather (Oxford UP, 2020), Peter J. Thuesen links the “numinous” religious experiences of Americans as they experienced the uniquely destructive weather phenomenon of the tornado. Thuesen shows how the weather has shaped theological dialogue in America since the colonial era. New England Congregational ministers such as Cotton Mather developed doctrines of providence as they grappled with the underlying meaning and randomness of violent weather events. Thuesen compellingly shows how, “in the tornado, Americans experience something that is at once culturally peculiar (the indigenous storm of the national imagination) and religiously primal (the sense of awe before an unpredictable and mysterious power).” These questions of providence and weather are not simply historical events, however; they continue to shape the cultural debates over climate change. Thuesen’s book explores the mystery of the weather, and how Americans have made sense of these extreme events beyond their control.

Lane Davis is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate Program in Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University where he studies modern American religious history. You can follow him on Twitter @TheeLaneDavis.

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