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I spent most of the day reading the book group selection, altho I also ran roomba. The ants appear to be back, which is a huge bummer; I will go get ant traps tomorrow.
No Dutch today; it was moved to Wednesday.
This evening, I went to book group. We discussed Sarah Vowell’s _Lafayette and the Somewhat United States_. It is excellent and extremely thought provoking. It did not generate the most stimulating discussion, in part because it is May, and so gardening is probably the most exciting thing on everyone’s minds right now. It is always tempting to try to find parallels between the past and the present; my takeaway for current validity of this story is not to harsh on other people’s revolutions for taking a really long time to lead to a stable replacement form of government. Our revolution dragged on, too. I also knew that the French had supported our Revolution, but I had not really understood the extent of that, nor had I understood just how rich and well connected Lafayette was, nor had I understood how paying for our Revolution had really become the straw that broke the camel’s back leading to the French Revolution, etc. It was a lot to think about, and to understand proxy wars in general, and also how too tight a focus on one enemy truly can be the destruction of empires in any millennium.
Vowell is always a hoot to read. I spotted one error (Henry Knox’s birth year is given as 1759, rather than 1750), but all things considered, that seems to be mostly a copy editing typo more than anything else and the book as a whole seems to be remarkably well researched and very, very thoughtful. I highly recommend it.
No Dutch today; it was moved to Wednesday.
This evening, I went to book group. We discussed Sarah Vowell’s _Lafayette and the Somewhat United States_. It is excellent and extremely thought provoking. It did not generate the most stimulating discussion, in part because it is May, and so gardening is probably the most exciting thing on everyone’s minds right now. It is always tempting to try to find parallels between the past and the present; my takeaway for current validity of this story is not to harsh on other people’s revolutions for taking a really long time to lead to a stable replacement form of government. Our revolution dragged on, too. I also knew that the French had supported our Revolution, but I had not really understood the extent of that, nor had I understood just how rich and well connected Lafayette was, nor had I understood how paying for our Revolution had really become the straw that broke the camel’s back leading to the French Revolution, etc. It was a lot to think about, and to understand proxy wars in general, and also how too tight a focus on one enemy truly can be the destruction of empires in any millennium.
Vowell is always a hoot to read. I spotted one error (Henry Knox’s birth year is given as 1759, rather than 1750), but all things considered, that seems to be mostly a copy editing typo more than anything else and the book as a whole seems to be remarkably well researched and very, very thoughtful. I highly recommend it.