20th Century US History

[Reed John]

20th Century US History

Yeah, but independence couldn't possibly be a good move at this point. I can't imagine its even very popular. Native Hawaiians are a minority. The largest ethnic group are Asians.

[ursus arctos]

20th Century US History

And the federal government is absolutely essential to the economy.

It isn't separatism, it's more a sense of what might have been (not that the US would ever have let them remain independent).

[Amor de Cosmos]

20th Century US History

Etienne wrote:

This seems to be a good place to ask whether anyone's read Bill Bryson's One Summer: America, 1927? I'm sure it's engagingly written, all his books are, but will it provide me with insights or information that, say Frederick Lewis Allen's Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s doesn't?

I've read the Bryson, and it was very entertaining and interesting, particularly on Coolidge and Ruth, and long distance aviation. But I haven't read Allen's book.

I think I'll read Bryson's. Allen's covers a similar 20s period so, inevitably, much of the same ground. It was written in 1931 though, so is much closer to the events and personalities, a comparison would be interesting.

[Reed John]

20th Century US History

ursus arctos wrote: And the federal government is absolutely essential to the economy.

It isn't separatism, it's more a sense of what might have been (not that the US would ever have let them remain independent).

There is a separatist movement, but then again Vermont has a separatist movement too, but I don't know if it has much traction.

Like everything, the problem isn't so much that they became part of the United States, but that they gave the land over to capitalists who removed the wealth from the islands.

There was no imaginable scenario in the 19th-20th century where they didn't become a major naval base for somebody. Either the US or Britain or Japan. I suppose, seeing how things turned out, it's good that it was ours.

Vowell has this good line:
"IN 1890, The year before Liliuokalani assumed the throne, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, a lecturer at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, published The Influence of Sea Power upon History. Someday someone should write a book entitled The Influence upon History of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, because no book had a greater effect on Hawaii’s fate, except perhaps for Memoirs of Henry Obookiah."

[ursus arctos]

20th Century US History

I don't think that there is a book, but there are definitely scholarly articles on the influence of Mahan's book.

It may be second only to Frederick Jackson Turner's The Significance of the Frontier in American History when it comes to academic pieces that had a profound impact on the history of the US.

[Anton Gramscescu]

20th Century US History

If we're doing pre-1900, let me throw in a recommendation for The American Slave Coast which I read a couple of weeks ago. It's quite something.

[Etienne]

20th Century US History

I have a book called "Books That Changed America" (published in 1970) and Mahan is one of them (as is Turner).

[Anton Gramscescu]

20th Century US History

There's more posts in books today than there usually is in a week.

MAKE BOOKS GREAT AGAIN.

[ursus arctos]

20th Century US History

usually "are"

Are you back from Oz, or does your visa require you to stay until the count is finished?

[Reed John]

20th Century US History

Etienne wrote: I have a book called "Books That Changed America" (published in 1970) and Mahan is one of them (as is Turner).

Teddy Roosevelt was a big fan.

[Anton Gramscescu]

20th Century US History

Haven't even been in Oz yet except to change planes on Tuesday. Heading there tmrw for 3 days. Still in Wellington, where it is currently 6 AM and I am pulling an all-nighter which accounts for my grammar.

[Anton Gramscescu]

20th Century US History

Or at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[ursus arctos]

20th Century US History

Hope you will get them to finish the count . . .

[Anton Gramscescu]

20th Century US History

I saw something today that said the difference in the 2-party preferred vote nationally was 530 votes. Out of 10.5 million votes counted. (Florida here we come!).

Apparently the delay is partly due to postal ballots and partly because no one knows how to count Senate votes under the new system.

The knowledgeable folks seem to think Turnbull will have 75-76 seats in the house but be slightly worse off in the Senate than before the vote.