Will's April Reading Roundup

Find Out Which are Great, Fine, and Terrible

Hey, all, and welcome back! It’s a new month, so that means a new reading roundup of what I read over the past month. As with last month’s roundup, many of these are related to my ongoing The Old World Show video project. Please be sure to check that out, whether ad-free on here for paid subscribers or on YouTube and other podcasting and video platforms for everyone else, if you haven’t already!

Listen to the audio version here:

[AUDIO] Will's April Reading Roundup

1. Aristocrats: Power, Grace, and Decadence: Britain’s Great Ruling Classes from 1066 to the Present by Lawrence James

The Anglo-Norman aristocracy of Britain fascinates me, as it largely managed to hold onto not just its wealth, but also its political power and social prominence, for about a millennium. In fact, even in our present, egalitarian age of democracy, it holds on to an amazing degree of wealth and power. As all civilization-building projects are necessarily multigenerational, I’ve continued researching that and reading about it.

So, with that in mind, I read Aristocrats: Power, Grace, and Decadence by Lawrence James, which I thought would be interesting because it covers the British aristocracy over the full sweep of its history, from the Conquest in 1066 to the present. Presumably, it would show how they managed to hold on for so long, something that most writers only grapple with in the context of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

It was less interesting than I hoped. Some bits of it are good, and James brings enough novel anecdotes and points to it that it isn’t just yet another collection of the same stories of the same families. But it largely fails in showing what it is about the Anglo-Norman elite in particular that allowed it to hold on for so long, and James’s general skepticism of the aristocracy—an attitude which pervades the book—is probably responsible for that. While understandable enough, he generally fails to recognize the incredible successes of the group he covers, which makes his skepticism often seem unfair and unwarranted. Overall, this one is fine, but not great. A much better book on a similar subject is Aristocrats by Robert Lacey, about which I have written before.

2. Colonial Virginia: The Tidewater Period, 1607-1710, and Colonial Virginia: Westward Expansion and Prelude to Revolution, 1710-1763 by Richard Morton

This two-volume set, which I’ll just refer to as Colonial Virginia, is best reviewed as one book rather than two separate books, for the two volumes are essentially just the same book split in half for ease of reading. In it, author Richard Morton tells the tale of Virginia’s development from the earliest days to the pre-Revolutionary period, taking pains to show why the colony developed in the unique way it did.

Overall, the two stand as a quite good general history of colonial Virginia. They are neither too detailed nor too vague, the information in them holds up well to the test of time and new history (they were written in 1960), and their being written before the Civil Rights Revolution means Morton is willing to write about slavery as a historic fact with its upsides and downsides for the colonists rather than in an overly moralistic way. I learned a great deal from it, and it helped me tremendously as I prepared for the Virginia series on the Old World Show, and will help significantly as I get into the Golden Age period.

That said, these are quite dry books. Morton’s writing is academic rather than flowery, the narrative is quite dense, and the overall focus is to educate rather than entertain. So, if you read them, do so generally expecting to learn rather than to be entertained. If you’re ok with that, then I think you’ll get a great deal out of them.

3. Churchill and Empire: A Portrait of an Imperialist by Lawrence James

Churchill remains an ongoing subject of debate on the right, and likely will be for some time, as he was a complicated man. A grandson of a duke, he rammed through the People’s Budget that destroyed the aristocracy. While generally an anti-communist, it was his intransigence that ended up ensuring half the continent was conquered by the Bolsheviks. An arch-imperialist, he’s the one whose decisions largely cost Britain her empire. So, was he a great man or an utter disaster for Britain?

My general opinion is that the Duke of Beaufort was correct, and Churchill should have been fed to twenty couple of foxhounds over the People’s Budget, with what he did later being of far less consequence than that society-wrecking piece of legislation. Still, he’s an interesting figure, so I turned with some interest to James’s Churchill and Empire, which discusses his political philosophy and decisions as a ruler through the lens of his imperialist worldview.

It’s another “basically fine” book by James. It has its moments, and some of the information presented within it is interesting, though James’s overt partisanship of Churchill is grating at times. The problem is that he never puts Churchill’s decisions in the context of Britain’s unique and empire-related way of war, which involved picking around the edges of continental enemies while using the Navy to strangle them. Instead, James frames Churchill as merely being intent on preserving the empire…with no real details on what that meant or how he aimed to do it, other than vague generalities and anecdotes.

For those more interested in empire and strategy than in Churchill’s peculiarities, The British Way of War by Andrew Lambert is a far better book. For those interested in Churchill’s World War II decision-making, Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley is far better. Still, this one is interesting enough if you can get over its faults, and it does provide some interesting material on Churchill’s pro-imperial thought and how he justified it in the context of his general liberalism.

4. A “Topping People”: The Rise and Decline of Virginia’s Old Political Elite, 1680-1790 by Emory G. Evans

A “Topping People” by Emory Evans is one I have been meaning to read for about a year, but put off because I couldn’t find what seemed like a reasonably priced copy (these books are all out of print and expensive, which is why you should become a paid subscriber!). Eventually, prices came down a bit, and I just gave in and got a copy.

It is a fantastic book, and is by far one of the best on the Virginia gentry that I have read. In it, Evans shows how the political, economic, and social elite of colonial Virginia developed. To do so, he uses all sorts of probate data, letters, bills of trade, and so on from the twenty-one families that composed the crème de la crème of Virginia’s elite. That makes it a remarkably well-researched and detailed book that is nevertheless a reasonably short one because of its limited scope.

This is another one that is much more scholarly than entertaining, but if you are interested in the subject it is a must-read. Evans is somewhat skeptical of the general mythology surrounding the FFVs, but is nevertheless fair to them and cognizant of their accomplishments. Further, he does quite a good job of bringing a clever mixture of data and anecdotes to show why certain families succeeded or failed as they did, and what their individual stories showed about their class as a whole during the different stages of Virginia’s development. Overall, it’s a great read, and one I would highly recommend.

5. American Revolutionaries in the Making: Political Practices in Washington’s Virginia by Charles S. Sydnor

American Revolutionaries in the Making by Charles Syndor was so good that I wrote an entire article about it nearly as soon as I finished reading it. It is a short, fantastic book in which Syndor discusses the political culture of Virginia in the pre-Revolutionary period and how that particular culture and the people who both molded it and were molded by it became the most important members of the Revolutionary generation.

He does so by both discussing the functioning of the system in depth, and then using that to show what sort of men flourished in it and how that created a real, republican aristocracy in Virginia. Further, he shows how their culture shaped the early Republic and created America as we know it. It is a fascinating read, and one I can’t recommend highly enough.

If you are interested, I would recommend reading the article I wrote on this, in which I discuss it all in much more depth:

Virginia's Cursus Honorum

6. Seat of Empire: The Political Role of Eighteenth Century Williamsburg by Carl Bridenbaugh

Seat of Empire is another excellent book on the unique political culture of Virginia, with a particular focus on the state-level legislature and government of Virginia in the mid-to-late colonial period. It pairs particularly well with American Revolutionaries in the Making, as both discuss a similar subject—the development of Virginia’s political culture and its influence on the Revolution—but from somewhat different angles.

Thus, the two (both of which are only around 100 pages) present a combined picture that fleshes out both the functioning of the system at every level, from the vestry up to the Council, that does a great deal to show why the Virginians of the Revolutionary period were such capable and excellent men as they were, particularly in the political arena. Further, it helps explain why they developed America as they did, and how they were able to exert such a great formative influence on the early Republic.

So, this is another book I would recommend unreservedly. It is fascinating, well-written, and to the point. Further, Bridenbaugh wrote it back in the 1950s, so it is generally positive about the Founders, rather than being subversive drivel about them being evil because they were slaveowners, or anything of that sort.

7. The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America by Russell Shorto

I quite liked a book about the development of New York City I read last year—Gotham by Edwin Burroughs—so it was with some excitement that I took a break from Virginia for a bit to read Shorto’s The Island at the Center of the World. I ended up having quite mixed opinions on it.

On one hand, the new information that Shorto brings to it is substantial and interesting, as he accessed never-before-used sources only recently translated from the original Dutch to provide a much more fleshed out history of Dutch Manhattan than has been available in the past. He does a commendable job of showing why early New York developed as it did, in the context of the Dutch trading empire, and distinguishing the general Dutch type of settlement from the general English type of settlement. So, that is interesting, and he is a good writer when he sticks to such facts and constructing a narrative from them.

Unfortunately, he also has a political axe to grind, which is that he loves how liberal and open-minded the Dutch supposedly were when compared with other colonial powers. He never quite squares this with their general brutality when dealing with natives in Manhattan or elsewhere, but does repeatedly interrupt the narrative to both execrate them for such brutality and to praise their generally liberal nature. It’s an odd mix of hate and praise that is neither well thought out nor well done, and it mars much of the book. Overall, this one is fine, but Gotham is far better.

8. Social Life in Old Virginia Before the War by Thomas Nelson Page

Thomas Nelson Page wrote in the aftermath of the War between the States and the utter catastrophe that was Reconstruction, and was one of the staunchest defenders of antebellum Southern civilization, particularly of the Virginia mold.

In Social Life in Old Virginia Before the War, Page attempts the difficult task of showing what that civilization was like, and capturing its unique mix of gentility and hard work, grandeur and decline.

Overall, he does a remarkably good job, and the shortness of the book lends itself well to the elegiac nature of it. It is a bit depressing to read, as so much of immense cultural value was lost in the war. But Page does a commendable job of capturing for posterity a written picture of that which once was, and the ways in which a unique civilization flowered and flourished in the Old Dominion. I quite recommend reading it; I certainly enjoyed it, and got a great deal out of it.

9. Apollo: The Race To The Moon by Charles Murray

Up until a few weeks ago, I had no idea that Charles Murray ever wrote a book about Apollo, or was even interested in the subject. I knew him from books like The Bell Curve and Coming Apart, which are quite different. But when I asked Twitter for recommendations on guests to have on to discuss Apollo, Murray’s name popped up and he offered to come on my podcast. So, to prepare for it, I hastily ordered and read Apollo: The Race to the Moon, which is his fantastic history of the Apollo missions through the lens of what those who stayed on the ground—namely, engineers, administrators, and mission control—achieved to make Apollo possible.

It is a fantastic book that does a really wonderful job of telling the exciting story of Apollo and putting the grand accomplishments of those who made it happen in perspective. From the immense competence and quick thinking of mission control to the brilliance of the engineers who figured out really otherworldly hurdles to ensure its success, from building the Saturn V rockets to moving them on a massive crawler, Murray tells the stories behind why Apollo succeeded. Further, he does so while ensuring to get all the technical and scientific details correct and keeping them understandable, which makes it a superbly informative book in addition to being a thrilling and interesting one.

I can’t recommend it highly enough. I really enjoyed it. Check out our podcast interview here:

10. The Iron Duke: A Military Biography of Wellington by Lawrence James

The Iron Duke is by far the best of James’s works that I have yet read. In it, he provides a concise and thrilling military biography of Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. He shows how Wellington rose through the military ranks, what made him a great commander, why his men loved him despite his reputation as a harsh disciplinarian, and why he was able to defeat the French and Napoleon through his plodding but brilliant way of war.

It’s a really fantastic read that does much to put Wellington in perspective and show what made him such a model general and model aristocrat in many ways, despite his humble (for the aristocracy) origins. Making it all the better is that it is somewhat more entertaining than other military histories of the period, such as the fantastic but dry and dense The Campaigns of Napoleon. James keeps it a bit shorter, provides a few more fun or interesting anecdotes, and makes it a bit more accessible for the layman who is interested in the military history period but not a committed student of every skirmish or battle fought during it.

So, it is one I quite recommend. I learned a great deal about Wellington and his character through it. Additionally, James’s hostility to the aristocracy—present in his other books—melts away in this one, and it presents a compelling picture for why Wellington is a model for great men and great aristocrats. Plus, it is quite entertaining and thrilling.

11. The Soul of a Nation: The Founding of Virginia and the Projection of New England by Matthew Page Andrews

I thought that The Soul of a Nation would be a book that explores the general tendency of Americans to see Massachusetts as the cradle of the American nation, and instead explains why that cradle was located in Virginia. That would have been quite a good book.

That is not what this is. Instead, despite the bold title, Andrews presents just another relatively short history of early Virginia. It’s well-written enough, but it is very dry and provides little compared to works like those of Morton. Further, it doesn’t do what its title claims, and so is frustrating in that respect.

I would recommend avoiding it. There are better general histories of Virginia out there, and what should have been the differentiating factor in this one isn’t present to any notable degree. No volcano tossing is necessary; it’s not that bad. But it isn’t very good.

12. Victorious Century: The United Kingdom, 1800-1906 by David Cannadine

Cannadine has become one of my favorite authors. As I have repeatedly written about, particularly in the context of his fabulous Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy and Mellon: An American Life, he is a terrific author who brings a fabulous style of writing and an immense amount of detail into the sorts of book subjects that quite pique my interest—namely ones on dynastic wealth, generational continuity, and hierarchy. Further, he does so while being generally positive, with just enough skepticism to make his conclusions interesting and his writing balanced.

Victorious Century is no exception. It is a tremendously good history of, roughly, the period of British greatness from the turning point(ish) in the Napoleonic Wars to the rise of the Liberal government that destroyed the British aristocracy and Britain itself after the death of Queen Victoria. Throughout it, Cannadine explains the nature of British society and its development, with a particular focus on trade, economics, development, and the social classes of the period.

Some of it is a bit dry, but that’s probably inescapable given the broad swathe of history he had to cover for this work, and he does the job as well as any could and far better than most could. Yet better, he does so while weaving through it a number of important threads—such as the relationship of the aristocracy to the rest of society and the essentially religious nature of the free trade movement—that I find generally fascinating. It is, as a result, one I quite recommend and really enjoyed reading.

13. The Virginia Plutarch, Vols I and II by Philip Alexander Bruce

These two volumes are fabulous. In The Virginia Plutarch, Bruce tells the story of Virginia in the way that Plutarch told his history of the world of Classical Antiquity: through short and snappy biographies of its greatest men (and one woman, Pocahontas). Each is a short biography covering the man’s background, noble deeds, and impact upon the state, and they go from the earliest days of Virginia through the early 20th century, when Bruce was writing them.

It’s a fun way of presenting the history. While less detailed than other works, it is fun and quite worth reading. It also does a great deal to put the state’s development over a wide sweep of history in context in an interesting way that is quite engaging to read, and different from most general histories.

14. Robert Carter of Nomini Hall: A Virginia Tobacco Planter of the Eighteenth Century by Louis Morton

How did a great plantation of the Virginia Golden Age or Revolutionary period function? What went into managing the disparate farms, handling the huge workforce, managing the logistics of that workforce, communicating with agents across an ocean, and much more besides?

Such is what Morton covers in Robert Carter of Nomini Hall, which is a fantastic work that shows the ins and outs of running a plantation in Virginia in the mid-eighteenth to early nineteenth century. Morton shows every detail of the plantation system, at least for a great planter like Robert Carter, discussing everything from the growing of tobacco and the consignment system used to sell it to the ways tenants were managed or early iron forges operated in the colony and state. It is detailed, interesting, and provides much information that no other work I have yet read does, which was quite helpful for The Old World Show.

That said, it is not for the faint of heart. It is very detailed, and much more a reference work for academic study than a fun narrative to read and enjoy. I enjoyed reading it, but know that it is essentially a scholarly work on plantation management, not the narrative of a fascinating life.

15. The Savage Wars: British Campaigns in Africa, 1870-1920 by Lawrence James

How did the British conquer so much of the world? How did they hold onto it once they had conquered it? Did those wars change as the technology did? Such are the questions that James attempts to answer in The Savage Wars, which covers Britain’s primary post-Napoleon and pre-WWII colonial conflicts. It shows warfare in the heyday of imperialism, and what it took for an island the size of Michigan to conquer a quarter of the world’s surface.

Much of it is fascinating. When James doesn’t moralize or downplay the greatness and importance of colonial conquest, his storytelling and writing are quite good and quite interesting. Further, many of the details about how the wars were fought added to my understanding of things like how the BSAC conquered Rhodesia, which was interesting.

That said, James’s liberalism shines through at times in this one in a way that makes it often quite tiresome to read. Particularly, he has a nasty tendency to cynically ask what it was all for, but then leave the question unanswered and imply that no benefit was gained from the various conquests in the book. That is demonstrably untrue, yet it is the narrative he supports, so it is what he spreads through the book. That makes it somewhat tiresome as a whole, and exceedingly so in certain sections and chapters. Overall, this one is fine, but not great.

16. Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era by Arthur Pierce Middleton

Tobacco Coast is an absolutely fascinating book that I wish I had read much sooner. In fact, it was probably my favorite of the month. In it, Middleton shows how the lengthy coastline of the Chesapeake indelibly impacted the two Chesapeake colonies, Virginia and Maryland, and enabled the plantation systems that made them what they were.

He shows that in a wonderful narrative packed with immense detail (though never too much), and does a delightful job reminding readers of how the many rivers and bays of Virginia’s Tidewater and Northern Neck made it different than much of the rest of the South or even much of the North. Further, he comments generally on the maritime nature of the colony and its people, which is often forgotten, and what that meant for its economic and social development.

Overall, it is a fantastic book full of detail that is hard to find anywhere else, and is told in a way that makes it riveting despite how much information is packed into it. I really enjoyed reading it, and think you will too.

17. Empires in the Sun: The Struggle for the Mastery of Africa by Lawrence James

Last and least for April was Empires in the Sun by Lawrence James, which was probably my least favorite of the month.

The problem is hard to define, as James’s writing isn’t particularly bad, and some of the details are interesting. But it’s just not a good book. You’d think a work about the scramble for Africa and how it was conquered and held onto, then lost, would at least be exciting. But it’s not. Instead it is dry, dull, and utterly tiresome, with James doing little other than complaining about the entire colonial and imperial project from a strange mixture of Little England-style conservatism and liberalism that makes him particularly sensitive to supposed injustices the natives faced, along with a willingness to take often ridiculous complaints about imperialism seriously.

Unfortunately, that makes it a simply uninteresting book and one I very much did not enjoy reading. It could have been good, but it was not. Instead, it was quite bad, and James should be tossed to the cannibals of Dahomey or the Congo whose supposedly unjust fates he is seemingly so intent on rectifying through slop-tier liberal history. This is quite a bad book, and one I would recommend avoiding.

I hope you enjoyed those book reviews. They are always fun to write, and most of the books are fun to read. If you have made it this far, and are not yet a paid subscriber, I would really appreciate you upgrading your subscription. These books are quite expensive, and your subscriptions on here enable me to continue reading and reviewing works like these, all while producing new content that you find interesting. Thank you!