Fortunately, I'm not a big fan of fast food to begin with because Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser would probably have ended that relationship if I was. (After reading it, I'm even feeling a big guilty about last month's trip to Jimmy Johns.) Narrowly, this book, which was published over a decade ago but has been re-released in a new 10th anniversary edition that seems to be displayed prominently in airports across America, is about the history and evolution of fast food in this country and its detrimental impacts on everything from family farms to obesity rates and diabetes to the meatpacking industry. Considering that the latter is still associated with Upton Sinclair, that's a rather impressive feat.
More broadly, however, this book is really a look at the homogenization of America, a trend that begin in the heady days of the 1950s and has rapidly picked up speed since. Schlosser connects the dots between any number of multinational companies, some of which would not seem to be related to the fast food industry, but are, even if only peripherally. In this vein, Schlosser delves into some of Disney's darker history, including the employment of literal Nazis in the immediate post-war years. He explores how the concept of franchising has changed business in this country - and around the world - as well as the impact of globalization. In Plauen, Germany, the former East German town with the distinction of having been more heavily bombed than even Dresden in World War II, globalization, and specifically the arrival of a McDonald's, seems to have heralded positive change. In Greeley, Colorado, not so much.
When I told Ben I what I was reading, he was surprised I hadn't already read it. I suppose it's possible I'm among the last to have discovered this book. For anyone else who hasn't - and doesn't mind the possibility of having fast food spoiled in their minds forevermore - I can definitely recommend it.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Saturday, August 25, 2012
An African in Greenland
One of the more memorable reads from my 2011 list was The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle. The author, Sara Wheeler, visited native communities across the north - Alaska, Siberia, Greenland, Canada, and Scandinavia - to take a pulse on life in the furthest reaches of the planet. She also did a lot of research, thereby introducing her reader to any number of works on life in the north.
One of those books is Tété-Michel Kpomassie's personal account of the time he spent living in Greenland in the 1960s, An African in Greenland. This was not an easy book to come by, but I eventually found a copy on Amazon and, after letting it sit on my bookshelf for a few months, finally cracked it open and really, really enjoyed it.
Tété-Michel is a teen in Togo when he is bitten by a snake, cured by a priestess of the snake cult, and then promised to said cult by his father, as payment and in gratitude for their services. You couldn't make this stuff up. Only days before he is enter the cult once and forever, he finds a book about Greenland in an evangelical bookshop and determines to runoff to the Great White North rather than face the fate of a life among pythons deep in the West African forest.
By turns, and over the course of six years, he works his way from Togo to Greenland by way of Ghana, Senegal, France, Germany, and Denmark, learning the customs and languages of the locals, working whatever jobs he can find, and, evidently, charming the socks off of everyone he meets. Time after time he is housed gratis and he even manages to find a sort of fairy grandfather who finances the trek to, and months in, Greenland.
Once he reaches his promised land the fun continues: dinners of seal, whale blubber and boiled reindeer; sledging across mile after frozen mile of land, building an igloo and sleeping with sled dogs when the way is lost; hunting for seals and fishing with the natives, you name it. All while obviously keeping meticulous notes on his thoughts and experiences and even comparing and contrasting the West African cultures of his childhood to the European and Inuit cultures of his travels. It's a marvelous little book, honestly, and while I don't expect too many others will bother to find and read it, those who do will be richly rewarded.
One of those books is Tété-Michel Kpomassie's personal account of the time he spent living in Greenland in the 1960s, An African in Greenland. This was not an easy book to come by, but I eventually found a copy on Amazon and, after letting it sit on my bookshelf for a few months, finally cracked it open and really, really enjoyed it.
Tété-Michel is a teen in Togo when he is bitten by a snake, cured by a priestess of the snake cult, and then promised to said cult by his father, as payment and in gratitude for their services. You couldn't make this stuff up. Only days before he is enter the cult once and forever, he finds a book about Greenland in an evangelical bookshop and determines to runoff to the Great White North rather than face the fate of a life among pythons deep in the West African forest.
By turns, and over the course of six years, he works his way from Togo to Greenland by way of Ghana, Senegal, France, Germany, and Denmark, learning the customs and languages of the locals, working whatever jobs he can find, and, evidently, charming the socks off of everyone he meets. Time after time he is housed gratis and he even manages to find a sort of fairy grandfather who finances the trek to, and months in, Greenland.
Once he reaches his promised land the fun continues: dinners of seal, whale blubber and boiled reindeer; sledging across mile after frozen mile of land, building an igloo and sleeping with sled dogs when the way is lost; hunting for seals and fishing with the natives, you name it. All while obviously keeping meticulous notes on his thoughts and experiences and even comparing and contrasting the West African cultures of his childhood to the European and Inuit cultures of his travels. It's a marvelous little book, honestly, and while I don't expect too many others will bother to find and read it, those who do will be richly rewarded.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
In DC earlier this summer, I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon at one of the few historical sites I'd not yet visited: Ford's Theater. Browsing through the gift shop, my eyes fell on a "staff pic": Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. It's not my usual fare. There are definite elements of fantasy and reality is often suspended, if not entirely forsaken. The entire premise of the book is that Old Abe Lincoln fought a decades' long battle with vampires, killing scores, before waging the entire Civil War to prevent them taking over America. It's nuts, really. And yet, unlike other fantasy-esque books that I've previously read and disparaged, I actually kind of like this one. Why?
I loved the way Grahame-Smith wove historical events, speeches and writings by Lincoln, and other facts into his tall tale. In many ways, at heart this is Lincoln's story...modified to fit with the vampire theme. It's like he wanted to tell his readers about Lincoln, realized most would never make it past page five of anything resembling a real biography, and had this brilliant, subversive idea to seed his Lincoln story with vampires. Vampires, after all, seem to be the fare of choice these days for those who don't suffer from the suspension-of-reality-blues. From start to finish real and important elements of Lincoln's life and work form the cornerstones of this work, a non unimpressive feat for a vampire story.
This is not a deep, thinking read. I tackled it, start to finish, on a travel day. I started in the airport and finished before the Pacific hove into view. It is a light - and, yes, fun - refresher on the life and times of our 16th president.
4 stars.
I loved the way Grahame-Smith wove historical events, speeches and writings by Lincoln, and other facts into his tall tale. In many ways, at heart this is Lincoln's story...modified to fit with the vampire theme. It's like he wanted to tell his readers about Lincoln, realized most would never make it past page five of anything resembling a real biography, and had this brilliant, subversive idea to seed his Lincoln story with vampires. Vampires, after all, seem to be the fare of choice these days for those who don't suffer from the suspension-of-reality-blues. From start to finish real and important elements of Lincoln's life and work form the cornerstones of this work, a non unimpressive feat for a vampire story.
This is not a deep, thinking read. I tackled it, start to finish, on a travel day. I started in the airport and finished before the Pacific hove into view. It is a light - and, yes, fun - refresher on the life and times of our 16th president.
4 stars.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
French Lessons
French Lessons, by Alice Kaplan, was a University of Chicago Press free e-book of the month that I downloaded several months ago and have ploddingly worked my way through for most of the summer. The briefest description is this: it is the memoir of a Duke French professor. In truth, it is a bit more than that, particularly for anyone who has ever navigated the vagaries of a university department, searched for a dissertation topic, or wondered how life might be different had they never traveled to a far off land or learned another language.
I came to see this book as neatly divided into three parts. Part one is the story of a young girl growing up in suburban Minneapolis in the 1950s and 1960s. That her father was a lawyer at the Nuremburg trials lends interest, and that he dies of a heart attack when she is still in elementary school lends tragedy, but at its heart part one is about being a kid in the midwest in the halycon days after World War II (and then attending a boarding school in Switzerland, but I digress).
Part two is the story of a graduate student searching for a topic, trying to understand theories and the people who create them, and forging an identity as an intellectual and scholar. Honestly, this is the part of the book where I almost gave it. Kaplan spends a bit too long, in my opinion, covering the theories of French literature, for a mainstream audience. (Or even an engaged, knowledgeable one. I was a French major, and I've only just read this book, but I'm drawing a blank trying to name a single theory that was described in detail over dozens of pages.)
Part three is the story of a professor, sometimes young, sometimes not, making her way through the politics of departments and universities, connecting with students, and asking herself questions that I myself have often wondered: how would my life have been different if I'd never spent time in a foreign country when I young? How would my life have been different if I'd never learned French? In what ways has it changed how I think about the world? Can I even separate it from the other parts of my life? (The answer to all four, for Kaplan as well as for me, is pretty strongly, "I don't know.")
I liked this book. If I were to read it again - or recommend it to someone else to read - I'd say to skip the theory. Ultimately, for this book - as for most of life - theory doesn't really matter.
I came to see this book as neatly divided into three parts. Part one is the story of a young girl growing up in suburban Minneapolis in the 1950s and 1960s. That her father was a lawyer at the Nuremburg trials lends interest, and that he dies of a heart attack when she is still in elementary school lends tragedy, but at its heart part one is about being a kid in the midwest in the halycon days after World War II (and then attending a boarding school in Switzerland, but I digress).
Part two is the story of a graduate student searching for a topic, trying to understand theories and the people who create them, and forging an identity as an intellectual and scholar. Honestly, this is the part of the book where I almost gave it. Kaplan spends a bit too long, in my opinion, covering the theories of French literature, for a mainstream audience. (Or even an engaged, knowledgeable one. I was a French major, and I've only just read this book, but I'm drawing a blank trying to name a single theory that was described in detail over dozens of pages.)
Part three is the story of a professor, sometimes young, sometimes not, making her way through the politics of departments and universities, connecting with students, and asking herself questions that I myself have often wondered: how would my life have been different if I'd never spent time in a foreign country when I young? How would my life have been different if I'd never learned French? In what ways has it changed how I think about the world? Can I even separate it from the other parts of my life? (The answer to all four, for Kaplan as well as for me, is pretty strongly, "I don't know.")
I liked this book. If I were to read it again - or recommend it to someone else to read - I'd say to skip the theory. Ultimately, for this book - as for most of life - theory doesn't really matter.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America's First Imperial Adventure
This turquoise-colored book, with its tropical flowers and map of Hawaii on the cover, was displayed prominently in the Smithsonian's gift shop earlier this summer and since I do love Hawaii, I had to add it to my list.
Lost Kingdom is the story of exactly that - how a kingdom, Hawaii, was lost to the Hawaiian people in an audacious and shameful land grab. Primary blame for the theft falls squarely on the shoulders of the over zealous descendants of the missionaries who arrived bearing God's words and man's diseases. Certainly the US government comes in for its share of blame, as Grover Cleveland essentially acknowledged once he was safely out of office: "Hawai'i is ours...as I contemplate the means used to complete the outrage, I am ashamed of the whole affair." (It is true that when opportunities presented themselves to the Hawaiian Queen, Lili'uokalani, to perhaps allow the islands to retain independence, she mishandled them. However, I think its fair to argue that she never should have been in many of the positions into which she was essentially forced.)
I would imagine most people would have a difficult time remaining calm as they read this book. The manifest destiny and imperialism on display here were certainly not the best moments in our nation's history. Julia Flynn Siler puts it perfectly when she writes, toward the end of the book, that as Queen Lili'uokalani rode a train across the U.S., she "couldn't help but wonder, with such vast expanses of arable land, why Americans seemed intent on taking over Hawai'i." Indeed.
Lost Kingdom is the story of exactly that - how a kingdom, Hawaii, was lost to the Hawaiian people in an audacious and shameful land grab. Primary blame for the theft falls squarely on the shoulders of the over zealous descendants of the missionaries who arrived bearing God's words and man's diseases. Certainly the US government comes in for its share of blame, as Grover Cleveland essentially acknowledged once he was safely out of office: "Hawai'i is ours...as I contemplate the means used to complete the outrage, I am ashamed of the whole affair." (It is true that when opportunities presented themselves to the Hawaiian Queen, Lili'uokalani, to perhaps allow the islands to retain independence, she mishandled them. However, I think its fair to argue that she never should have been in many of the positions into which she was essentially forced.)
I would imagine most people would have a difficult time remaining calm as they read this book. The manifest destiny and imperialism on display here were certainly not the best moments in our nation's history. Julia Flynn Siler puts it perfectly when she writes, toward the end of the book, that as Queen Lili'uokalani rode a train across the U.S., she "couldn't help but wonder, with such vast expanses of arable land, why Americans seemed intent on taking over Hawai'i." Indeed.
Friday, August 3, 2012
The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
This book, with its beautiful cover illustration of belle Paris, caught my attention in National airport last month. I seriously contemplated purchasing it on the spot - having recently returned from Paris, I had a soft spot for it - but it was incredibly heavy so I waited to borrow it from the library.
The premise of the book is that is is the story of American artists, writers, doctors, and others who traveled to Paris between, roughly, 1830 and 1870. The names are nearly all familiar: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elizabeth Blackwell, Charles Sumner, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Cassatt, Samuel Morse, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry James, John Sargent Singer, PT Barnum and Tom Thumb, Augustus Saint-Gaudens. And while the book does a fine job of following all of these individuals, where it really excels is in capturing the essence of not only the city, but the era.
David McCullough takes pains to describe Samuel Morse's frustrations in trying to patent the system that would eventually bear his name, the long hours in medical clinics and art studios, and the discourse on slavery, emancipation, and the American Civil War. McCullough is at his finest when writing of war and conflict; the time period he has chosen, beginning with the 1830 revolution and ending with the emergence of Paris as a modern city (as evidenced by the "monstrous" tower Eiffel erected on the old military parage grounds), offers no shortage of war and revolution.
Early on, it is the 1830 revolution, followed by another less than 20 years later, and then the Franco-Prussian war (and the recklessness which wrought it and, subsequently, some 75 years of French-German conflict). Most interesting to me, however, was the treatment of the Communards, a short but turbulent and terrible period in French/Parisian history about which I had previously learned little. Given that this is in the ballpark of the number killed during the Reign of Terror (obviously, precise figures are not available for either of these times), I was surprised I hadn't learned of it previously.
Overall, this was a good read, although it could be quite dense at time and, therefore, a bit of a slow go. French history or American art history buffs would enjoy it greatly, but others might find it just a bit on the dull side.
The premise of the book is that is is the story of American artists, writers, doctors, and others who traveled to Paris between, roughly, 1830 and 1870. The names are nearly all familiar: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elizabeth Blackwell, Charles Sumner, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Cassatt, Samuel Morse, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry James, John Sargent Singer, PT Barnum and Tom Thumb, Augustus Saint-Gaudens. And while the book does a fine job of following all of these individuals, where it really excels is in capturing the essence of not only the city, but the era.
David McCullough takes pains to describe Samuel Morse's frustrations in trying to patent the system that would eventually bear his name, the long hours in medical clinics and art studios, and the discourse on slavery, emancipation, and the American Civil War. McCullough is at his finest when writing of war and conflict; the time period he has chosen, beginning with the 1830 revolution and ending with the emergence of Paris as a modern city (as evidenced by the "monstrous" tower Eiffel erected on the old military parage grounds), offers no shortage of war and revolution.
Early on, it is the 1830 revolution, followed by another less than 20 years later, and then the Franco-Prussian war (and the recklessness which wrought it and, subsequently, some 75 years of French-German conflict). Most interesting to me, however, was the treatment of the Communards, a short but turbulent and terrible period in French/Parisian history about which I had previously learned little. Given that this is in the ballpark of the number killed during the Reign of Terror (obviously, precise figures are not available for either of these times), I was surprised I hadn't learned of it previously.
Overall, this was a good read, although it could be quite dense at time and, therefore, a bit of a slow go. French history or American art history buffs would enjoy it greatly, but others might find it just a bit on the dull side.
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