History - Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

By Scott J. Pearson | April 6, 2024April 6, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Banal means lacking in originality or boring. It is a fitting description of the Nazis’ imaginations behind the Holocaust. This crime against humanity was so hideous that international laws were created to try those culpable. Adolf Eichmann was among the planners of the “Final Solution” and fled to Argentina. The new state of Israel had to kidnap him in order to bring him to justice in Israeli courts. He never denied the charges against him…

History Society

For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts’ Advice to Women

By Scott J. Pearson | March 30, 2024March 30, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

I grew up in a conservative home in a conservative state with a religion that enshrined conservatism more than Christianity. Fortunately, I was allowed to read, and reading has become a salvation of sorts. As I’ve aged and expanded my horizons, I’ve nonetheless grown concerned that I might have picked up some bad habits along the way. I’m recognized as an expert in my field, but I strive not to be one that oppresses others.…

Healthcare History Society

A Good Time to be Born: How Science & Public Health Gave Children a Future

By Scott J. Pearson | March 23, 2024March 23, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

The life-or-death fate of children has changed dramatically over the past 200 years due to research, medicine, and public health. Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln famously grieved the loss of their child in the White House years ago, but they were hardly alone. Rather in that era, losing a child, often due to illness or mishaps, was pretty much normal though still tragic. Today, such an experience is the exception, and we are all better…

Biography-Memoir History

A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom

By Scott J. Pearson | January 27, 2024January 27, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Facing a seven-hour drive, I picked up this audiobook so that I wouldn’t have to listen to a business book for that long in one day. The author David Blight had won a Pulitzer Prize and is renowned for his annals of African-American history. I knew his writing to be eloquent and clear, and his observations of human nature, compassionate and acute. I had great hopes for this drive, and thankfully, with Blight’s erudite help,…

Healthcare History

The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession & the Making of a Vast Industry

By Scott J. Pearson | January 24, 2024January 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

To the casual observer, a quick look at the American healthcare system brings out more questions than insights. Most of the developed world has some form of socialized medicine, whether nationalized health insurance or a national health system. By comparison, the American system appears disorderly and inefficient, yet resisting any changes, some swear by its effectiveness. Why? The answer lies not in a simple social, political, or economic force but in the scope of history.…

Fiction-Stories History

The County Line: A Novel

By Scott J. Pearson | January 6, 2024January 6, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Living around 100 years later, it’s easy to forget how much the Great Depression threatened to rip the social fabric of democratic America apart. Most know of the bank runs. Threats of social anarchy rippled across the country, especially in rural regions, as depicted in this book. Self-government was quickly veering towards becoming a plutocracy, the rule of money and power. Americans who made their way of life on Main Street lived in fear of…

History

Race & Reunion: The Civil War in American History

By Scott J. Pearson | December 16, 2023December 16, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

David Blight is an eminent, Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian interested in the role of race in American history. Many think that American attitudes about race were “solved” by the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves. Those battles were won by the Union and not the Confederacy, right? This book seeks to chronicle how in the 50 years after emancipation (until around World War I), southern states and the promotion of “Lost Cause” ideology won a place…

Fiction-Stories History

Salt & Broom

By Scott J. Pearson | November 9, 2023November 9, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë is an eminent, classic work of fiction. It speaks of an English teacher who falls in love with a wealthy landowner, only to encounter inevitable obstacles. An early ode to feminism, Jane finds happiness by being herself, not conforming to a social ideal. It’s one of my favorite stories from the early Victorian era. In this retelling, Sharon Lynn Fisher recasts this intriguing story in modern language, only with the…

History Society

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

By Scott J. Pearson | November 7, 2023November 7, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

The title of this awarded book from the 1960s immediately stood out to me in light of recent political events, and it did not disappoint. From its earliest days, a distinct class of intellectuals has sought a strong role in American society. Puritan divines, for all their shortcomings, set in motion an intellectual movement that continues to this day, especially throughout New England. America’s national founding generation also consisted of intellectually informed men to orient…

History Software-Technology

The Things We Make: The Unknown History of Invention from Cathedrals to Soda Cans

By Scott J. Pearson | November 5, 2023November 5, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Engineering is a vocation that usually doesn’t get the deep treatment in modern literature. Popular portrayals often play off an inventor’s brilliance and introversion, but don’t poke around in depth about what made an innovation successful. Instead of one distinct epiphany to an individual, inventions often follow a series of efforts by a community. These efforts often include many failures and halted efforts. Society has less tolerance for these difficulties and prefers a story of…