Martin > Recent Status Updates

Our problem isn’t fascism, an -ism word uninformed people throw around like salt and pepper on stew. But we should still explore analogy/comparison.

I read a lot to prepare for my podcast, and sometimes I write book reviews that are published in The Washington Times.

Subscribe to my Substack for weekly updates on what my expert guests and I talk about, and what we read, concerning the intersection of past and present.

https://substack.com/@historyasithappens

Just okay so far…

Back to the Cold War/Vietnam

Programming note: my interview of Melvyn Leffler, author of "Confronting Saddam Hussein," will air on C-SPAN 2's American History TV at 5:30 p.m. on April 1.

I should have read this book 20 years ago.

I’m reading 1) on a Kindle and 2) a work of fiction.

I’ve always loved the story of Moby Dick, and now I’m reading Melville’s classic (while spending a week on a beach near South America)

Joe McCarthy was many things. What may stand out above all other traits, his ability to shamelessly tell outrageous lies about decent people -- and some contemporaries said it was all an act.

Kagan is a formidable writer and thinker, and I’m reading this book in advance of a scheduled interview of Kagan for my podcast. As expected, Kagan’s interpretation of U.S. foreign policy 1900-1941 is that the world needs the USA. This is why he referenced his new book in a recent article in Foreign Affairs in which he wrote about the importance of backing Ukraine. More to come… more reading to do first.