January Quickies—History Lessons

It’s a good time to catch up on all that reading or to continue a New Year’s resolution to read more.  So here are a couple of books I’ve had on my list of blog ideas for years now.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that I will get to re-reading them and sharing the most salient points here. 

Both are extremely well-written and both provide many points to ponder for all of us as we prepare for the coming crisis.  Because as we all know, history repeats.  The names and dates change, but as a whole people react the same to their challenges.  We can learn from their decisions, good and bad.

Peter Duffy’s The Bielski Brothers:  The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews is a spell-binding account of these brothers’ efforts to rescue their people from death.  Rather than focus exclusively on saving the able-bodied as other groups at the time did, the Bielskis didn’t leave the babies and elderly behind to die.  Those rescued were fed and immediately put to work to support their growing community.  And when the war was finally over, they returned to living as ordinary men. 

The backstory of Giles Milton’s Paradise Lost:  Smyrna 1922, The Destruction of a Christian City in the Islamic World sounds eerily similar to events and attitudes today.  People oblivious to the threats that lurk just around the corner.  People deluded into thinking that somehow their situation is different.  Their neighbors are different.  Their outcome will be different. 

The psychology of the people, the normalcy bias, is what struck me most in both of these books.  The Bielskis penetrated into the Jewish ghettos, past the wire fences and Nazi guards, to rescue the Jews, and yet many refused to leave!  They preferred to stay with the Nazis, falling victim to a kind of Stockholm syndrome, where they identified with their captors, believing that though their captors had killed their friends and neighbors, they would somehow be spared!  They preferred the known captivity with their enemies to the unknown freedom provided by friends.

In Paradise Lost, the prosperous Christian community, which was the base for most of the economic prosperity in the region, failed to recognize the looming threat of the Turkish/Muslim invasion.  They deceived themselves into thinking that because of their long-standing friendships and business relations, they would be spared.  Such, of course, was not the case. 

The evidence surrounded them.  How could they refuse to see it?  Of course, it’s the same position we’re in now as we see total collapse before our eyes. 

I checked Amazon again, hoping to be able to tell you that they’re available on Audible, but sadly, such is not the case.  And finally, in this year of the 250^th anniversary of the founding of our nation, consider Washington’s Crossing by David Hackett Fischer.  It is available on Audible; Aaron and I just finished listening to it and can highly recommend it as well.  One thing that struck me again in listening to it this time was the lack of proper clothing and especially shoes.  Check your stocks of shoe repair essentials—laces, duct tape, and Shoe Goo/Barge Cement—as well as inserts.