Tides of War, New York, and other books

   I've read too many war books this year.  

  I started out the year by finishing Ian Toll's excellent trilogy on the war in the Pacific.  Later on, I read Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts, describing Berlin just before WWII.  Lately, I've read biography on Genghis Khan, Erik Larson's excellent new book around the events at Fort Sumter that led to active hostilities in the Civil War, and I just concluded Steven Pressfield's Tides of War, a bit of historical fiction around the Peloponnesian War.  Too much violence, I think, so I picked up Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea, the true story of the whaleship Essex that inspired Moby Dick.  Having read (and not enjoyed) Moby Dick, perhaps I'm simply looking for a more enjoyable read around ships and whales.  I may have completely turned Caleb off from ever reading Moby Dick by the way I described it to him, but I consider that a favor to the next generation.  I've never read a book that I considered in such desperate need of an editor.  

  Pressfield's Tides of War is a glimpse into an ancient war, at a time when Athens and Sparta were at war with one another.  It's told looking backwards, through the eyes of a soldier who fought endlessly for both sides, caught up as one individual in the midst of an ever-churning war.  That's the one thing I take away from all these books -- the human cost of war is tragic.  So many lives are thrown into the grinder, and I can't help but think on each man lost.  Each one had hopes and dreams, a family and a past, but his future was lost in the face of the war machine.  It opens my eyes to be grateful for those in the modern day who serve our country and put themselves in danger.  How do we properly thank them for their willingness to serve, to risk, to set aside their hopes and dreams to protect those of others?  

  I've clearly slacked in keeping up with the book reviews.  On Friday night, I finished my 33rd book of the year.  Edward Rutherford's New York was one that I recently enjoyed, as it tells the story of the great city through the story of one family, from generation to generation.  We see how the various social movements, as well as wars, impact the city and the people inside of it.  It's very well done.

  As was David McCullough's Path Between the Seas, the telling of the building of the Panama Canal.  I had no idea the French had tried earlier to build it.  It seems wild to have set off with as little data as they did, but they believed that if they threw enough people at it, eventually they would conquer.  The French underestimated the jungle! The personalities of some of the characters involved made the tale come alive, and the sheer audacity of the effort is well captured in this book.