Fourth Annual Rancho Mirage Writers Festival

On January 28-29, 1917 I attended the Ranch Mirage Writers Festival.  Since my main interests are history and politics that it what I gravitated to and found my two heroes for further exploration, Tom Holland from England writing on the Roman Empire and the Birth and Rise of Islam and from University of Texas H.W. Brands who has written on Andrew Jackson, Both Roosevelts (actually three), and Ulysses Grant.  Honorable mention goes also to Fredrik Logevall Pulitzer winner for “Embers of War: The Fall of empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam” covering Vietnam through French and American fiascos.  Perhaps because this is the place where famous and/or republicans come to play golf before they croak – there was a bit of Reagan, Nixon and Ford mixed in with Hollywood. For reasons unknown to me,  the two China books and discussions were assigned the smallest room and so I was unable to attend either, although they  appeared to be very interesting. Books on how to live forever were assigned the biggest room, which makes sense since at 72 I was on the younger side of the crowd.  Tickets for next year go on sale March 1st or so, and British writers are going to be highlighted.

For my first book I chose Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy’s  “The Men Who Lost America” which discussed the British Empire’s greatest loss, America from their perspective.  The book was written before Trump or Brexit, but I could not get in, so I took in Pico Iyer’s “The Art of Stillness: Adventures of Going Nowhere“.   Pico Iyer considers the unexpected advantage of staying put and argues that the more ways we have to connect, the more we seem desperate to unplug. Why might a lifelong traveler like Pico Iyer think that sitting quietly in a room might be the ultimate adventure? Because, in our madly accelerating world, our lives are crowded, chaotic and noisy. There’s never been a greater need to slow down, tune out and give ourselves permission to be still.

For my second book it was a struggle between “Foreskin’s Lament: A memoir” by Shalom Auslander – a funny guy, and “Legacy of Ashes” by a Pulitzer winner Tim Weiner.  Weiner won and his book deals with why nearly every CIA director has left the agency in worse shape than when he found it, and how that does not bode well for our national security.  Definitely not a Trumpista and some Republicans in the audience that are still living did not care for the fact that he was expressing less than adoring devotion to our man-child in the white house. Good speaker, sounds like a good book.

Tom Hollands “Caesar’s and Whores: the Politics of Gossip in Imperial Rome” was my first find, since Rome and Greece are my early love. It covers some of the same ground as Graves “I, Claudius” and Colleen McCullough’ series starting around  105 BC with Marius, the first consul to have the power for over 4 terms “The First Man in Rome” and ending with Octavian ie Augustus, thus covering the end of the Roman Republic.  These are written as novels, but with great scholarship, and “Caesar’s Women”  and “Anthony and Cleopatra” cover similar themes as Holland. So this book covers Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero and tries to parse facts from alternative facts. Holland has wit, erudition and scholarship.  In his second discussion on this book his covered Claudius and Messalina, who probably poisoned him to get her son on the throne. In the first discussion Tom Holland and Todd Kessler, creator of the TV series Rome, in conversation, discuss the intrigue, murder, naked ambition, treachery, greed, gluttony, lust, incest, pageantry and decadence in the daily life of the Caesars of Imperial Rome.
“Florida: A paradise of Scandals” with Dave Barry and Carl Hiaasen, whose book “Razor Girl” kept us amused on the drive from Portland to Palm Springs, gave us only n Florida stories, which probably rose to the fore in the 2000 presidential elections.  Both writers are very funny.

Fredrik Logevall’s  “Embers of War ” as I mentioned above shows how the US backed the French in their futile attempt to hang on to their Indochina possession – in a period of time when France was weak and the Viet Minh got strong and how the US followed making the same faulty assumptions and making the same mistake.  His talk convinced me that this was probably the most dispassionate analysis of that historical period, written by a Swede. Fredrik Logevall, a professor of history with expertise in U.S. foreign relations,  11-year project stemmed from his burning conviction to tell the complete story of two Western powers in Vietnam: how both powers lost their way and how their officials chose war over a political solution. made it into my potential reading list.

In the evening I had  no great expectation from Bret Stephens, who after all writes for the worst, most biased editorial page of any major newspaper, Murdoch’s Journal.  I guess the man has to make a living, but apparently the day’s events with Trumps emigrants and refugees executive order from hell, made him remember who he was and where he came from and gave a very interesting speech titled: “The United States and the World: The next 20 years.” He has written a book, or assembled his columns into a book “America in Retreat – the new isolationism and the coming Global Disorder” and the title seems true enough, especially now.   He did not provide answers but he framed the six questions that need to be answered as soon as someone with half a brain comes to power.  The subsequent panel discussion that followed about the next four years could have been more interesting it the moderator did not hog so much time. No particular insights were offered, but I understood why Gray Davis is a descriptive name and why his political career stopped.

On Sunday I missed out on Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos,  Winner of the 2014 National Book Award, and finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize, Evan Osnos based Age of Ambition on eight years of living in Beijing, and traces the rise of the individual in China, and the clash between aspiration and authoritarianism. Evan’s book is the story of wild new riches, outrageous corruption and China’s forays abroad.  Might have to read his book.

Sunday started for me again with Tom Holland about the origins of Islam – and I bought his book “In the shadow of the sword – the birth of Islam and the rise of the global empire”. His discussion focussed on the fact that Muhammad’s story was written 200 years after him and contains references and allusions inconsistent with geographical location of Mecca. In his talk he explores several of these in detail.  I love counter factuals and I understood for the first time how the black plague created a vacuum which allowed these nomads to conquer as much territory as they did in such a short time and that the devastation made a new religion more appealing.

My second helping of HW Brands “The Roosevelts” was again extremely well presented and should I want to return to that topic, this would be my definite choice. Theodore Roosevelt unexpectedly became the 26th president of the United States in September 1901, after the assassination of William McKinley. Young and physically robust,  the only US president who could be called a war monger before he became president he brought a new energy to the White House, and won a second term on his own merits in 1904. TR was also a dedicated conservationist and the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize recipient for having negotiated peace in the Russo-Japanese war in 1904–5.  FDR was elected as the nation’s 32nd president in 1932. With the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression, Roosevelt immediately acted to restore hope and security by speaking directly to the public in a series of radio broadcasts or “fireside chats.” His ambitious slate of New Deal programs and reforms redefined the role of the federal government in the lives of Americans. He also led us to victory on two fronts in World War II.  the discussion was framed as the first Roosevelt felt compelled to retrain capitalism while the second felt compelled to save it.

This was followed by the third helping of Tom Holland’s “Caesar’s and Whores” discussed above and then the second helping of HW Brands with “Ulysses S Grant: the man who saved the Union”. Ulysses Grant rose from obscurity to discover he had a genius for battle and not much else. He propelled the Union to victory in the Civil War. After Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and the disastrous brief presidency of Andrew Johnson, America turned to Grant again to unite the country, this time as president. A very compelling presentation, but recent read by my history group. I strikes me that anything by Mr. Brands would be worth reading.

The day ended with Colonel Jack Jacobs and Fredrik Logevall ostensibly discussing Vietnam:40 years later, but steered by the moderator to cover much of the same ground as Mr. Logevall’s first discussion. The evening presentation started with a real fiasco to wit a discussion with Robert Wagner and some of the actresses he worked for.  I could not decide wether Mr. Wagner suffers from dementia or whether his vocabulary is even more limited than our current president’s – everyone was fantastic or incredible and not a single insight was offered.  The evening was rescued by Dave Barry, who was as always very funny.