This summer, I had the distinct pleasure of spending an afternoon in Barcelona with the discourse scholar Teun Van Dijk. Over the course of our conversation, in which I explained my summer Econ classes at the Barcelona School of Economics, attempted to counter his hope that maybe we were getting the final storm of right-wing hate—ever, and asked for tips about art, Van Dijk paid me a serious compliment. “You’re so interdisciplinary, Economics, Spanish, Art History, History? What else!?” I never thought of any of my outside intellectual pursuits as work. In fact, it seems sort of deterministic and workaholic to think of what I do for fun as bleeding into work (to be clear this is the fun that is mostly alone, in my own head, not the tennis and sport sort of fun).
Rather, what I’m doing is burning of energy, trying to understand the messiness of the world in my own way of coping with the insanity, and in the case of visual art, it’s just to relax, to challenge myself to see the world literally from alternative perspectives, and to enrich my little side obsession with political history with cultural history. Also, I don’t know, art museums are quiet and relaxing and visiting them takes advantage of being in a cultural hotspot? But now that this most unusual summer for me has come to an end, it seems apt to reflect on whatever it is I’ve been doing with my down time, hence this chronicle of my interdisciplinary studies, or what I read this summer.
There’s another important factor to consider before it seems like I’m sort of wunderkind of summer reading, albeit all outside my relevant academic field. I’m not on Twitter, I’ve still got the intellectual energy to burn, somehow, and it’s been a miraculous summer of reading and learning for what might only be called “intellectual shits and giggles.” If I need to explain why Twitter has become anathema to large swaths of its former users, well, I don’t really want to get into it, but please, go check out the whining on this subject in Wired.
Between the end of Twitter, at least for me, and two long 14-hour flights, not to mention plenty of time alone in Barcelona between classes, studying, and dinner has meant an epic chance to dig deep into one area in particular: the study of Spanish Empire. Although my reading started with the history of the Mexican American War, it expanded in scope, moving to consider border relations and then expanded more fully into just… yeah, it was a very big empire… and we’re still feeling its effects today (um, duh, that’s post-colonialism, ya?).
So I figured I would chronicle some of this intellectual joy just for a pat on my own back:
Books I’ve read since signing off Twitter, roughly May to present, with a brief review:
Empire readings
Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race, Laura E. Gomez: This is an interesting but weird book that seems to be debatable in terms of its alignment with most of mainstream contemporary Latin American Studies. Gomez makes the case that Mexicans should be considered a “race” and proceeds to discuss how the US weirdly honored various forms of rule of law in what was “New Mexico” and used the power of law to split Latinx elites. I don’t know about this one. It was also very much a traditional academic text despite its success and the revised version had prefaces and reflections that presumed previous knowledge of the first edition.
Our Migrant Souls, Hector Tobar: Oh, I loved this so. The text is an ode to first-generation and multi-generation Latinx Americans, trying to trace trauma and joy together. In particular, it focuses on students for many of the anecdotes, and it is a lyrical combination of history lesson and meditation on what it means to fundamentally be a refugee, stranger in a strange land that is never, truly, meant for Latinx people.
Bad Mexicans, Kelly Lyle Hernandez: Fun book about the Mexican revolutionaries that sought to overthrow Porifiro Diaz - at times a little too detailed, but for the most part, the various leaders came to life with her descriptive stories of federales and US military literally chasing the leaders by foot. The big takeaways for me (and big surprises): just how much the US was willing to actually enable the capture of the Mexican revolutionaries, breaking laws in both the US and Mexico. I also didn’t know much about the abuse of Diaz more generally, but the wholesale selling out of Mexican borderlands for American profiteering was just - astounding. We’ve pumped this country of its cash and resources for our own gain for so long, without any kind of real assessment of fault (I wanted to say countenance, but apparently I’d be using the word wrong, but it sounded good).
The Three Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West, Megan Kate Nelson: Great book about the third front of the Civil War, and the ways in which both Union and Confederacy used indigenous Americans to pursue their own aims and ruthlessly slaughtered them when it was convenient. The big argument: that the Union brought the emancipation of African American slaves, but at the same time, enacted a brutal Indian policy that undermined life and liberty. The argument Nelson makes was that freeing enslaved peoples was at the cost of native peoples. Good solid read that hit all my Civil War obsession buttons, although the fact I have those buttons about a horrible time in American history is a disturbing question I’m not going to spend much time pondering. The Texas Rangers really need to be renamed- their history and legacy is super brutal and gross and ….
A Wicked War, Amy S. Greenberg: Great overview of the Mexican American War through the eyes of five major big men, including Lincoln, Clay, and Polk. In many ways, Polk was a super efficient president: he set out to annex Texas, and in turn, provoked war that gave Americans the sea-to-sea empire it now has—all in the one term he promised to serve. But goodness, he basically let “Indian Killers” loose on the West and set up the political conditions that would ultimately lead to Civil War.
Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell: Made Barcelona’s time under the Spanish Civil War come to life - I was walking the streets he was writing about where street-to-street combat took place. There is nothing in these streets that would otherwise let you know that such events ever took place. Orwell made the hidden Catalonian national anthem in the modernist Casa Amatller make a lot more sense. However, critics have pointed out that he did not speak Catalan particularly well nor Spanish, so um, was he the best recorder of said events? No, but he did provide an outsiders guide to the chaos and crisis.
The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction, Helen Graham: Recommended by a bunch of “blogs” about getting up to speed on the Spanish Civil War. Between Orwell and this text, I saw the upcoming election posters and political parties featured at Pride in a totally different (and more complete) context.
Cuba, An American History: Ada Ferrer: Woah, we totally f*d Cuba. What was a multicultural, socialist (from the BEGINNING) effort to bring freedom to a colonized and abused place by its people was literally taken over and destroyed by the US, which continued subjugating Cuba. What I do not understand, cannot understand, cannot make sense of: what cajones are required for the US to just come in and say, this is in our sphere of influence, and we’re going to call the shots and “allow” you to maybe run your own government, one day - and do so with such a minority of powerful people. Traces about 500 years of the island’s history.
Other books not really about Empire, but still maybe a little bit
Elite Capture, Olufhemi O. Taiwo: A solid rejoinder to the empty-feeling DEI in institutions, whereby elites distort the true/original concept of identity politics into loyalty tests, branding efforts, and a contest of the aggrieved, whereby those with the most trauma get the biggest podium. The capture part is that identity politics are a) distorted by elites who use these to advance rhetorical good vibes without meaningful change and b) the reality that the most marginalized are never in the room. I appreciate the in the room metaphor as I’ve used it before. But I don’t know if Taiwo actually gives us a path out.
The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson: A masterpiece book about the Great Migration. I can’t believe how much research she did in order to tell this story through five different people. What a triumph. In particular, I appreciated learning about Southern California’s history of social Jim Crow, which is not talked about much at all in the land of the sun, waves, and dreams.
Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power, Jefferson Cowie: A micro history of one county in Alabama that basically explains the toxicity of aggrieved white southerners perverting “independence” and “states rights” for the sake of undermining the liberty of Black people, told over about 200 years. A big theme emerges here that also emerges in studies of American Empire: federal protections and rights are not state protections and rights - and in some ways, to be a state citizen treated equally is far more powerful than recognition at the federal level, a contest we see playing out ALL THE TIME now.
The Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler: Maybe the one book I read that kind of counted for work (I wrote a really weird political communication paper on speculative fiction and the end of the Anthropocene for APSA). I don’t know what I was expecting, but the power of the book is one that is hitting me in waves, even though I was sort of annoyed by the Earthsong preaching poetry while I read the book. I also don’t think that the claim that Lauren is gender-bending/queer is all that strong, nor do I think the claim that she is a representative of disabled people is quite spot on. But the imagined horror of what might happen if we do not do something about inequality in the US and the belief that individual emancipation is possible through a communitarian ethos continues to keep me up at night. Also, the only fiction book I read this summer, because I’m a big weirdo.
G-Man: J Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, Beverly Gage: This one is a hold over from spring to summer, so I don’t know if it counts, but I loved this book. It hit all my presidential geek buttons and really, for prep for understanding the coming Republican attack on the administrative state, this is required reading. I particularly enjoyed how Gage didn’t label Hoover as gay, but showed through extensive evidence of his social interactions how even people like Nixon and the penis-waving outside of Congress LBJ (see Caro for anecdotes) engaged with Hoover socially in a mode of tolerance, acceptance, and genuine friendship. I do think the book was a little apologist, showing Hoover’s efforts to crunch down on the KKK and explaining why these efforts were so ineffective (jury trials didn’t work in the South for obvious reasons). I also appreciate the insight into how he believed he was mis-used by the John Birchers - that they took his anti-communism too far by violating his sense of the importance of established law and order and the rule of law through their vigilantism. That said, his authoritarian drive is scary, super scary, and he definitely had presidents in his pockets for multiple administrations and totally undermined the Civil Rights movement, and arguably, set up the conditions that enabled James Earl Ray to assassinate MLK. RFK comes out looking like a totally obnoxious twat.
So you see, that was A LOT of reading. Currently on Althea Gibson’s biography for a tennis book club.
Bonus Great Courses
I am mildly obsessed with the Great Courses audible editions. I cannot listen to podcasts, but college lectures are just… lovely, especially with no consequences (so if I fall asleep on a plane or in bed to the French Revolution lesson on Robespierre’s early days, it’s not consequential. This summer, I finished the French Revolution class I began in March and listened to Economics, 3rd edition (wow that got neocon real fast and strayed from basic economic principles to how to think about personal finance).
I do miss Twitter. I do think my writing is so much more on point when I am forced to be pithy and appeal to wider audiences, and I worry about the long term effects on my writing (hence Substack). But, I also am glad I am burning my intellectual energy in ways that are helping me understand where I live, at least.