Book Reviews

Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to do About it. by Richard V. Reeves.

I heard Richard Reeves on Public Radio last winter and his research resonated with me. We have done great work over the past 20-30 years at promoting girls / women to better careers (we still have more to do) but there is something going on with the males. While I was at the community college a local middle school counselor came to me explaining that they had this special day for all the girls who went to the state capital for some type of event, leaving the boys behind…with nothing to do.

What’s the message to the boys? They could not do regular school work because the girls would miss it. So the boys had a “nothing” day. The middle school counselor asked if we could do a career day for the boys. Which we did and it was a huge success. But don’t the girls need career development?

Reeves argues that we need to continue to do the work with girls & women and that his concerns are not to the detriment of that work, but that we need to strive for gender equity. Both genders should rise together.

We currently have more women attending college, more men in drug overdoses, suicide, alcohol related diseases, and unemployed. The men have been hit hard in employment as manufacturing in the US has been reduced or shipped overseas as well as other heavy industries.

The research he shares is wide and varied. He shows that women mature earlier than men creating an educational gap. One suggestion he has is to create an extra year for the boys so they begin school a little older which would help them mostly in middle / high school.

One quote that resonated with me was from the Headmaster at Stowe School in England who said his goal was to, “cultivating men who would be acceptable at a dance and invaluable in a shipwreck.” Reeves recognizes that males are inherently different from women in that they are physically stronger, willing to take more risks (which gets them into trouble occasionally), and are protective. But, they also have another side to them that should be “acceptable at a dance” and that is the side of males we as a society should be cultivating more.

There is so much good information to sift through that I literally want to reread this book. So I may add more to this post in the future. But here are some recommendations from the author that are interesting to consider.

1. extra year of Pre-K for the boys
2. recruitment of more male teachers (we need to show that males can do many jobs that women are currently doing…just like we’ve done with women).
   Another quote I loved has been for females for years, “women can do any job a man can do“.
   Now we need to take that quote for men and allow men to consider what Reeves calls, “HEAL” occupations. Health, Education, Administration, Literacy).
3. increase vocational / technical education. This has been a soapbox for me for years. We have removed industrial arts from most high schools and too often, made it look like vocational-technical education was for people who could not do college prep. My brother is a furniture designer who thrived in all the industrial arts classes our HS offered. It allowed him to show skills that he had that had a use in our society.

Society needs to tackle this issue of losing our boys/men and NOT to the detriment of the good work we are doing for females, but we need be equitable in how we advance both genders.

Men have been privileged for centuries. It’s hard to believe that most of the college educated people in the US were white men until the 1950’s and that most of the decision makers in politics and businesses have been men. We have much work to do on those fronts. But lets not lose the boys either.

FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War. by A.J. Baime

I grew up in a south-end suburb of Detroit so I knew many of the places and people mentioned here; the Rouge, Willow Run, Chevrolet, Ford, and more. but I did not know of the significance of much of this for us winning the war in Europe. Simply we built more airplanes than Germany and Japan could shoot down.

I had heard stories of Henry Ford and all the great things he did, like manufacture affordable cars for the common man, pay a working wage, the foundation of Greenfield Village (which I love going to every time I go home), and even stories from my grandpa Peacock.

*My Grandpa Peacock was an engineer on Detroit, Toledo, Ironton (DTI) trains and Henry Ford owned that line. Mr. Ford was a non-drinker, non-smoker and would literally fire people on the spot if he caught them smoking or chewing tobacco. My dad told me that his dad had to swallow a chaw of tobacco once because Henry Ford made a surprise visit! People swallowed cigarettes too.

The US was not in WWII and wanted to stay out of it. We also did not produce many airplanes, in particular not to what Germany was producing. Germany had taken over manufacturing planes, tanks, submarines, and all kinds of vehicles and munitions to take over Europe. The USA sat by and watched Germany roll through Poland, France, and heading to Great Britain. They had no solution to stopping Germany. The needed the US to help.

The US was producing cars at a huge rate and all the pieces and parts to make cars. Once Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, the US was in and FDR gave his speech on the “arsenal of democracy” that lead us into the war. In other words, the only way to win this war was to out produce Hitler. And that is what we did.

Henry Ford was a pacifist but his son Edsel could see the importance of converting to making planes. And that is indeed what he did.

Hitler was producing 18,000 war planes each year. The US…basically zero n 1940. FDR wanted to produce 50,000 planes a year. We needed the 4 Engine B-24 Liberator weighing 50,000 pounds and Edsel Ford’s goal was to produce one per hour and had to build the Willow Run plant to do it.

This story is mind boggling in the size of what needed to be done. Not just by Ford but all manufacturing in the country i.e. tanks, jeeps, bullets, and more. The author is readable and believable as he explains the magnitude of what needed to happen and the personalities involved mostly within the Ford company. Including the thugs that Henry Ford hired to try and keep his employees in line.

The sinister side of Henry Ford was that he was also an anti-Semite and actually received one of the highest civilian awards that Germany offered at the time…from Hitler! Holy crap…I had no idea.

I love reading historical novels and this novel is a historical gem with the references included in what happened by whom. Plus having come from that area, it was a joy to read.

I had read Leon Uris’ Exodus years ago and it framed my view of what was happening in the Middle East. This book offers a much broader view of what has happened in Israel. Wow, my heart aches for the Palestinian’s and the Jews. Both people are the right to feel hurt.

The author does a great job and presenting both sides of the history of this region from the Jews trying to find a safe place to live after the atrocities of Hitler’s regime and the Palestinians who were moved out of their homes and taken over by the Jews.

I can’t say that I totally understand all that has gone on there, but I can admit that Israel has been given a more positive outlook in the US than they deserve. I’ve always been appalled that Israel continues to build homes in contested land and this book highlights that they have acted more like a bully to the Palestinians in many cases.

Palestinians have used violence too often but I can certainly understand how difficult it must be to have been removed from your homes and not allowed to go back.

By doing extensive interviews with 100’s of people on both sides, the author has painted a much more inclusive view of the issues. By using an Arab, Bashir and a friendship with a Jew, Dalia as the main people explaining the issues, it gives a much more personal view of the issues.

It is an eye-opening book and a sad one too as the conflict continues to this day. So much more to write and not enough time for me to do it. I also must continue to reflect on it. I highly recommend this book to everyone to gain more understanding of what is going on in the Middle East.

By Stacy Schiff

Wow! I had no idea how important Samuel Adams was to the revolution and creation of our country. What an interesting man he must have been. He was the guy working the crowds in the bars and other meeting places…getting the carpenters, masons, and other folks like them informed and riled up.

The British liked working with the elite, but that is NOT who started our revolution. Samuel Adams’ father was a brewer and handed it down to Samuel but poor Samuel did not have a good handle on running a business. He was broke or poor most of his adult life. But he did know how to start a revolution.

He had a keen sense of right and wrong and was a prolific writer, under many names. The truth was not always his goal. Sometimes it was just to make a point and get the colonies to pay attention to how England was treating them. He was behind the Boston Tea Party but, like so many other things, he rarely left any fingerprints.

The author writes in a way that kept my attention every time I read it. Samuel has not received the credit he deserves until now. His cousin John Adams was with him many times but they both worked very differently.

If you want a good book about the revolutionary times and want to see a side of the revolution you probably have not seen before, read this one.