Ill Literacy: Books with Benson

Latest Episodes:

Ill Literacy, Episode 135: The Race to Zero (Guest: Paul H. Tice) Mar 19, 2024

Show notes

In Episode 134 of Ill Literacy, Tim Benson talks with Paul H. Tice, author of The Race to Zero: How ESG Investing Will Crater the Global Financial System.

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Paul H. Tice, retired Wall-Streeter and adjunct professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business, to discuss his new book, The Race to Zero: How ESG Investing Will Crater the Global Financial System. They chat about why ESG and “sustainable investing” has swept across Wall Street, why it has received so little pushback so far, and what the consequences of this new scheme will mean for the global financial system. They also discuss what can be done to push back on this attempted ESG orthodoxy.

Get the book here: https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/the-race-to-zero/

Ill Literacy, Episode 134: Drums & Demons (Guest: Joel Selvin) Mar 12, 2024

Show notes

In Episode 133 of Ill Literacy, Tim Benson talks with Joel Selvin, author ofDrums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon.

Heartland’s Tim Benson is once again joined by Joel Selvin, long-time rock critic at the San Francisco Chronicle, to discuss his new book, Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon. They chat about why Selvin thinks Gordon is the greatest rock drummer of all time, what makes Gordon so unique as a musician, the impact he’s had on American popular music, and his undiagnosed schizophrenia and the tragic second half of his life.

Get the book here: https://diversionbooks.com/books/drums-demons/

Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany (Guest: Katja Hoyer) Mar 04, 2024

Show notes

Heartland’s Tim Benson is once again joined by Katja Hoyer, research fellow at King’s College London, to discuss her new book, Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany. They chat about the political, social, and cultural landscape that existed in East Germany, the oppressions and hardships implemented and placed on the East German population by the communist regime, and why East Germans were so into blue jeans.

Get the book here: https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/katja-hoyer/beyond-the-wall/9781541602571/

Show Notes:
Commentary: Clare McHugh – “East of Eden”
https://www.commentary.org/articles/clare-mchugh/east-germany-katja-hoyer-matthew-longo/

The Critic: David Goodhart – “The country that went to the wall”
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/may-2023/the-country-that-went-to-the-wall/

The Economist: “Beyond the Wall adds depth to caricatures of East Germany”
https://www.economist.com/culture/2023/03/23/beyond-the-wall-adds-depth-to-caricatures-of-east-germany

The European Conservative: Jonathon Van Maren – “The Personal Narratives of Hoyer’s Beyond the Wall”
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/reviews/the-personal-narratives-of-hoyers-beyond-the-wall/

Financial Times: Frederick Studemann – “Katja Hoyer: we need to hear ‘the whole story’ about East Germany”
https://www.ft.com/content/3f26324f-081c-47de-a168-4fdf03a1e4ed

Foreign Policy: Allison Meakem – “A Tale of Two Germanies”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/10/01/germany-east-west-reunification-book-review-katja-hoyer-michael-kater/

The Guardian: Jacob Mikanowski – “Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer review – the human face of the socialist state”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/02/beyond-the-wall-by-katja-hoyer-review-far-from-the-gdr-of-the-western-imagination-east-germany-1949-1990

Literary Review: John Kampfner – “Honecker’s Hidden Pleasures”
https://literaryreview.co.uk/honeckers-hidden-pleasures

Los Angeles Review of Books: Matthew Longo – “Ostalgie: Revisiting East Germany”
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/ostalgie-revisiting-east-germany/

The New Republic: Samuel Clowes Huneke – “The Lost History of East Germany”
https://newrepublic.com/article/175286/lost-history-east-germany-katya-hoyer-beyond-wall-book-review

New York Times: Kati Marton – “Life During Cold Wartime in East Berlin”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/books/review/beyond-the-wall-katja-hoyer.html

The Telegraph: Saul David – “Willkommen to the GDR! A warts-and-all history of East Germany”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/beyond-wall-katja-hoyer-review-brilliant-warts-and-all-history/

The Times: Dominic Sandbrook – “Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer review: real life in East Germany”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/beyond-the-wall-by-katja-hoyer-review-real-life-in-east-germany-qjzx603rt

Times Literary Supplement: Karen Leeder – “Goodbye, GDR!”
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/beyond-the-wall-katja-hoyer-book-review-karen-leeder/

Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction (Guest: Fergus M. Bordewich) Feb 21, 2024

Show notes

Heartland’s Tim Benson is once again joined by Fergus M. Bordewich to discuss his new book, Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction. They chat about the formation of the Ku Klux Klan and the terroristic violence they committed against both new freed blacks and white Republicans, and how Grant and a Republican Congress went about destroying the Klan and protecting civil rights for newly freedmen in the postbellum South.

Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/647165/klan-war-by-fergus-m-bordewich/

Show Notes:

The Guardian: Rich Tenorio – “Klan War: how Ulysses S Grant took the fight to the extreme right”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/08/klan-war-ulysses-s-grant-book-fergus-bordewich

National Review: Kevin R. Kosar: “Ulysses S. Grant’s Final Battle”
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2024/01/ulysses-s-grants-final-battle/

New York Times: Jennifer Szalai – “The President vs. the Klan”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/11/books/review/klan-war-fergus-bordewich.html

Wall Street Journal: Roger Lowenstein – “‘Klan War’ Review: The Agony After Appomattox”
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/klan-war-review-the-agony-after-appomattox-957ed319

My Day with Abe Lincoln (Guest: Jonathan W. White) Feb 06, 2024

Show notes

Heartland’s Tim Benson is once again joined by Jonathan W. White, professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University and winner of the 2023 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, to discuss his new children’s book, My Day with Abe Lincoln. They chat about why he wanted to write a children’s book, where he drew his inspiration from, and whether he has plans for any more books in the series.

Get the book here: https://www.reedypress.com/shop/my-day-with-abe-lincoln/

The Beloved Vision: A History of Nineteenth Century Music Jan 11, 2024

Show notes

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Stephen Walsh, Emeritus Professor of Music at Cardiff University, to discuss his book, The Beloved Vision: A History of Nineteenth Century Music. They chat about the music of the nineteenth century and the Romantic tradition and how it has moved generations of musicians and resonated with countless listeners. They also talk about the ideas that lay behind Romanticism and how Romantic music has become the mainstay of the twentieth and twenty-first century concert and operatic repertoire.

Get the book here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Beloved-Vision/Stephen-Walsh/9781639362363

Show Notes:

Wall Street Journal: Barton Swaim – “‘The Beloved Vision’ Review: The Age of Musical Amateurs”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-beloved-vision-book-review-the-age-of-musical-amateurs-11673629786

Ill Literacy, Episode 129: The New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights (Guest: David T. Beito) Jan 02, 2024

Show notes

In Episode 129 of Ill Literacy, Tim Benson talks with David T. Beito, author ofThe New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR’s Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance.

Heartland’s Tim Benson joined by David T. Beito, Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama, to discuss his new book, The New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR’s Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance. They chat about Roosevelt’s intellectual roots, his willingness to put the New Deal regulatory and welfare state apparatus at the service of big city machine bosses to quash civil liberties, and his and his allies’ attacks on the speech rights of newspaper publishers and radio stations. They also discuss FDR’s true role in the internment of Japanese Americans and whether the Second World War was a “good war” for free speech and civil liberties compared to the Great War.

Get the book here: https://www.independent.org/store/book.asp?id=142

Show Notes:

National Review: Timothy Sandefur – “FDR’s Campaign of Intimidation”

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2023/10/16/fdrs-campaign-of-intimidation/

Reason: David T. Beito – “How FDR Emasculated the Black Press in World War II”

https://reason.com/2023/12/27/how-fdr-emasculated-the-black-press-in-world-war-ii/

Reason: David T. Beito – “When the Left and Right Came Together To Applaud Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”

https://reason.com/2023/09/23/when-the-left-and-right-came-together-to-applaud-mr-smith-goes-to-washington/

Final Resting Places: Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves (Guest: Jonathan W. White) Dec 11, 2023

Show notes

Heartland’s Tim Benson is once again joined by Jonathan W. White, professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University and winner of the 2023 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, to discuss his new co-edited book, Final Resting Places: Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves. They chat about how he and co-editor Brian Matthew Jordan thought up the project and how they went about gathering contributors. They also discuss how each gravesite tells a unique story of how someone lived, how they died, how they were mourned, and how they were remembered. They also delve into what death and memorialization meant to the Civil War generation and how those meanings still influence Americans today.

Get the book here: https://ugapress.org/book/9780820364551/final-resting-places/

Shipwrecked: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade-Running, and the Slave Trade (Guest: Jonathan W. White) Nov 21, 2023

Show notes

Heartland’s Tim Benson is once again joined by Jonathan W. White, professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University and winner of the 2023 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, to discuss his book, Shipwrecked: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade-Running, and the Slave Trade. They chat about Appleton Oaksmith, sea captain and probable slave trader, and how his life intersected with some of the most important moments, movements, and individuals of the mid-19th century. They also discuss the extraordinary lengths the Lincoln Administration went to destroy the illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Get the book here: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538175019/Shipwrecked-A-True-Civil-War-Story-of-Mutinies-Jailbreaks-Blockade-Running-and-the-Slave-Trade
Show Notes:
Lincoln Presidential Foundation: “Four Score Speaker Series: Dr. Jonathan W. White” (VIDEO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzWiJYWTXpA
New York Times: Dorothy Wickenden – “The Sea Captain Who Ran From Abraham Lincoln”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/books/review/shipwrecked-jonathan-w-white.html
U.S. National Archives: “Shipwrecked: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade-Running, and the Slave Trade” (VIDEO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQsTUdOFrC8

The Last Campaign: Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America (Guest: H.W. Brands) Oct 23, 2023

Show notes

Heartland’s Tim Benson is once again joined by H.W. Brands, Dickson Allen Anderson Centennial Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin, to discuss his book, The Last Campaign: Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America. They chat about what made both Sherman and Geronimo keen strategists and bold soldiers and how, over the course of the 1870s and 1880s, these two war chiefs would confront each other in the final battle for what the American West would be.
Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/677161/the-last-campaign-by-h-w-brands/
Show Notes:
The Economist: “’The Last Campaign’ chronicles the final American frontier wars”
https://www.economist.com/culture/2022/11/22/the-last-campaign-chronicles-the-final-american-frontier-wars
Law & Liberty: Ralph L. DeFalco III – “The Last War for America”
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-last-war-for-america/
Literary Hub: H.W. Brands – “How Grief and Revenge Made Geronimo Into a Legendary War Chief”
https://lithub.com/how-grief-and-revenge-made-geronimo-into-a-legendary-war-chief/

Wall Street Journal: Andrew R. Graybill – “‘The Last Campaign’ Review: Battles of Sherman and Geronimo”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-last-campaign-review-the-battles-of-sherman-and-geronimo-433f814e

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