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Saturday, August 2, 2014

2 Great Books: "The Big Burn" And "Rising Tide." Elemental Histories Of Water & Fire

Image result for the big burn roosevelt

Dear Ian,

The following New York Times article might interest yo:This Is Law School?


Recently, I spoke with neighbor John, an environmental lawyer who taught Law at Tulane for 20 years. 


He strongly recommends "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America."  Sounds like a great read. http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Tide-Mississippi-Changed-America/dp/0684840022  

If you remember, mention it to your Mom and Dad.  John says the "enveloping history" of "Rising Tide" will give them immediate "grounding" in their new home. 

The title is reminiscent of the best book I've read in decades: "The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and The Fire That Saved America." http://www.amazon.com/Big-Burn-Teddy-Roosevelt-America/dp/0547394608/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406987769&sr=1-1&keywords=the+big+burn (Author, Timothy Egan, the New York Times' Pacific Northwest correspondent, shares your Jesuit training.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Egan)


Like "Rising Tide," "The Big Burn" is wrapped in a broader history that propels a rollicking ride through "Robber Baron" econo-politics and Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive reaction to them. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/01/theodore-roosevelt-making-of.html

Said Teddy: "Malefactors of great wealth are curses to the country." 

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/03/teddy-roosevelt-best-thing-ever-said-by.html

Hope all is well.


Pax tecum


Alan


"Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to the basest uses —whether these uses be to speculate in stocks and wreck railroads himself, or to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and expensive idleness and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high social position, foreign or native, for his daughter. Such a man is only the more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like founding a college or endowing a church, which makes those good people who are also foolish forget his real iniquity. These men are equally careless of the working men, whom they oppress, and of the State, whose existence they imperil. There are not very many of them, but there is a very great number of men who approach more or less closely to the type, and, just in so far as they do so approach, they are curses to the country." 
(Forum, February 1895.) Mem.Ed. XV, 10; Nat. Ed. XIII, 9.
Republican President Teddy Roosevelt
Spearhead Of Progressive Politics
Wikiquote


Chesterton: "To Get All That Money, You Must Be Dull Enough To Want It"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/chesterton-to-get-all-that-money-you.html



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