During my early teen years, I read a bunch of books my parents had laying around. There was quite a variety since many of the books were the popular fiction of the 1970s or books they had read during high school or college (the marginalia gave away which books were which). I read everything from First Blood and Shōgun to Watership Down and a collection of Mark Twain short stories. I don’t know how much I remember from these books, a few of which were probably beyond my years. Although I could understand the words and the basic plot, the subject matter was sometimes too violent or too sexually graphic for the young teenage mind, and I tend to remember those sequences in the stories instead of the story lines. Another book that resulted in a similar experience for me was 1984, although I did understand it enough to know that it was a warning against various political ideologies, including communism.
1984 is considered by many to be the epitomy of the dystopian (utopia gone wrong) novel, but it was not the first. Many years before 1984 was written, Russian author Eugene Zamiatin wrote We (ISBN: 0-525-47039-5). Zamiatin wrote his book, this edition translated by Gregory Zilboorg, to protest the direction the Bolshevik Party was taking the Soviet Union. Zamiatin was a Bolshevik, but did not subscribe to the Leninist idea of zero tolerance for dissenting ideas within the party. In the book, there is one, giant state (called the United State) that controls every single aspect of its citizens’ lives, down to the number of times they chew their state-provided food rations. The protagonist is one of the elite thanks to his role as the designer of a very advanced spaceship that will soon export the ideas and ways of the United State to some other people (ostensibly on another planet). He starts a journal since all citizens were encouraged to write something to send on the rocket. However, he meets another citizen, an attractive female, who introduces him to some concepts he’d never thought of before, such as acting and thinking for oneself. He is eventually introduced to people outside the walls of the United State, and a plan is hatched to use a test flight of the rocket to get both disaffected citizens of the United State and the people outside the wall to some new place in the world. The plan doesn’t go off, though, thanks to a spy, and the protagonist is forced to undergo a radical new surgery that removes his ability to imagine and then watches as the woman he loved is tortured. After the operation, he is again completely loyal to the totalitarian regime.
The book was an interesting read, largely because it seemed so relevant to today. State control of every aspect of our lives seems to be something we’re slowly moving toward. I found the food example to be particularly germane with various cities, schools, and other government-run organizations banning particular foods. One example that seemed to go against modern statist ideas (and this failing to foresee modern statist tendencies was present in 1984, too) was the United State’s desire to control its citizens’ sex lives. Modern statists preach sexual promiscuity and encourage uncontrolled sexual expression, no matter the consequences. (On the other hand, population control seeems to be the end goal of both.) It goes without saying that much that goes on in the schools in America is similar to the schools of the United State. Thinking for oneself is not encouraged, but parroting revisionist history and other ideas is. The logic so highly touted by the United State, kids in schools are taught that some ephemeral concept called science is where all trust should be placed. It is interesting to see how the government in We preached that by eliminating choices, eliminating people’s ability to imagine, and making people more and more the same (i.e., social equality), they would acheive true happiness. Of course, nothing is farther from the truth, and the characters in We recognized that once they had experienced the ability to think for themselves and make their own decisions. Liberty, the ability to make a choice, is what allows us to experience true happiness. It does not intrinsically bring us happiness, but allows us to choose those things that do bring happiness, and we can do that regardless of the ability of poeple around us to make poor decisions. As Zamiatin realized, we don’t need a state directing our decisions; we need the ability to present and live by our own precepts. We need liberty.
1984 is considered by many to be the epitomy of the dystopian (utopia gone wrong) novel, but it was not the first. Many years before 1984 was written, Russian author Eugene Zamiatin wrote We (ISBN: 0-525-47039-5). Zamiatin wrote his book, this edition translated by Gregory Zilboorg, to protest the direction the Bolshevik Party was taking the Soviet Union. Zamiatin was a Bolshevik, but did not subscribe to the Leninist idea of zero tolerance for dissenting ideas within the party. In the book, there is one, giant state (called the United State) that controls every single aspect of its citizens’ lives, down to the number of times they chew their state-provided food rations. The protagonist is one of the elite thanks to his role as the designer of a very advanced spaceship that will soon export the ideas and ways of the United State to some other people (ostensibly on another planet). He starts a journal since all citizens were encouraged to write something to send on the rocket. However, he meets another citizen, an attractive female, who introduces him to some concepts he’d never thought of before, such as acting and thinking for oneself. He is eventually introduced to people outside the walls of the United State, and a plan is hatched to use a test flight of the rocket to get both disaffected citizens of the United State and the people outside the wall to some new place in the world. The plan doesn’t go off, though, thanks to a spy, and the protagonist is forced to undergo a radical new surgery that removes his ability to imagine and then watches as the woman he loved is tortured. After the operation, he is again completely loyal to the totalitarian regime.The book was an interesting read, largely because it seemed so relevant to today. State control of every aspect of our lives seems to be something we’re slowly moving toward. I found the food example to be particularly germane with various cities, schools, and other government-run organizations banning particular foods. One example that seemed to go against modern statist ideas (and this failing to foresee modern statist tendencies was present in 1984, too) was the United State’s desire to control its citizens’ sex lives. Modern statists preach sexual promiscuity and encourage uncontrolled sexual expression, no matter the consequences. (On the other hand, population control seeems to be the end goal of both.) It goes without saying that much that goes on in the schools in America is similar to the schools of the United State. Thinking for oneself is not encouraged, but parroting revisionist history and other ideas is. The logic so highly touted by the United State, kids in schools are taught that some ephemeral concept called science is where all trust should be placed. It is interesting to see how the government in We preached that by eliminating choices, eliminating people’s ability to imagine, and making people more and more the same (i.e., social equality), they would acheive true happiness. Of course, nothing is farther from the truth, and the characters in We recognized that once they had experienced the ability to think for themselves and make their own decisions. Liberty, the ability to make a choice, is what allows us to experience true happiness. It does not intrinsically bring us happiness, but allows us to choose those things that do bring happiness, and we can do that regardless of the ability of poeple around us to make poor decisions. As Zamiatin realized, we don’t need a state directing our decisions; we need the ability to present and live by our own precepts. We need liberty.
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As with having a prophet, the modern Church has the same organizational leadership structure as the ancient Church. That means we have apostles just as the ancient Jews and Nephites did. While only the senior apostle can exercise all of the revelatory and administrative keys for the Church, the apostles are also prophets, seers, and revelators. Even when not acting in an official capacity, it is worth listening to their counsel. In One More Strain of Praise (ISBN: 1-57008-679-6), Neal A. Maxwell offered some of just that type of counsel. Elder Maxwell briefly recounted some of the experiences of his life, including his battle with cancer, because he thought they had taught him something and made him a better person. He explained that he was able to better comprehend and understand Christ's atonement, His infinite love, and the interplay between mercy and justice. He explained how this critical understanding helped him and can help all people be happier, be more grateful, and share both the message of the atonement and the accompanying joy through loving service.
In 1776: The Illustrated Edition (ISBN: 978-1-4165-4210-0) by David McCullough, the award-winning writer and historian added a little bit of a twist to his seminal 1776: paintings, maps, copies of original documents, and other visual aids that help bring the drama America's first year as an independent nation to life. The book chronicles the activities of the colonists and the British throughout the year. Since the Revolutionary War lasted another six years, there is actually not a whole lot of Revolutionary War coverage in the book, but the set-up is there, and the key battles of the year, such as Washington's crossing of the Delaware to defeat formidable and intimidating Hessian forces, are there in great detail. McCullough explains the significance of the actions of Congress, Parliament, and the two belligerent armies. As the year comes to a close, the stage is set for the next few years of war, but one could easily predict the eventual outcome given the improbable patriot successes and the momentum they, regarded as simple "rabble" by the elite British forces, had gained in such a short time.
In the Turkish extermination of the ethnic Armenian population within Turkey's borders during World War I, German author Franz Werfel thought he saw something the world should learn from. To bring that message to the forefront, he wrote The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (ISBN: 978-1-56792-407-7). The novel is a fictionalized account of a home-grown Armenian resistance movement that succeeded in holding off far superior — numerically and technically — Turkish forces for fifty-three days (Werfel's forty days were a reference to the symbolic Biblical number), at which point French and British warships rescued the survivors. The book chronicles the efforts of (the fictional) Gabriel Bagradian and the villagers as they live off the land, fight valiantly for their freedom, and deal with everyday problems exacerbated by the situation. The story is, of course, an adventure story, what with the battles, mutiny, illicit love, petty jealousies, special missions, and a wide array of characters from mayors, widows, common criminals, and carpenters to German foreign ministry officers, priests, Turkish military leaders, and French admirals. Werfel told their stories in an attempt to warn the German people that they were headed into something eerily similar with the Germans playing the role of the Turks and the Jews the Armenians. Werfel's account ends with one twist of his imagination, leaving Bagradian on his hard-won mountain to face certain death, but death as a free man.
The collection of essays contained in Volatile Borderland: Russia and the North Caucasus (ISBN: 978-0-9830842-1-1), edited by Glen E. Howard, is an attempt at shedding some light on the movers and shakers of the Russian North Caucasus, what the future holds, and what is driving current reforms, repressions, and realities. The authors are experts on Russia and the Caucasus, all either professors, journalists, or similarly qualified experts and policy advisors. Chechnya, Dagestan, Krasnodar, and Sochi and the various peoples that inhabit them are prominent players in the analysis, but exotic-sounding places like Adygeya and Kabardino-Balkaria also garner significant attention because they form a buffer zone between the explosive and more Islamic eastern North Caucasus and the rest of European Russia. As with most places in the world where high unemployment, Islamist thought, and rampant corruption have mixed, the North Caucasus is a tinderbox. The Russian authorities have tried a mixture of ridiculously high federal subsidies and oppressive, totalitarian-style control, which seems to be tenuously holding things under control, but most of the essayists agree that this situation could go at any time.
In Daniel Defoe's classic fiction, Robinson Crusoe (ISBN: 978-0-14-143982-2), the eponymous hero is also initially rather suspicious of his chances of survival after being shipwrecked in the middle of nowhere. Having already lived through one adventure, he decides to give survival everything he's got, and works hard to salvage things from his old ship; learns through trial and error various farming, carpentry, sewing, hunting, and pottery skills; and explores the deserted island to learn just what is at his disposal. Two things change his situation immensely: one, he comes to be a more fully committed and believing Christian, and two, he saves an Indian from his cannibal pursuers, thereby gaining the Indian's services for life. That really comes in handy when Crusoe must fend off other cannibals and then a mutinous ship crew. In the end, Crusoe considers himself greatly blessed as he is able to save some lives, a ship, and get back to England, where he settles into a comfortable, middle-class life.
In his very thoroughly researched work, George Washington's Sacred Fire (ISBN: 978-0-9786052-6-8), Peter A. Lillback (with Jerry Newcombe), attacks the revisionist history of my fifth grade class. The book is a very careful examination of the case that has been made and widely accepted regarding Washington's deism. Lillback explains the arguments that writers, including a Paul Boller that seems to have written the standard in Washington religion-related books up to this point, have used to cast our founding father as a deist. He then picks those arguments apart one by one. He does this largely based on Washington's own words. He claims that this concept has received the short end of the stick throughout time. One prominent example is that it is often claimed Washington never or almost never used the name of Deity. Lillback found, after carefully combing through everything Washington ever wrote, that he not only used the name of Jesus Christ, he used hundreds upon hundreds of other names and titles for God, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Similar research and proof were conducted and presented regarding other arguments against Washington being a Christian including topics as varied as communion, service attendance, other religiously-motivated behavior, knowledge of the Bible, and library holdings (Washington collected, signed, and sometimes commented on religious books, including compendiums of sermons). Lillback carefully establishes that Washington communed, attended services and participated in his church community, knew the Bible inside and out, owned many Christian books (and no deist ones), and, arguably most importantly, lived a Christian life. That final bit is important, because even though Lillback amply proves through Washington's own words (the main text of the book is over 700 pages; the appendices, including hundreds of excerpts from Washington's written prayers or communications where he indicates he is praying, are a couple hundred more), one must always remember with Washington, it was "deeds, not words."
In On All Fronts: Czechoslovaks in World War II, Part 3 (ISBN: 0-88033-456-8), edited by Lewis M. White, there are many stories of people with Czechoslovak heritage fighting and resisting the Nazi occupation of their beloved land, fighting with the Allies to overthrow the Germans, and then fighting an unexpected enemy, their major liberator, when the USSR decided to prop up a Communist dictatorship in the post-war years. The book consists of short contributions from a wide variety of Czechoslovaks involved in the war in one way or another. The vast majority are contributions from men who served as officers in Czechoslovak regiments of Allied militaries. Many served in the French Foreign Legion, others in the Royal Air Force, and a disproportionately large number served in the Red Army. Other stories were from members of the underground resistance or partisans. All had a very common theme: the liberation of what was a free and democratic country from the grips of a totalitarian Nazi government. Stories of tense minutes hiding under the floorboards of a stranger's house, fighting off German tanks on swampy riverbanks, forced treks through the snowbound and freezing Tatras, and high-flying adventure in the skies over enemy territory make for interesting reading, especially since it is about a group that doesn't get much billing in the usual run-down of the history of World War II. While the book largely focuses on military successes, there is room for a few stories of defeat as well as some realism that describes the banalities and redundancies that afflict all military bureaucracies the world over in all eras. The end of the book sees a little change in focus as the stories do not have so much to do with the vanquished Germans, but with the intruding Red Army that presented a much different face than the French, the British, and the Americans.
In 2008, my question was answered, and the Church published Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith for use in priesthood and Relief Society meetings throughout 2008 and 2009. Following the standard format, the book contains some historical information on Joseph Smith and then two years' worth of lessons (47 chapters in this case). Each one is about one or another aspect of the gospel. For the most part, the content of the chapters is taken directly from Joseph Smith's writings or sermons. As a result of the nature of the time he lived in, a healthy amount of the material from his sermons is according to a scribe or someone who heard the message first-hand and then wrote it on their own. All of the content has been carefully checked and corroborated by Church historians and editors before being approved by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. There is no room for doubt that one is reading the words of the prophet that opened this dispensation. The words, or the things we are all supposed to learn and come to know as true, explain just why this period of time on Earth, with the fully restored true church, is so special. From the Book of Mormon to the nature of God and from true priesthood authority to faith and from the organization of the Church to the reality of a living prophet, Joseph Smith laid out the teachings of God as he worked to restore the fullness of the gospel, and now we can read about it.
It took eight years, but Heimerdinger finally got around to writing the sequel, Escape from Zarahemla (ISBN: 978-1-60861-539-1). In it, Kerra, Brock, their father, Chris, and their grandfather, Grandpa Lee, purposefully head off into a mysterious "rift in time" to see about some of the people left behind — Chris's Nephite wife and kid as well as Kerra's childhood friend (and now love interest), the Nephite soldier Kiddoni. It doesn't take but a few seconds before they're entangled in an ongoing war between the righteous Nephites and Lamanites, who have banded together to take on the Gadianton robbers. The twist to the whole thing is that the Gadiantons have someone in their midst trying to usurp power, a man rumored to practice a magic even blacker than that of your everyday Gadianton, Akuhuun. Like all Heimerdinger adventures, the books, written for teenagers, move along quickly, and you're pulled right into the action, of which there is never a shortage. One adventure after another befalls characters from throughout history, including an unexpected turn involving one of the gangsters that wanted to kill Brock after Brock ditched a quarter million worth of illegal drugs in the first book. In the end, it seems like things are good, notwithstanding the honorable deaths of a few of the good guys, especially since Chris and his family are reunited, as are Kerra and Kiddoni.
No matter my view of the world, a gripping story of international intrigue, raw, primordial bravery, faith, and patriotism, is told by Betty Mahmoody and William Hoffer in Not without My Daughter (ISBN: 0-312-92588-3), a memoir of Mahmoody's experiences when her husband took her and their daughter to Iran and then forcibly kept them there. Mahmoody starts with her flight to Iran from America's heartland, where she spent her entire life and moved from her blue-collar beginnings to entertaining and comfort of the upper middle class thanks to her Iranian husband. She had various reasons for agreeing on the flight to Iran, but staying there indefinitely wasn't one of them. That such a plan is her husband's plan is apparent within a week of arrival, and it's made worse by the fact that most of his family, and like most eastern cultures, family connections are extensive, is in on the kidnapping. Mahmoody and her kindergarten-age daughter, Mahtob, endure the next two years under what amounts to house arrest in an unfamiliar and usually hostile foreign land where hatred for America is not only the official line, but something many citizens openly and actively agree with. Eventually, Mahmoody is able to make contacts with various people, some simple shopkeepers, some foreign government officials, and others who are just the universal kind-hearted person you always hope exists out there. She uses these contacts to organize a treacherous escape for her and her daughter, and through a few minor miracles, they are smuggled to freedom.
In his fifth edition of his best-selling book, The World's Most Dangerous Places (ISBN: 978-0-06-001160-4), so-called extreme travel guru and author Robert Young Pelton explores some of the ins and outs of places that are most definitely off the beaten path. He talks about some of the things one is likely to run into if you're trying to see the sights in Afghanistan, Iran, Zimbabwe, North Korea, or Russia. The guide gives rather extensive information on adventure travel and the various ways to make it a reality in your life. Then it delves into specific countries or regions (Chechnya, somehow, gets its own chapter even though Russia is also covered as a whole). Each country or region gets a general overview, a run-down of some of the famous nutters that make the place a dangerous place to be, a list of other dangers that run the gamut from landmines to "67% of the hookers have AIDS," an idea of what getting a visa is like, and a list of some dates in the place's history that featured much death and general mayhem. The book ends with a few more lists featuring things like what adventure tourists should pack and organizations that help people experience the crazy parts of the world while trying to "make a difference."
A couple years ago, the Church issued a new version of Gospel Principles, which had historically been used in classes for newly baptized members of the Church or for those who had not yet been baptized. This new version, though, has been used as the main course of study in Relief Society and Melchizedek priesthood meetings throughout 2010 and 2011. It is just what the title says it is. It has forty-seven chapters on key subjects like faith, repentance, baptism, marriage, tithing, chastity, fasting, the Millennium, and the final judgement. If there is a basic tenet of the gospel — something you really need to know to be saved — it's in here. There are abundant references to the scriptures, explanations from modern-day prophets, and even pictures and illustrations that explain and teach things, too. It's a great resource for personal study as well as for a starting point when one has a lesson to teach or a talk to give. My experience with the older edition is somewhat limited (the Russian edition while I was on my mission), so I can't make comparisons, but there's really no need. The point of the manual is written on the front cover: "[to] come to the knowledge of their Redeemer and the very points of his doctrine, that they may know how to come unto him and be saved" (1 Nephi 15:14).
In his book The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence (ISBN: 978-0-440-50883-0), Gavin de Becker attempts to help people push irrational fear out of their lives so they can be properly attuned to true fear, which he claims is a positive aspect of our bodies' natural reaction to things. Fear, he says, helps us respond appropriately to situations that have a real chance of resulting in our being harmed or killed. De Becker is an expert on security issues, criminal justice, and public safety. His book reflects that in that most of the examples and the topics of discussion involve things like corporate safety, dating safety, and child abuse. As one with a wide range of experience — personal, research, and professional — the examples given are not only gripping, but provide lessons learned. De Becker explains how we can often predict violence and gives some suggestions on how to get out of those potentially violent situations with minimal damage done. As someone who has found much of what Glenn Latham says in his book The Power of Positive Parenting: A Wonderful Way to Raise Children to be true, I was intrigued by de Becker's claim that stalking, whether from an estranged spouse to a crazed fan to a disgruntled employee or anything in between, can usually be solved by ignoring the stalker. The overarching message of the book, of course, is that our natural intuition will help us in most dangerous situations, but only if we are informed enough to not have our head full of worries and anxieties caused by unfounded fear.
In his book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles: What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? (ISBN: 978-1-889865-09-6), Czech president Václav Klaus presents his reasons for why environmentalism and its liberal, leftist, and radical tendencies is dangerous not only for the planet, but for people who cherish their liberty. The book is largely written from an economic point of view (Klaus is an economist by training), but also includes a chapter on the many scientific fallacies present in various environmentalist arguments for global warming (or, now that global warming has largely been discredited, the environmentalists have changed the label once again, and we have "climate change" to be all freaked out about). The economics-heavy chapters explain why environmentalist policies are bad for the economy and why they also tend to be bad for the planet. There is also a section on how environmentalist policy limits economic and personal liberty. Finally, Klaus gives the reader a policy recommendation regarding so-called climate change: do nothing. Based on his analysis of real numbers (in contrast to environmentalists, who have brought us endless fake numbers, including the famous so-called statistics of the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and those rain forest destruction statistics, that if true, would’ve resulted in the complete extermination of rain forests decades ago), Klaus convincingly points out that slow and measured responses to problems are much more effective at preserving solid economic conditions as well as personal liberty. When we look at everything as a crisis, we (or, at the very least, politicians) make knee-jerk reactions that almost universally compound the original problem. When you are facing a problem like global warming, which is far from having a scientific consensus, let alone from being fact, a reaction causes not a worse problem, but new problems.
Anne Applebaum’s Pulitzer Prize-winning and critically acclaimed-by-everyone book, Gulag: A History (ISBN: 978-1-4000-3409-3) is, obviously, not a memoir. Instead, it draws heavily on memoirs and other existing literature, including what little has been made available by the Russian government in their state archives, to give the reader an idea of just what the Gulag was, how it functioned (or didn’t function, as the case may be), who ran it, why they ran it, who the prisoners were, and why it, like the Soviet Union, eventually came crashing down as the result of an implosion more than anything else. The history is quite detailed and dutifully footnoted. It takes the reader from the pre-Bolshevik use of forced labor in imperial Russia through the very end of the system with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Every angle of the story is explored, some of them in more detail than others, but always in such a way that the impact of a particular decision or event is clearly seen. The individual anecdotes that make up a significant portion of the book are both colorful and illustrative, often giving an even more detailed look at what it was like to live, work, and sometimes die (interestingly, it wasn’t all bad, and there was time in some camps for music, theater, and storytelling) in the notorious prison camps of the Soviet Union. One comes away with not just a basic overview, but probably an intermediate-level understanding of the Gulag thanks to the complete coverage of the subject by the author.
The Caucasus is a complex region because it has traditionally been a bit of a crossroads and its famous mountains have always made it strategically desirable. This situation was the same during the Nagorno-Karabakh War of 1988–1994 (the uneasy cease-fire has more or less held since then to the present day). Like most anything in the Caucasus, a romantic region shrouded in mountain mystery, the truth about the current strife between the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis (and the Turks) is not always easy to come by. Although the war was long over by the time of my mission, I was not alone in knowing nothing about Nagorno-Karabakh, and longtime Caucasus expert and journalist Thomas de Waal tried to solve that problem for people with his 2003 book Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War (ISBN: 0-8147-1945-7). De Waal’s book is an attempt to acquaint the Western reader with the region, its history, and the modern-day conflict. He focuses on XX-century history, and the reader is acquainted with how Soviet Armenia and Soviet Azerbaijan came to be. Then, the majority of the books is spent dealing with the details of the Nagorno-Karabakh War. De Waal is meticulous in his presentation of the story of the war from Yerevan, Baku, and Stepanakert. The book concludes with an overview of the negotiations process since 1994 and how they have proved rather fruitless. De Waal, unlike many writers on the subject, offers no faultfinding, finger-pointing, or one-sided calls to action, just a simple overview of a historical subject.