History on Air

Book Review: A Little History of the World

I have been reading A Little History of the World by E. H. Gombrich. I wasn’t able to finish it. It was just too boring. It reads like a children’s bedtime story. So, while this may be a great children’s book, I don’t think it speaks to adults as well.

I wanted to like this book so much. It has great reviews on Amazon, 75 with an average of r 4.5 out of 5 stars. On goodreads, a social book readers website, the book has 755 ratings with an average of 4.01 out of 5. It is clear that people love this book. I just couldn’t get into it. First of all, it’s a book for children. It was originally published in German 70 years ago. It has been translated into many different languages. Also, Gombrich was never a historian. This is revealed in the story of how he came to write this book, which is in the introduction. It says that he was reading something from a publisher friend of his that was about to be published as a children’s history book, and he thought it was terrible. His friend the publisher challenged him to do better. He accepted the challenge and this book is the result of that wager.

As a children’s book I think this might be good. Hard to tell, since my little girl is only 2, I think it is too soon to regale her with this kind of content. But I will keep my copy and see how she responds to it in the coming years. There are lots of comments from amazon reviews like, “Wonderful Book for Homeschoolers” or “Bedtime Stories of History”. Some of those reviews say it is great for adults too, but I just can’t agree. To me there just is not enough there to keep me engrossed. I’m not looking forward to reading this when I’m away from it.

I think the goodread’s reviewer David Giltinan summed it up best in his review:

I can’t bring myself to jump on the warm and fuzzy bandwagon of approval of this deeply flawed book. It is what it is – a condensation of all of human history into sequential “stories” suitable for “children“. [my emphasis] Supposing for the moment that this is not an inherent recipe for disaster, what is baffling is the number of reviewers who claim to see something in this work “for adults”.

Have you read this book? What did you think? Please share your review in the comments section below. Better yet, if you have kids do you read this to them and what do they think about it?

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Book Review: Fire Underground by David DeKok

I heard about Centralia a about 2 years ago. At the time I was still producing the podcast regularly and I thought it would be a great episode (which it still might…someday).  The story of Centralia is much written about and tons of video abound on youtube of adventurous urban cinematographers.  The story itself is about a town in Pennsylvania that used to be a big mining town.  They mined coal.  Like all towns, they had a dump.  It was business as usual to set fire to the refuge in the dump every so often, this would reduce the amount in the dump and make room for more trash.  The fire that was set on May 27, 1962 still burns today.  That original fire found its way to the coal seams under the dump that extend for miles in every direction, including under the town of Centralia.

The events that follow the start of the fire are many, many attempts to put it out.  These attempts all failed due to politicians who were unable to did not want to flip the bill for containing the fire.  Every time they failed, the fire just got worse.  Until most of the town had to be evacuated.  Presently, the fire seems to still be burning, there are still a handful of residents that refuse to leave the town.

The story is an interesting one and DeKok’s Fire Underground: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Centralia Mine Fire does a good job of capturing the ineptitude of the government officials and the anguish of the residents suffering through the decades it took to finally come to the conclusion of evacuation.  If you have any interest in learning more about this American tragedy, this is the only book you need to read.  It is the best on the subject.

There are other books on the subject for example, Joan Quiqley’s The Day the Earth Caved In: An American Mining Tragedy.  I picked this book up first, but it left me wanting more, and was not an interesting narrative.  DeKok’s book has so much information.  He has dug through all the town meeting notes, gained access to information released just before his book was published in 2009.  There are a few photos in DeKok’s book, but if you really want to see that side of it I would recommend on the the many photo books that have been done on this town and its miserable history:

• Centralia (PA) (Images of America)
• Slow Burn: A Photodocument of Centralia, Pennsylvania (Keystone Book) (Keystone Books (Pennsylvania State Paperback))

To be fair, there are other books on the subject, including DeKok’s first book on this same subject, Unseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire. Death Underground: The Centralia and West Frankfort Mine Disasters by Robert E Hartley and David Kenney looks like the only other contender, but it only has two reviews on Amazon, one 5 star and one 3 star.

Have you read anything good on this subject?  Please share what you can in the comments section.

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