This week I finished:

The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina, by podcast guest Manisha Sinha: A comprehensive and thoroughly researched review of how slaveholders thought from around 1820 to secession.

The book prompted my recent post about how we study Lincoln and abolitionists because we want to be like them or at least have them as role models. We would help ourselves to learn about slaveowners because we are more like them than most of us would like to believe. No matter our skin color or ancestry, regarding sustainability and how we rationalize and justify our cruelty, they are our behavioral ancestors. Recall that polluting and depleting create orders of magnitude more suffering and death than slavery did and is growing. We may claim we aren’t holding whips, we’re just trying to get by, but they felt that way too.

I think it’s written more for historians than the lay reader, but I can’t overstate the value of the content for people wanting to understand

• The hearts and minds of people at the tops of dominance hierarchies
• How we rationalize and justify cruelty
• How we implement competitive strategies to maintain dominance and status
• How we convince ourselves we’re helping those we hurt

---

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, by Nikole Hannah-Jones and the New York Times Magazine: I was predisposed to be skeptical, but I’m glad I listened to the book. I was glad to find the book referred to two podcast guests, Manisha Sinha and David Blight.

I had just finished Sinha’s The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic, on Reconstruction. I’ve also been reading a bunch on limited government. I can’t see how, no matter how little a role you want for government and how much you disagree with redistributing wealth, that the slaves freed after the Civil War deserved land, money, and protection. Likewise their former owners didn’t deserve much of their land and money.

The US distributed some resources to the slaves, but between President Johnson’s racism, former slaveholders’ leftover control over their land and money, and more, the amount was negligible. The former slaveholders retook control. Former slaves didn’t get what they deserved. On the contrary, for many things worsened.

So the US government didn’t rectify the situation and it had been the only institution that could and the situation for people who deserved something worsened. They deserve more.

How to make it happen, I haven’t thought enough, but the more I learn about Reconstruction, the clearer it seems.

That said, this book had serious flaws. It claims to cover a history contrary to what Americans learn in school, but what it said and implied schools taught was a straw man. I did learn new things, but no one taught me that American history was a steady march of progress with white people good and black people just victims without agency.

On the contrary, this book said little to nothing about blacks doing anything wrong or whites doing anything right. It nearly always lumped white people into one unthinking mass, mostly racist and selfish. When they did something right, it was for political expediency or because they had no choice or black people led them there. I’ve always knows that whites fought for the Confederacy and for that matter for the British. I’ve always known blacks fought for America’s freedom.

On a personal note, it implied whites could see themselves in history, but I’ve never felt American history represented my story. I don’t remember ever seeing someone with white skin as like me because of their skin color. I’ve never felt someone like me was in the White House.

The book prompted me to realize I’ve never seen my history in the history books. It prompted me to wonder what it would be like to feel what people who loved the 1619 Project felt. This book told me what I should feel for being white, but I don’t feel that way.

I’m glad it prompted me to wonder about my history. I’ll probably write a few posts on my reflections.

I also reflected on the books on the subject I’ve read recently, since reading Bury the Chains, on British abolitionism by podcast guest Adam Hochschild, recommended by podcast guest Maya Rosén. I can’t remember them all now, but a few on abolitionism, slavery, the Civil War, imperialism, colonialism, and African-American history:

• Bury the Chains, by Adam Hochschild
• King Leopold’s Ghost, by Adam Hochschild
• Cobalt Red, by podcast guest Siddharth Kara
• How to Be an Anti-Racist, by Ibram X. Kendi
• Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• White Fragility (skimmed), by Robin DiAngelo
• Lincoln, by David Herbert Donald
• Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, by David Blight
• Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders, by podcast guest James Oakes
• The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics, by James Oakes
• Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865, by James Oakes
• The Scorpion’s Sting: Antislavery and the Coming of the Civil War, by James Oakes
• The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution, by James Oakes
• Slavery and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Old South, by James Oakes
• The Counterrevolution of Slavery, by Manisha Sinha
• The Slave’s Cause, by Manisha Sinha
• The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic, by Manisha Sinha
• No Property in Man, by Sean Wilentz
• Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (I assigned it as reading for my leadership class at NYU, which students reported finding valuable)
• American Fiction, the movie
• The Fiery Trial, Eric Foner (and a bunch of Eric Foner Talks)
• Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by podcast guest Richard Rothstein
• Just Action by podcast guest Leah Rothstein
• The President and the Freedom Fighter: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Their Battle to Save America’s Soul, by Brian Kilmeade
• Amazing Grace, by Eric Metaxas
• The Seeing White podcast, by podcast guest John Biewen
• Becoming, by Michelle Obama

Keep in mind, these topics—abolitionism, slavery, the Civil War, imperialism, colonialism, and African-American history—aren’t my focus. I focus on sustainability leadership. They’re relevant and support my work, but I’m

In high school and college I’d read:

• The Autobiography of Malcolm X
• Roots
• Stride Toward Freedom
• Why We Can’t Wait
• Their Eyes Were Watching God
• The Wretched of the Earth (excerpts), by Frantz Fanon

Other relevant works I’ve read or watched:

• Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela
• Affluence Without Abundance, by podcast guest James Suzman
• Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
• The Hadza: the Last of the First, by podcast guest Bill Benenson
• Gandhi’s autobiography
• Gandhi, the movie
• The Gandhi Reader edited by Homer Jack
• Twelve Years a Slave, the movie
• She’s Gotta Have It, School Daze (on opening day in Philadelphia, where I was the only white person at the theater), Do the Right Thing, Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X
• Movies: Boyz in the Hood, Selma, 13, Ali, Precious, The Color Purple, Django Unchained, Killers of the Flower Moon
• Eyes on the Prize (many episodes, not sure how many) and I’m sure other relevant American Experience documentaries
• The Jewish and Christian Bibles. I haven’t read the Koran, but have read No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam by Reza Aslan

For the works I finished in the age of the internet, after finishing them, I typically read and watch many reviews and criticisms.

My father was a historian and wrote a book on world history, The World’s History. It doesn’t “center” America or whites. I haven’t read the whole thing, but grew up learning his world view. He and my mom met in India, which he studied and where he lived at least a decade. He knew people who knew Gandhi. I don’t know how to quantify how that family perspective affected me, but it wasn’t zero. Also, while his parents came to the US from Poland between the world wars, likely all their family that remained went up in smoke of the chimneys of Auschwitz. He was clear that though they lived within the geographical boundaries of Poland, as Jews, they weren’t considered Polish and probably lived in ghettos.

I’m sure I missed a bunch. Meanwhile, I’ve read almost nothing about my parents’ and ancestors’ American experience. Regarding subjects American education neglects, I’ve learned a lot of science. Its lack is leading to our culture killing people globally, and I suspect the authors of the essays in the 1619 Project who condemn our education haven’t learned enough of it to know how much they’re likely contributing to that suffering, if they’re as privileged with regard to polluting and depleting as prominent Americans tend to be.

• ← Are more people always better?
• The end of plastics →