Book Reviews

Thanksgiving Holiday was a great time to catch up on some reading. Here are brief reviews:

American Spinx: The character of Thomas Jefferson.

This biography by J. Ellis explores the philosophical development and world view underlying what seem like the fundamental paradoxes of Thomas Jefferson life. Writer of Declaration of Independence and slave owner; dislike of conflict but ardent revolutionist and founder of American partisan politics; belief in the simple agrarian life-style, but wretchedly lazy farm management and extraordinary lavish lifestyle; and privileged land owner who espoused little d democracy. Unfortunately, while Ellis is able to trace how Jefferson's world view evolved from Whig thinking, document his need for polarity in all aspects of history and politics, and illustrates how his essentially invented version of world history and events allowed him to ignore fundamental contradictions, Ellis does not really give us insight into why Jefferson choose this way of viewing and responding to the world, and why he was unwilling to see his own contradictory nature while assuming the worst in others around him. Ellis also wrote "His Excellency, George Washington" which I found to be a far more insightful biography.

Quite Strength: Tony Dungy.
This autobiography by the highly successful coach of our most feared NFL rival, the Indianapolis Colts, was written as a way for Coach Dungy to share his Christian message. The theme of the book is that trusting that God has a plan for each of us leads to success, although not necessarily the kind of success that we immediately desire. Although books of this sort can easily become tediously preachy, this book does not, principally because Dungy is pretty brutally honest about his doubts and failures along the way and his very real sense that winning football games isn't that important in the larger scheme of things. In particular, the loss of his oldest son to suicide is dealt with in a very moving and honest way. I definitively came away with an appreciation of the work that Coach Dungy is trying to do.

The Perfect Mile.
This book chronicles the lives of three outstanding mile runners, Roger Bannister, John Lundy, and Wes Santee, over the period of about two years as they attempt to be the first man to break the holy grail of running records, the four-minute mile. Superbly told, this is compelling story. We discover that for each man, failures of previous training to bring success at the 1952 Olympics drive the three men to experiment with new training methods and more particularly, with extreme training intensity that is ultimately necessary for first Bannister and then Lundy to finally break the 4-minute barrier. Beyond their personal stories, the book wonderfully reveals how national pride, attitudes towards athletes and athletics, and cultural expectations play a role in the pursuit and final conquest of this "Everest of Athletics."