3885 Wednesday Wars February “You should learn from your competitor, but never copy. ”-Jack Ma. In The Wednesday Wars, by Gary D. Schmidt, the lead character, Holling Hoodhood has a dad who’s constantly agitated and distressed about his job. If you do one little thing that could mess up his business, it could affect the descendants after him. Holling’s dad finally has a chance to have his verge of happiness.
Mary Boykin Chesnut was a prominent member of the upper-class society in the South during the Civil War. She was married to James Chesnut, the general of the South Carolina reserves. Mary Chesnut is the author of her Civil War diary which details the society of Southerners during the war. She had access to a great deal of information through her husband, and she relays this information through her diary. Chesnut’s diary gives insight into pivotal events during the war and details her own opinions about the Civil War.
Stephanie McCurry, in her revolutionary book Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South, claims that her book is about “politics and the power in the Civil War South, about the bloody trial of the Confederacy’s national vision, and about the significance of the disfranchised in it.” Choosing to examine both yeoman/poor white women and enslaved African Americans in the Confederacy, McCurry’s book distances itself from the historiography focused on answering the question of “why the Confederacy lost the Civil War.” Instead, McCurry focuses more exclusively on the effects of the Civil War and how war changed both the United States and the world, most notably in Cuba and Brazil. Conjecturing as her primary thesis, McCurry argues that “the power that counts in politics, is often exercised brutally, and almost always wins, but that once in a long while – as in the Civil War South – history opens up, resistance prevails, and the usually powerless manage against all imaginable odds to change the
What This Cruel War Was Over is a book written by historian Chandra Manning. The book takes the reader from the start of the Civil War, the Union surrendering Fort Sumter in chapter one, to the end of the Civil War, with General Lee’s surrender and the aftermath of the war, in chapter six and the conclusion chapter. Throughout the introduction, six chapters, and conclusion, Manning brings to life what is happening on the battlefields and in the political arena. She also brings to life what is going on in the minds of both the Union and Confederate men and slaves. Manning adds a depth to her book by including photos and drawings at the start of each chapter to foreshadow the upcoming chapter and give life to the events that are about to unfold.
Necessity of Battle: Shelby Foote’s Perspective Political, economic, and social factors all fueled the start of the Civil War, and these causes continued to divide the nation throughout the war. These elements of influence overpowered the ability to come to an agreement through debate over the differing opinions; therefore, the Civil War started due to war necessity since fighting could end the disagreements. The North and South failed to come to a compromise, so they both fought a war in a deadly fashion. The Civil War resulted in more American casualties than any other previous war. After each military campaign, Shelby Foote calculates the number of deaths of the North and South and totals them.
“Racism is a refuge for the ignorant, it seeks to divide and to destroy. It is the enemy of freedom, and deserves to be met head on and stamped out. ”-Pierre Berton. In the novel the wednesday wars by Gary D. Schmidt there are two characters named Mrs.Bigio and Mai Thi. Mrs. Bigio dislikes Mai Thi because Mai Thi is from Vietnam and a man from Vietnam killed her husband.
In the 1950s, Texas was at the forefront of two major, but very different civil rights movements—the African-American movement and the Mexican-American movement. Fighting Their Own Battles by Brian Behnken describes and compares the separate battles for rights of the two movements. People in Texas knew what was happening and newspapers reported about the different events that occurred throughout the 1950s. In hindsight, and with the help of Behnken’s book, one is able to see the subtle influences of both civil rights movements in the Texas newspapers. At the time however, these differences in strategy between the African-American and Mexican-American movements were not so easily understood.
Friendship. It is something that is essential to human life. Without it, life can be miserable. However, spoiling children is something the world should be without. It happens constantly, though.
It is sometimes difficult for individuals to settle the discrepancy between truth and illusion, and consequently they drive others away, by shutting down. Mrs. Ross, in The Wars by Timothy Findley, is seen as brittle while she is attending church, and cannot deal with the cruel reality of the war and therefore segregates herself from the truth by blacking it out. As a result, she loses her eyesight, and never gets to solve the clash between her awareness of reality and the actuality of the world. She hides behind a veil, and her glasses to distance herself from reality. Mrs. Davenport has to wheel her around in Rowena’s chair to keep her awake, so she doesn’t harbour up subconscious feeling within her dreams, which she is unable to deal with.
Education. The most powerful weapon in life. The sweetest fruit for the mind. One of the most needed thing in order to be happy and successful. But what would happen if that was all squashed?
The book The Best War Ever, by Michael C. C. Adams, is about World War II, the events that led up to the war, and the years following the war. Adams starts the book off explaining some myths that people have about the war. The biggest myth associated with the war is that it was the best war ever. Adams then spends the rest of the book talking about why this may or may not be true. In the following chapters, Adams explains the events that led to the war and the events that accorded during World War II.
Jill Lepore used quotes and images from English colonists and portraits to show how colonists wrote about their experiences during King Philip’s War and how the narrative of the war has changed throughout the centuries. It also sets how colonists will narrate wars for future centuries. She spoked about how their writings of the war had a consequence of temporally silencing the Native Americans version on the war and how people have forgotten or even have any knowledge of the war. She uses a Boston merchant, Nathaniel Saltonstall account tilted “A true but brief account of our losses since this cruel and mischievous war begun” written in July 1676 year after the war had begun. He lists towns such as Narragansett, Warwick, Seekonk and Springfield
In chapter one of What They Fought For, I learned about the letters and diaries of the Confederate soldiers. The themes of the letters were home-sickness, lack of peace, and the defense of home against their invading enemy. The thought of soldiers fighting for their homes and being threatened by invaders, made them stronger when facing adversity. Many men expressed that they would rather die fighting for a cause, than dying without trying and this commitment showed patriotism. Throughout the letters, soldiers claimed their reason for fighting, was for the principles of Constitutional liberty and self-government.
”Listen. We have to stay together. We have to try to keep each other safe. We are brothers, we are family” (95). With Jacob's words to Norman, after being beaten, we are shown in Sharon E. Mckay’s War Brothers, that war can solidify friendly relationships into a sense of family.
War, something that sounds so cliché yet endeavours a greater meaning; a meaning of finding your true self within yourself, and seeing your natural, brave or mediocre side. The concept of bravery and heroic men is often the label associated with war; however, in Timothy Findley’s The Wars, it is in fact the exact opposite. The Wars is an anachronistic example of what one goes through both physically and mentally. Findley accurately portrays the protagonist, Robert Ross, as a naïve nineteen year old who wishes to escape his excruciating feelings of reality for being held accountable for Rowena’s death by enlisting into war, as well as to adhere to societal norms. Robert is an incompetent young boy that achieves most of his knowledge of war from
