Rindis.com

The main problem with study of the Mexican-American War is that it is severely overshadowed by the later Civil War. Instead of struggling against the problem, this book embraces it, tracing the careers of several prominent ACW generals through this earlier conflict. Unfortunately, there’s too little analysis here to say in just what ways their experiences were formative.

Worse, there’s a number of minor errors scattered throughout the book. My copy came from my dad, and there’s a number of penciled annotations of minor slip ups. A recurring one is Dugard’s uncertainty around artillery, seemingly confusing the various ways in which they were named. He also conflates metal percussion caps with metal cartridges (a very different animal). And there’s a couple of occasions where he seemingly confuses his own narrative and suddenly gives an unlikely location in the middle of things (talking about arrival in New Orleans… and then suddenly arriving in Saint Louis). And then there’s one huge error, where he correctly gives the transmission of yellow fever by mosquito, and then says it can become airborne after. It sounds like that may have been the theory in the 1840s, and Dugard did not read up actual transmission vectors.

Another problem is that its generally written at a popular history level, but people who don’t already know something of the principle characters of the book won’t get a whole lot out of this. So, it’s best for Civil War buffs looking to expand their horizons a bit.

Thankfully, that’s far from a rare breed, and there is a lot here. One of the best points of the book is that there are a number of good maps detailing much of the various battles covered. It is also the closest to being a military history of the three books on the war I’ve read recently.

The primary figure of the book is Grant. He was with one of the units that moved to become part of Zachary Taylor’s army at the start of the war, and was transferred to Winfield Scott’s army later, so he was present for almost all the major actions, and between his letters and and autobiography, left a fairly good record behind. Jefferson Davis is the second most prominent figure presented, then Lee, and Sherman is more of a footnote since his transfer to the Third Artillery got him to California… after everything had been settled there.

Plenty of other familiar names show up, and the introductory part is interesting for a view of the start of West Point, and filling out Grant’s early life. I’d known that he was originally named Hiram Ulysses Grant, and did not like the name. And that a ‘clerical error’ had him enrolled as Ulysses Simpson Grant, but I’d never seen anything on how that name came about, and Dugard gives the full story here.

Overall, I rather like The Training Ground better than A Country of Vast Designs and A Wicked War, despite the visible goofs causing concerns for ones I haven’t seen. It’s the only one of the three where the war itself comes in as a major focus, and describes the actions in it with far more detail than other two. But, it is again purely from the American point of view (Vast Designs does just a bit better there), and seems to get bored of the subject as it goes along, with far more detail given in the early parts and declining steadily later.

Okay, lets start by setting expectations: The advertising blurb mentions ‘the life of Archimedes’, suggesting a big, dense, fictional biography via novel. No, this is a tight fairly plot-focused lighter novel taking place over maybe a single year (probably not that long).

As such, some of the most famous incidents of his life are outside the scope of the novel.

Overall, anything outside the central focus of the novel tends to be a bit simplified, and kept in relatively modern terms.

But, outside of that, this is up to Bradshaw’s usual quality. While the most famous incidents aren’t here, plenty is. There are eleven known texts by him that survive today, and bits of pretty much all of them are in here. (Since this is fairly early in his life, generally in the guise of ideas that he is starting to work out, and would presumably get formalized into his works later.) Archimedes himself is presented as unworldly, the son of a mathematician who is somewhere on the high-functioning side of the autism spectrum.

The central binding plot pillar of Syracuse being at war with Rome, and allied with her usual enemy Carthage is just one element of any that drags him into the world of practical machines—and and other grounded realities. The entire family setting around him is fiction—we just don’t know enough about him—but are essential parts of the plot. Also essential is his manservant and effective keeper when Archimedes can’t be bothered with things like money.

As with all her books, The Sand Reckoner is a very deeply character-driven book, and the cast of characters is a bit wider than normal while retaining all the charm and driven personalities of her other books. Like The Beacon at Alexandria, one of the central pillars of the book is the love of a subject. There it was medicine, here it is mathematics. And in both that love is part of the core of book, and help make it shine.