Confound Their Politics, Frustrate Their Knavish Tricks....

"God Save the Queen", second verse:

O Lord our God, arise,

Scatter her enemies,

And make them fall,

Confound their politics,

Frustrate their knavish tricks,

On Thee our hopes we fix,

God save us all.

Zombie-infested medieval England: A bad time to lose your sword.

I usually have several reading projects going at once; occasionally they complement each other. The Scourge by Roberto Calas is a darkly comic serial placed in the England I'm reading about in The History of England, Volume I by David Hume.  Calas tries hard for accuracy in his settings and it's fun to transpose his grim zombie fantasy onto Hume's grim reality. 

No zombies, but plenty of miserable deaths.

20th century England  provides the backdrop for Winston Churchill's Closing the Ring, the 5th book in his six-volume memoir.  I couldn't imagine when he found time to write until I learned he had some free days after Clement Atlee's Labour Party removed him from the Prime Minister spot just 10 weeks post-VE day.  "Oh, you saved us from slavery and doom?  That's great, now bugger off!" 

 "Yes, but I'll be sober in the morning!"

It's fascinating to read Churchill's version of events juxtaposed against Franklin Roosevelt's machinations revealed in the Pulitzer Prize-winning No Ordinary Time, by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Don't judge - boring cover, extraordinary contents.

A large portion of the last 70 years of American existence have been influenced by the changes wrought in the tumultuous 4 years of WWII.  Goodwin unpacks what was truly an extraordinary time - led by a truly remarkable team - in a deeply researched, tightly written, ultimately readable narrative.

I have a much deeper appreciation for my own history as a European descendant and a greater sense of the Sisyphean (and usually fatal) task of leading large numbers of recalcitrant followers after reading these books.  Well, except the zombie novel - that was just mindless, British fun.  God save us all!