Next Book

Finished Himmelfarb, which improved each page, and warrants a second reading. As a minimum, it's a wonderful reference work; at best, she's set forth clearly and with citations "why the French Revolution, uh, sucked, while the American Revolution didn't."

I've moved back to Herman's To Rule the Waves, which I'd started but set aside for work-work. It's pitched a bit too low for me, and overly repetitive, but here's a marvelous paragraph about Pitt the Elder:

From his maiden speech in the House of Commons on April 22, 1735, to his fatal seizure on the floor of the House of Lords on April 7, 1778, everything William Pitt did marked him as the most extraordinary politician of his age. He was larger than life in ways that revealed his West Country origins. His impatience had no limits and his ambition no bounds. He could stomach no authority except his own: Pitt said himself "I cannot bear the least touch of command." He drove himself so mercilessly it repeatedly broke his health, both mentally and physically. He would plunge into depressions so deep he would lock himself in his room and trays of food had to be passed though the door. He would rise to oratorical heights that literally terrified his audiences. As an admirer put it, "He slaved like a clerk and spoke like a God." Comparison with Churchill is inevitable.

To which I can only reply, "Go Wigs!"