Seldom can readers plunge into a book that feels more like time travel than does History's Greatest Hits, Famous Events We Should Know More About by Joseph Cummins (2008, Murdoch Books, 328 pages). With sharp insight and strategic details, the author focuses on 37 events, from Hannibal Barca, his soldiers and their elephants crossing the Alps in 218 BC until the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States in late 2001.
For the most part, Cummins gives his readers a powerful impression that they occupy ringside seats for the political, military and human-interest episodes that shaped the modern world. Each chapter has a well-told, richly illustrated tale about significant people and momentous events. Reading about history rarely gets more informative and entertaining.
The author strives to inform about important events that his readers have heard about, but don't fully understand. “In many ways, being famous obscures the actual event…. So what I've tried to do is bring what really happened to life and place it within historical context….”
Which events rank as history's “greatest hits”? Probably no two historians will agree. Cummins chooses diverse topics, like:
-- tragic assassinations or executions (of Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, John Kennedy);
-- crucial discoveries (Christopher Columbus sails to America);
-- pivotal battles (defeat of the Spanish Armada, Napoleon at Waterloo, D-Day in the Second World War and others);
-- massive uprisings (storming the French Bastille, Russia’s October Revolution);
-- landmark agreements (Magna Carta);
-- memorable speeches (Gettysburg Address);
-- deadly diseases and daunting disasters (Black Death, London's Great Fire, Wall Street's Crash);
-- horrific hardships (Irish potato famine);
-- nasty surprises (Pearl Harbor);
-- unprecedented devastation (Hiroshima nuclear bomb);
-- impressive shows of courage (Battle of Britain, toppling the Berlin Wall); and
-- immense achievements (humans landing on the moon).
When Cummins describes times, places and circumstances, his readers easily visualize themselves right there. “London in the mid-17th century, with a population of about half a million, was a great and thriving metropolis…. The great leveler was the London streets. They were so narrow that houses on either side seemed to lean over, lending a strange darkness to the byways below…. Open sewers ran down the middle of the roads. There were no sidewalks. Not only did pedestrians have to beware of fast-moving horses and carriages, but they had to keep a sharp eye out lest a window open above and a chamber pot of ‘night soil’ be emptied on their heads.”
The author blends storytelling with learned historical interpretations. He leaves no doubt about the impact of events. “In five years, beginning in 1347, one-third of Europe – 25 million people – died of bubonic plague. Even this figure does not reflect the true horror of the situation, for many villages and towns lost 80 per cent of their populations. A world that had burst forth from the Dark Ages and was moving forward into a new era suddenly found itself pockmarked with deserted farms, abandoned villages, collapsed churches and zombie-like survivors.”
History brims with triumphs and tragedies. Even the victories may turn disastrous. Actions inspired by worthy intentions, as in Russia's 1917 October Revolution, can have ruinous results. “Stalin became the premier of the Soviet state for the next 20 years, and was responsible for the deaths of millions of the very people the revolution was supposed to free from oppression. The idea of liberating Russia from the cruel and inept rule of the czars had been a natural one. But the unfortunate result was the replacement of the czars with an equally cruel and inefficient state.”
Among history’s sobering lessons, answers emerge to vital questions, like: What happens when a nuclear bomb explodes? “Scenes of horror abounded…. Estimates of the death toll vary, but perhaps 100,000 people died in Hiroshima almost immediately, and another 30,000, due to burns and radiation poisoning, by the end of the year.”
Without hesitation, Cummins takes one stab after another at describing the thoughts and attitudes of leading characters, be they heroes or villains. “Columbus was an odd figure, a mixture of arrogant loner and supplicant, an idealist convinced of his ideas, and an opportunist out to become ‘Admiral of the Ocean Sea’, as he asked his sponsors to name him. Yet he was an undeniably brave and brilliant seaman.”
Cummins reveals amazing details. For example, the Gettysburg Address “was just 272 words long – 10 sentences – and it took Abraham Lincoln at most three minutes to deliver it. Yet it became a rallying call for Americans, and one of the most eloquent, powerful and influential expressions of the value of freedom and democracy ever made.”
This book points out many of history’s quirks. “Most famous walls – the Great Wall of China, Hadrian's Wall, the walls of Troy, to name a few – were constructed to keep people out: Mongols, barbarians, Greeks, whoever. However, the purpose of the Berlin Wall, built in 1961, was the exact opposite: to keep people in.”
Each chapter tells why the vital event has lasting significance. For example, “Had there been no Rome and Roman Empire, there would be no us…. The city of Rome itself, with its public baths, sewer systems, glorious buildings and flourishing arts and poetry, was not only the center of Western civilization, but in a sense helped create it. Our Western systems of law, our cultures, and our languages… derive from ancient Rome.”
Was Cummins comprehensive enough? Readers in South America, Asia and Africa may lament that his version of history mostly ignores their continents. Instead, he applies European and North American perspectives.
From New Jersey, Cummins has written other books. They include History's Great Untold Stories, Turn Around and Run Like Hell and Great Rivals in History, plus a novel, The Snow Train.
After indulging in time travel with Cummins, one big complaint emerges. Every journey hurtles in the same direction – into the past, never the future. Even this insightful author can't predict the future with such precision.
Approval rating: 88 per cent.
For more information: www.murdochbooks.co.uk or www.murdochbooks.co.au.
(January 11, 2011)
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