Seeking a Little Truth

Reading Through Trump 2.0 in 2025. 

Those who are semi-regulars here will be aware that one of my major reading themes (or ‘steams’ as I’ve labelled them) is the attempt to understand the weirdness that is the USA. I have entitled this USA: WTF which seems more than appropriate. With the most recent political ‘events’ over there – most especially the re-election of Trump despite knowing what he did last time, knowing what he is capable of and knowing what he had planned. So, as a ‘side quest’ or maybe a tributary to my original knowledge stream, I’ll going to be exploring why such a thing could happen there and just why so many people still support it. Here’s what I read about that in 2025 (a few books were reviewed in 2024 but after the election results had been announced so I’m going to count them). 

Our Own Worst Enemy – The Assault From Within on Modern Democracy by Tom Nichols 

The American Revolution – A Very Short Introduction by Robert J Allison 

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell 

Surveillance – A Very Short Introduction by David Lyon 

The Shortest History of Democracy by John Kean 

How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them by Barbara F Walter 

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine – A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance by Rashid Khalidi 

How the Right Lost Its Mind by Charles J Sykes 

1923 – The Crisis that Led to Hitler’s Coup by Mark Jones 

Whilst somewhat ‘unfocused’ at this point I don’t think this was a terrible start. I’m hoping/expecting my reading within this ‘side-quest’ to be a little more on point once I’ve finished with my present 20th century history read. With luck I’ll even start to clue into just WTF is going on over there!  

An aeronautical engineer as well as a pilot, Shute began his engineering career with the de Havilland Aircraft Company. Dissatisfied with the lack of opportunities for advancement, he took a position in 1924 with Vickers Ltd., where he was involved with the development of airships, working as Chief Calculator (stress engineer) on the R100 airship project for the Vickers subsidiary Airship Guarantee Company. In 1929, he was promoted to deputy chief engineer of the R100 project under Barnes Wallis. When Wallis left the project, Shute became the chief engineer.

Twenty-four of his novels and novellas have been published. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, including Lonely Road in 1936; Landfall: A Channel Story in 1949; Pied Piper in 1942 and again in 1959, and also as Crossing to Freedom, a CBS made-for-television movie, in 1990; On the Beach in 1959 and again in 2000 as a two-part miniseries; and No Highway in 1951. A Town Like Alice was adapted into a film in 1956, serialised for Australian television in 1981, and also broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in 1997 starring Jason Connery, Becky Hindley, Bernard Hepton and Virginia McKenna. Shute's 1952 novel The Far Country was filmed for television as six one-hour episodes in 1972, and as a two-part miniseries in 1987. Vintage Books reprinted all 23 of his books in 2009.

The public library in Alice Springs, Northern Territory is the Nevil Shute Memorial Library.

[I've only read two of his books (so far) and enjoyed both of them. I'm definitely intending to read more - if not them all.]

Just Finished Reading: 1941 – Armageddon by Richard Collier (FP: 1981) [316pp] 

1941 was a bad year for the Allies. Despite success in the Battle of Britain, England was still being regularly bombed. In North Africa Rommel was recovering land given up by the Italians and gaining more by the day. Allied forces had been ejected from Greece and Crete (which was the graveyard of the German airborne forces) that couldn’t help but be compared to Dunkirk. In America President Roosevelt still struggled against isolationist forces in his desire to become the arsenal of Democracy. Meanwhile, in the East, the Japanese began moving against the European outposts taking one after another with apparent ease. There was, briefly, some good news – or at least good mixed in with the bad. Despite losing HMS Hood the Royal Navy had struck both a tactical and propaganda victory with the sinking of Germany’s flagship Bismarck. It was little enough to celebrate but it was something in those dark times. In the summer of that year things changed. In June of 1941 Germany attacked Russia in Operation Barbarossa. It was a HUGE gamble which turned out to be a huge mistake (actually Axis forces made at least 3 fundamental errors in 1941 which would, ultimately, loose them the war – but more on that later). Despite a constant stream of warnings, the Russians were taken completely by surprise and thrown back in disarray. It would take them months to recover. Finally, as the year approached its end, the Japanese navy launched its sneak attack on the US navy base at Pearl Harbor (again despite significant warnings that it was about to happen - more later on that too). America was now fully in the conflict. 

I found this to be somewhat better that the authors previous work on 1940. Partially it might be that I had become used to his ‘style’ but I think he did actually improve his writing in the intervening years. There was a great deal of doom & gloom here and rightly so. It was THE bad year for the Allies and it's easy to imagine, as many did, that the Axis powers were going to be triumphant. Only in hindsight could many see the seeds of Axis defeat (Churchill was one of them who was delighted in the German attack on Russia and equally convinced that the war was now effectively won – by the Allies – once the US was fully committed to the cause). But 1942 was the year when the dynamic changed and the Axis lost the initiative and never regained it after the battles of Midway (4–7 June 1942), El Alamein (23 October – 11 November 1942) and Stalingrad (17 July 1942 – 2 February 1943). 

This was a reasonable overview of a very difficult and deadly year. As before we had the rather annoying and honestly clunky change of gears from big events to small ones. Again, I can see why he chose to do this, but I don’t think it was handled particularly well. I’m certain that there are better books out there on this year (one coming up actually!) so if you have limited time or limited interest, I might suggest that you pass on this one.  

Just Finished Reading: The Dead of Jericho by Colin Dexter (FP: 1981) [302pp] 

Morse thought it was his lucky day. The most attractive woman at a boring party wanted to spend her time with him. Not only was she attractive but smart too, well read, well educated. But then he saw her wedding ring and she said yes, she was in fact married. Morse considered his options and decided that a relationship with a married woman was just too much work, even if his rather prickly conscience would let him even try. Weeks later he saw her again in very different circumstances – in the morgue. Detective Inspector Morse was informed that she had committed suicide and that she was pregnant. Saddened in more ways than one he decided to investigate further despite it not being his case and having occurred outside a strict interpretation of his jurisdiction. It wasn’t long before the list of questions started to outpace the answers and it wasn’t much longer before the Assistant Commissioner called him in for a ‘chat’. Morse didn’t know what surprised him more, the fact that his private investigation was known about or that it was about to become official. But now he could start answering the big questions: who was the father and did she really kill herself... 

I was (and still am) a HUGE fan of the long running TV series (33 episodes) starring John Thaw as Morse and Kevin Whatley as his long-suffering side kick Detective Sergeant Lewis. Despite that, this is my first Morse novel which is the 5th in the series. Morse is mostly the same here – irascible, short tempered, fond of his beer and classical music. In the book he also smoked (I can’t remember him smoking in the TV adaptation) and drove a Lancier rather than his iconic Jag.  

The story here is nicely complex without being TOO complicated. As usual with these things there are a number of possible suspects (and indeed crimes) with a scattering of red herrings. Both Morse and the readers are led done a garden path and I was totally suckered in, so it was quite fun when that particular rug was pulled from under my feet (honestly the smell of fish should have given it away). I won’t give anything away by laying out too much detail here, but this is a clever tale revolving around infidelity, blackmail, teenage obsession, and independent publishing. I don’t have any other Morse books (having picked this up with a bunch of other books with ‘dead’ in the title) and, despite enjoying it, don’t intend to actively look out for any more of them. It’s not that I don’t want to dig more into the original works, it’s that I have SO much more to read that I don’t really want to start yet another series. A fun read and recommended to all Morse fans who have yet to enjoy him in print.