Good Grief!

I seem to have a fascination for history these days. I’m currently reading The King of California, and while I was browsing the New Book section of the library, I picked up Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s by Frederick Lewis Allen. It’s a small book, only 300+ pages, but certainly well written. Here’s the odd thing; the author, born in 1890, had died in 1954 and the publishers were bringing the book out once again (Copyright, 1931). Mr. Allen wrote with great style and I can see that I need to read some more of his works.

And speaking of the King of California, I just read that Mr. Boswell was the money and brains behind the Del Webb empire of retirement homes (Sun City). Mr. Boswell used to write all of Del Webb’s speeches for him, as Webb was quite comfortable being the public figure while Boswell preferred to remain behind the scenes.

I guess what I find so fascinating about both of these books are the parallels I find with today’s history in the making. So why don’t we, and those we elect, spend more time reading and studying history? It’s all right there, in black and white. It would certainly save us lots of grief! But, we never seem to learn…