I have read James Fallows for years and listened intently to his radio reports from China.  He discovered great hope and vibrant change in a developing China.  As he found in China, there is hope and increasing development in a changing America.  Not in the great cities, but in small town USA, in the rebuilding of rusting manufacturing towns, in college towns, and in the farm towns of the great plains.  For the highly educated urbanites of our country who showed themselves to be so out of touch with “fly-over” country and blue-collar workers, this book is a must read.  It shows the resilience and determination of town and village dwellers to rebuilt the American Dream. 

Two things stood out for me.  First, there is far less nationalism and xenophobia in places where immigrants have settled and have proven themselves the key to a rebirth of small-town America.  I have myself witnessed more immigrant hatred among those who have no acquaintance with refugees and other immigrants. 

Second, I see that college towns and especially those places with career and technical colleges are fueling a revitalized economy and have made small towns livable and attractive.  What we used to call “Junior Colleges” like the excellent Palm Beach Junior College (now Palm Beach College) that I attended briefly are focused not on social class climbing but on the type of education urgently needed in our workforce.

All in all, I think the book works best as a travelogue rather than as social commentary.  It is an enjoyable read but light on making a point.

A good dictionary is descriptive, and we turn to it to see how words are actually used. On the other hand, grammar books are prescriptive and often proscriptive. We look there for the rules of writing.  We look there for the rules of writing. There simply has to be some conventionality in writing otherwise readers would be constantly trying to learn some new scheme of communication.  The problem with the semicolon is that there seems to be little agreement even among grammarians on how it should be used. The confusion over leads some writers to avoid the semicolon altogether.  Cecelia Watson argues that when used effectively the semicolon is an important, maybe even necessary tool of good writing.  Watson reviews the evidence from several writers, but the quoted passage from Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail proves her point.  MLK writes to the white preachers who advise him to slow down his efforts and to wait for change. In a truly astounding sentence, he cites example after example of the daily indignities suffered under racial apartheid.  Each clause is a shameful instance of humiliation and injustice and each powerful statement is separated by semicolon after semicolon like a drumbeat. This is mimesis at its best: the sentence makes the reader wait and wait while the long listing of travesties pound away until the conclusion—”then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.” 

Cecelia Watson doesn’t choose sides in grammar wars over the semicolon or give her own rule but argues for good sense in writing rather than strict laws of writing.  In fact, she thinks a grammar scolding is just an ad hominem attack in disguise, a technique of one-up-manship.   It is much like the silly battles over the oxford comma.  Best to use it when necessary to avoid confusion, otherwise it doesn’t matter.

It’s amazing that there is so much to argue about in a point of punctuation.  There has been not one, but several court battles over the use of a semicolon in a law.  Cecelia Watson has written a whole book about a punctuation mark; it is a good book; it is readable; and it is marvelously wise.

Music historian Norman Lebrecht thinks that Jewish genius, the notable exceptionalism of Jewish leaders and intellectuals, results from the ever-present angst of Jews in the modern world.  I write here in the present tense, which is a little annoying, just as it was throughout this otherwise fascinating book, Genius and Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947.  To explain the remarkable accomplishments of the Jewish people some writers have looked for an explanation in genetics or education or perhaps the cultural values of bookishness. Lebrecht makes the case for the otherness, the perpetual state of Jews as not quite fitting in, of not quite losing immigrant status, citizens but never truly accepted.  It is the ability to think differently, to use a Talmudic reworking of common modes of thought that Lebrecht views as keys to Jewish success. 

But all in all, this book quickly moves away from the genius question and proceeds with a compilation of mini-biographies of outstanding Jews during a 100- year period.  There are some surprises here.  Leonard Bernstein of course was a musical genius and a true maker of the modern world of music.  His personal behavior was, well, gross.  “Nice to meet you, Lennie,” would often be reciprocated with a sloppy tongue kiss.  Theodor Herzl, the real father of Zionism was not at all religious, not at all a good Jew and did not circumcise his own son who eventually becomes a Christian.  Herzl flirts with schemes other than reviving a Jewish state in Palestine, such as in Cyprus, and even in Uganda.  I am imagining singing in a temple in Kampala:  Let us forget thee, O Jerusalem! 

The great Jewish genius of this period is of course Albert Einstein.  The surprise of this peaceful man is his loyal friendship with Fritz Haber. Unfortunately, Haber is only loyal to Germany.  Haber was fully assimilated, even jingoistic
German Jew, who is becomes the developmental father of gas warfare. Haber’s research lab even creates the terrible insecticide that, after Haber’s death, is modified into the chemical Zyklon-B which destroyed so many Jews in the death camps.  Haber’s excessive patriotism toward Germany is eventually rewarded with rejection by the state he loved and served as the Nazi movement grows.  I imagine that he did not die a good death as he did not live a good life, but nonetheless, Einstein’s friendship endures.

The most interesting individual in this surprising and engrossing history of Jewish genius, is the little-known Eliza Davis.  A bold 19^th century character, Davis meets everyone’s favorite author, Charles Dickens.  After the meeting, Dickens receives a letter from Davis, who is probably the first Jew he ever met.  The letter expresses, at first, admiration for the great novelist and then proceeds to take him to task for the repulsive and racist depiction of the criminal Fagin.  Didn’t think Fagin was quite that bad?  Well, that may be that Davis eventually convinces Dickens to revise the first edition in order to tone down the character and to stop referring to Fagin as “the Jew”.  Davis asks Dickens if he referred to other wicked characters as “the Christian.”  It seems that Dickens has been afflicted by the common prejudices of the time that can come people who simply have no acquaintance with a culture not their own.  Long before, Shakespeare had created the character of Shylock even though he could never have known any Jews at all.  All Jews had been expelled from England in the 13^th century and were not permitted to enter England until 1657. 

I give the Lebrecht book my highest rating, despite the relentless use of the present tense.  And as I write this, I realize that the author may have used the present tense, not for the sense of drama, but rather to make an important point.  Anti-Semitism exists and now reasserts evil manifestation across the world, it exists in the ever present, it is with us from even before the destruction of the Second Temple, and nonetheless, Jewish genius survives and even prevails.